Mausoleum - "ominous ziggurat" or a sacred symbol of our history?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Perhaps they wanted to preserve Lenin's body not only in order to give everyone the opportunity to say goodbye to the leader, but also with the secret hope that someday science will be able to resurrect a person.

The struggle over the burial of Lenin's body has not subsided for almost three decades. They raised the topic of removing the body of the leader from the Mausoleum during perestroika, guided by supposedly plausible motives: “to bury Lenin like a human being,” next to his mother. Later, the "humanistic" rhetoric was replaced by an unbridled and completely godless message from representatives of the Russian emigration: “In our opinion, it is necessary to burn Lenin's body in the crematorium, pack the ashes in a steel cylinder and lower it into a deep depression in the Pacific Ocean. If you bury him at the Volkovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg, then disgruntled citizens can blow up Lenin's grave, damaging nearby graves. ".

This position was indicated by the vice-chairman of the round table of the Russian noble assembly S. S. Zuev, the chairman of the command board of the descendants of the organization "Volunteer Corps" L. L. the name of the top leadership of Russia.

What arguments did the supporters of the removal of Lenin's body from the Mausoleum present and still present?

It is argued that Lenin was not buried at all. But even if we assume that the Mausoleum is a burial, then this is a burial made, firstly, not in a Christian way, but, secondly, against the will of Lenin, who bequeathed to bury him in the Volkov cemetery, next to his mother. Great efforts are being made to desacralize the significance of the Mausoleum, to ascribe occult functions to it ("The Mausoleum is a ziggurat, Lenin feeds on the energy of living people" and so on).

What are these statements based on?

The myth that Lenin is not buried

The first in the USSR to raise the topic of Lenin's reburial was Mark Zakharov, director, long-term artistic director of the Moscow State Theater named after the Lenin Komsomol. On April 21, 1989, in the release of the TV program "Vzglyad", on Moscow air, Mark Zakharov said the following: "We must forgive Lenin, bury him humanly, and turn the Mausoleum into a monument to the era."

In support of his thesis, Mark Zakharov gave the following arguments: “We can hate a person as we like, we can love him as we like, but we have no right to deprive a person of the prospect of burial, imitating the ancient pagans. The creation of artificial relics is an immoral act."

Thus, Zakharov, speaking about the fact that it is impossible to deprive a person of the prospect of burial, thereby asserts that Lenin is not buried. Meanwhile, in the resolution of the II All-Union Congress of Soviets of the USSR of January 26, 1924, it is said:

What is a crypt? A crypt is "an internal, usually buried room of a tomb, intended for the burial of the deceased."

In the aforementioned program "Vzglyad" Mark Zakharov said that for him "Lenin's genius is in his politics …" But if Lenin is a genius politician, then it is not clear what could have embarrassed Zakharov in Lenin's burial in the Mausoleum? Indeed, in this way, the remains of great statesmen were perpetuated by a variety of peoples at different times.

So, in France, a mausoleum has been installed, which houses the remains of Napoleon. The embalmed remains of Field Marshal Mikhail Barclay de Tolly are in what is now Estonia. General Ulysses Grant, who made a great contribution to the victory of the North over the South in the civil war in the United States, and then became the president of the country, is buried in a mausoleum in New York. Marshal of Poland Jozef Piłsudski rests in a sarcophagus placed in the crypt of the Cathedral of Saints Stanislaus and Wenceslas in Krakow.

Later it became clear that Zakharov's concern for Lenin's "human" burial was the first step towards declaring Lenin a criminal. Vladimir Mukusev (in 1987-1990, the managing editor of the Vzglyad program) explained that “the program was supposed to be about Leninism, not about Lenin and his funeral. Leninism is the ideology of totalitarianism, and we must fight against it, and not against its external manifestation."

Mark Zakharov, who in 1989 spoke of Lenin as a genius politician, in 2009 said the following: “I consider Lenin a state criminal. He should be tried posthumously and given the same verdict as Hitler was given …"

As for the name of the theater (named after the Lenin Komsomol), which Zakharov has been heading since 1973 and which in 1990 was renamed Lenkom, Zakharov explained that, despite his negative attitude towards Lenin, “this name has existed for many years, and there were good performances. When pirates hijack a ship, they never rename it, otherwise it will sink. We could not rename it, but we left the word "Len". "Lenkom" is a rather conventional abbreviation, reminiscent of Lancom (a well-known French company for the production of cosmetics - auth.) And other words. He is a state criminal, but he belongs to our history, we will condemn him in 50 years, and maybe even earlier."

