site of the Lenin cult’ and was quickly associated
«All the questions on
the subject of being or
of what is to be (or not
to be) are questions of
inheritance… That we
are heirs does not mean
that we have or that we
receive this or that, some
inheritance that enriches
us one day with this or
that, but that the being
of what we are is first of
all inheritance, whether
we like it or know it or
not» (Ibid: 54).
with sovereignty (Tumarkin 1997: 267). Nikita
Khrushchev’s decision to return to the purity of
Lenin during the period of de-Stalinization conjured
up Lenin’s spirit against Stalinist excess. Stalin had
deviated from the foundational doctrine of Leninism
and the spirit of revolution. Lenin was higher than
Stalin; hence his physical presence suggested the
continuity of state sovereignty and the Communist
Party, regardless of changes in the political
leadership.
As a place of memory, the tribune on Lenin’s
Mausoleum was the most important place where
party leaders gathered on revolutionary holidays
to commemorate the October Revolution and the
Great Patriotic War. The Mausoleum was the iconic
site for viewing parades, especially those held on
Victory Day so that the spectral presence of Lenin
accompanied Soviet leaders as they stood over his
preserved sovereign body. As Alexei Yurchak argues,
Lenin «literally transcended every individual body
of party members, leaders, and even Lenin himself;
it was, in fact, the immortal body of the sovereign»
(2015: 147).
Of particular importance is Derrida’s argument
that living in the present means living with the
Scientists at the Mausoleum Lab (Centre
inheritance of the past. Since we are heirs to the for Scientific Research and Teaching Methods in
past, the way in which the past is received is very Biochemical Technologies) preserve the physical
much open to interpretation. We do not choose remains of Lenin’s body. While only his face,
when we are born. Our sense of self is first of all hands and dark suit are visible to the viewer, the
inheritance. Traditionally, an open coffin is the last Mausoleum group maintains the flexibility and life-
instance when mourners bid farewell before burial or like quality of Lenin’s body. Once every eighteen
cremation. However, visitors to Lenin’s Mausoleum months, his body undergoes lengthy re-embalming
have been in a state of warped mourning for over procedures lasting for up to two months -with
ninety years. Instead of burial, his artificially treatments include attention to joints, hair and the
preserved body has become a life-like hybrid skeletal system. Throughout the decades, doctors
monument, a pure sign and symbol. have developed new techniques for preserving his
body, requiring regular re-embalming, baths and the
Political theology of the
Soviet and post-Soviet state
substitution of organic material with artificial ones
(Yurchak 2015).
While the modern secular state continues to
Immediately after his death, Lenin’s
sanctify relics with the internment of remains in
Mausoleum functioned as a kind of ‘pilgrimage
76
Observing Memories
ISSUE 3
tombs of the unknown soldier, the cult of veneration