The myth that Lenin was buried "not in a Christian way"

There is a widespread myth that Lenin was buried in a non-Christian way. Why the unbelieving Lenin had to be buried as an Orthodox Christian is a question. But this myth was taken up not only by ardent anti-communists, but also by the Moscow Patriarchate, which in 1993 expressed its opinion about the burial of Lenin on Red Square: suggested the burial of the bodies of the deceased in the ground. Mummification of the body, and even more so putting it on public display(highlighted by us - author), fundamentally contradicts these traditions and in the eyes of many Russians, including the children of the Russian Orthodox Church, is a blasphemous act that deprives the ashes of the deceased God commanded peace (highlighted by us - author). It is also important to note that the mummification of the body of V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) was not the will of the deceased and was carried out by the state power in the name of ideological goals."

Historian Vladlen Loginov, a well-known researcher of Lenin's biography, said in an interview that “when during the Brezhnev era, few people know about it, the Mausoleum was overhauled, there was a consultation with the Russian Orthodox Church on this matter. And they just then pointed out that the main thing is to observe that it is below ground level. And that was done - they deepened the structure a little. But this is the testimony of a historian.

Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church itself knows examples of similar and almost identical burials. So, with the permission of the Holy Synod, the body of the great Russian surgeon and scientist Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov, who died in 1881, was embalmed and buried in an open coffin, in the tomb, over which a church was later erected. This burial can be visited to this day in Vinnitsa, Ukraine.

Since the time of medieval Russia, there are many examples of the burial of the deceased not in the ground. Moreover, such burials are also found in Orthodox churches, which is indisputable proof that the church recognizes the possibility of burying the dead not only in the ground. At the same time, in the temple, the sarcophagus can be located both under the floor and placed in a special shrine standing on the floor. Burials in such reliquaries can be seen in the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow - this is how Metropolitans Saint Peter, Theognost, Saint Jonah, Saint Philip II (Kolychev) and the holy martyr Patriarch Hermogenes are buried.

In the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin, the holy Tsarevich Demetrius of Uglich (who died in 1591) and the holy Chernigov miracle workers of the first half of the 13th century are buried in reliquaries. The crayfish were transferred to the cathedral in 1606 and in 1774, respectively, which suggests that such burials were revered not only in early Christian Russia.

In addition to burial in crayfish, burial of the dead in arkosoliy - special niches in the walls of temples, was practiced. Arcosolias could be open, half-open and closed. Bodies were placed in niches in coffins or sarcophagi. Such arcosolias were made in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in the Church of the Savior on Berestovo, in the Church of Boris and Gleb in Kideksha, in the Old Cathedral Church near Volodymyr-Volynsky, in the Resurrection Church in Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, in the Assumption Cathedral of Vladimir, in Nativity Cathedral of the XIII century in Suzdal.

It should be noted that burials in niches were practiced not only in temples, but also in caves. Burials in underground caves in the Pechersk Lavra in Kiev, in monasteries in Vydubychi in Kiev, in Chernigov and in the Pechersk monastery near Pskov are well known.

In the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, such caves are underground galleries with niches along the walls, in which burials are carried out.

The final burial of the monks on Athos is not carried out in the ground either. After the death of a monk, his body is placed in the ground only for a time. Approximately three years later, when the flesh has already decomposed, the bones are dug up and transferred to special ossuary rooms, where they are stored further.

If we talk not only about the Orthodox, but more broadly about the Christian tradition, then the Catholic Church also buries the dead not only in the ground. One of the clearest examples of such a burial is the pantheon of Spanish monarchs in Escorial. Under the altar of the cathedral there is a room where sarcophagi with the remains of kings and queens stand in the wall niches. Infants (princes) are buried in adjoining rooms.

Continuing the conversation about the Catholic tradition, it is necessary to give an example of the burial of Pope John XXIII, who died in 1963. His body was then embalmed and placed in a closed sarcophagus. And in 2001, the sarcophagus was opened, and the body, untouched by decay, was placed in a crystal coffin in the altar of St. Jerome in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

So, the Christian tradition, both Orthodox and Catholic, has no prohibitions on embalming or burial outside the ground. So to call the method of Lenin's burial "blasphemous" (recall that the Moscow Patriarchate declared that burial not in the ground, mummification and public display are blasphemous actions) is in no way.

The myth of Lenin's will to bury him at the Volkovskoye cemetery

In June 1989, a month and a half after Mark Zakharov's statement, the topic of Lenin's burial was again raised by publicist Yuri Karjakin, at that moment a senior researcher at the Institute of the International Labor Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1968, Karjakin was expelled from the CPSU in absentia by the Moscow City Party Committee for his anti-Stalinist performance. During perestroika, together with A. D. Sakharov, Yu. N. Afanasyev, G. Kh. Popov, he was a member of the Interregional Deputy Group.

On June 2, 1989, at the I Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, Karjakin said that as a child he learned that Lenin wanted to be buried near his mother's grave at the Volkov (Volkovsky) cemetery in Leningrad: “As a child, I recognized one quiet, almost absolutely a fact we have forgotten. Lenin himself wanted to be buried near the grave of his mother at the Volkovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg. Naturally, Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Maria Ilyinichna, his sister, wanted the same. Neither he nor they listened (highlighted by us - author). Not only was Lenin's last political will trampled underfoot, but his last personal human will was trampled upon. Of course, in the name of Lenin."

Later, in 1999, Karjakin, in an interview with the Smena newspaper, will somewhat adjust his attitude to the “fact” known only to him: “That's what he said about a quiet legend in Old Bolshevik circles, which, they say, he wanted to. No more, no less. No documents (highlighted by us - author).

That is, Yuri Karjakin, 10 years later, admitted that there is no genuine documentary evidence of the "fact" that Lenin was buried in spite of his own will.

Karjakin corrected his position after the attempts to documentarily substantiate the possibility of Lenin's reburial, referring to his dying will, were stopped. In 1997, the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Contemporary History (RCKHIDNI, now RGASPI) put an end to this issue, which issued a certificate to Yeltsin's assistant Georgy Satarov, which said the following: “There is no RCKHIDNI not a single document of Lenin or his relatives and friends regarding Lenin's "last will" (highlighted by us - author) to be buried in a certain Russian (Moscow or St. Petersburg) cemetery."

In March 2017, representatives of the Essence of Time movement repeated the request, once carried out by Satarov, and received a response from the same RGASPI. Letter No. 1158-z / 1873 dated 2017-04-04 says that in the funds of the RGASPI "no documents have been identified that confirm V. I. Lenin's desire for the place of his burial."

In addition to the writer Yuri Karjakin, an attempt to substantiate the need to take Lenin's body out of the Mausoleum and bury it next to his mother was made in 1999 by the Leninist historian Akim Armenakovich Arutyunov. By the way, Akim Arutyunov was a great admirer and friend of the ideologist of perestroika, Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev.

Arutyunov claimed that in 1971 M. V. Fofanova, the owner of Lenin's last safe house in St. Petersburg (Serdobolskaya Street, building no. 1/92), told him in a personal conversation that Lenin, three months before his death, had asked Krupskaya to bury him next to mom. Historians criticize Arutyunov's methods of working with sources. In particular, in this case, he refers to the stories of Fofanova, without in any way confirming their reliability.

Krupskaya's documented statement on how to bury Lenin was made by her on January 30, 1924. From the pages of the Pravda newspaper, she called on the workers and peasants not to create the cult of Lenin, in fact, polemicizing with the idea of building a crypt (the decision on this was made just these days at the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets). A close ally of Lenin V. D. Bonch-Bruevich in his book "Memories of Lenin" confirmed the rejection of Krupskaya and other relatives of the method of perpetuating the memory of Lenin in the form of a tomb: “Nadezhda Konstantinovna, with whom I spoke intimately on this issue, was against the mummification of Vladimir Ilyich … His sisters Anna and Maria Ilyinichny expressed the same opinion. His brother Dmitry Ilyich said the same."

However, the same Bonch-Bruevich points out that later the views of members of Lenin's family on his burial in the Mausoleum changed: “The idea of preserving the appearance of Vladimir Ilyich so captivated everyone that it was recognized as extremely necessary, necessary for millions of the proletariat, and everyone began to think that all sorts of personal considerations, all doubts must be abandoned and joined to the common desire."

B. I. Zbarsky, one of those who led the scientific work on the embalming of Lenin, in the book "Lenin's Mausoleum", notes that Krupskaya was among the delegates of the XIII Congress of the RCP (b) who visited the Mausoleum on May 26, 1924 and positively assessed the course work on the long-term preservation of Lenin's body: "The responses of the delegates of the congress, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya and other members of the family of Vladimir Ilyich instilled in us confidence in the success of further work."

In the same place, B. I. Zbarsky cites the recollections of Lenin's brother Dmitry Ilyich, who on May 26, 1924 was also a member of the delegation that visited the Mausoleum, and was amazed at what he saw: “I can’t say anything now, I am very excited. He lies as I saw him immediately after death."

In the Russian media, you can read that after the publication of the article in Pravda in January 1924, "Krupskaya never visited the Mausoleum, did not speak from its rostrum and did not mention it in her articles and books." Meanwhile, the long-term secretary of Krupskaya V. S. Drizo recalled that Nadezhda Konstantinovna visited the Mausoleum “very rarely, maybe once a year. I always went with her. " The last time Krupskaya visited the Mausoleum was a few months before her death in 1938, about which the memoirs of B. I. Zbarsky, who accompanied her, were preserved: "Boris Ilyich," said Nadezhda Konstantinovna, "he is still the same, and I am getting so old."

The myth that supporters of the removal of Lenin from the Mausoleum are guided by humane considerations

One of the arguments of the supporters of Lenin's reburial sounds like this: "Even the Christian tradition was perverted, adapting to the proletarian cult - they began to trample the ashes with their feet." The point is that those standing on the platform of the Mausoleum allegedly trample Lenin's ashes with their feet. Thus, supporters of burial find themselves in the position of almost "defenders" of Lenin's ashes from outrage.

We will remind, however, that the pantheon of Spanish monarchs in Escorial is located under the altar of the cathedral. And the church finds nothing wrong with people being one floor higher, in fact, above the grave. In addition, in the case of the Mausoleum, no trampling of the ashes with feet occurs, since the tribune of the Mausoleum is not directly above the crypt, but to the side, above the vestibule.

Among the theses about the inhumane attitude towards Lenin, there is the statement that Lenin's body shudders when tanks pass through Red Square. So, for example, Yuri Karjakin declares: “This one quiet, forgotten by us fact that Lenin wanted to lie like a human being - do we really not understand this? Tanks are marching on Red Square, the body shudders."

However, this does not correspond to reality: Lenin's body cannot "shudder" in any way, since the design of the Mausoleum specifically provides for reliable protection against vibrations: the bottom of the pit. A reinforced concrete slab is placed on the ground, on which a reinforced concrete frame is placed, rigidly connected to the base slab, brick walls, well protected below from moisture penetration. Around the slab, a tape of enclosing piles is hammered, which protects the Mausoleum from shaking the soil when heavy tanks pass through the square during parades."

It is important to understand that this alleged "concern" about Lenin's ashes not being trampled underfoot by those on the podium and shaking from moving heavy equipment across Red Square has nothing to do with the feeling of Lenin's contemporaries grieving over his death. This feeling is conveyed in the poems of many Soviet poets on the death of Ilyich. Here is one of them, written by the proletarian poet Vasily Kazin in December 1924. The author is not at all embarrassed by the tribune of the Mausoleum (on the contrary, the Mausoleum for him is precisely the tribune), nor by the loud street sounds - “the stamping of feet” and “thunder of applause”. He grieves that these loud sounds - not at all offensive to Lenin - alas, "will not awaken the ardor of his breath."

Mausoleum

The poet speaks very accurately about the only thing that can anger Lenin's "deceased spirit" - not at all the presence of a tribune and not the shuddering of the square from the passage of heavy equipment, but "the groan of inexpressible torment of a broken workers' uprising." That is, the destruction of the state created by Lenin. Therefore, the pseudo-humane concern of those who rejoiced over the death of the Soviet Union, so that the ashes of Lenin lying in the Mausoleum were not outraged by the rumble of equipment or the stamping of feet on the podium, looks blasphemous.