Vladimir Lenin

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Old Print Article: Permanently Preserving The Remains Of American Heroes, Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1931)

February 18, 2016 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Sirovich

William Irving Sirovich.

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Thomas Edison.

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Embalming team with Vladimir Lenin’s corpse.

 

For better or worse, Vladimir Lenin was treated with a powerful embalming fluid when he succumbed in 1924, allowing his body to lay in state for the long-term. (His caretakers, by the way, drank some of the alcohol used in the process and got properly pissed.) It wasn’t an easy afterlife for the remains as they had to be spirited to Siberia during WWII to ensure the Nazis didn’t abscond with them. More than 145 years and many “touch-ups” later, the Bolshevik hero still looks swell.

In 1931, the New York congressman-doctor-playwright William Irving Sirovich traveled to Europe and learned of a method for lasting post-life preservation. Upon his return, he suggested the United States use the treatment to follow the Soviet lead and hold onto its heroes long after their last breaths. Since it was just days after the passing of Thomas Edison, Sirovich hoped the inventor would be the first to be maintained in this manner. An article in the October 23, 1931 Brooklyn Daily Eagle had the story.

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edisonembalming875

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Old Print Article: “Russians Cut Lenin’s Brain Into 15,000 Pieces To Find Secret Of His Greatness,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1929)

October 14, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Vladimir Lenin’s corpse has had a perplexing postscript, but one particular body part, his brain, may have had the most fascinating “afterlife” of all, as the Soviet leader’s adoring people sliced it and diced it, hoping to find the source of genius that propelled the Bolshevik Revolution. In an article in the February 24, 1929 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the paper underestimated the pieces the organ had been pulverized into, numbering it at 15,000 when it was actually more than twice that many.

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“His Caretakers Got Drunk On The Alcohol Used In Embalming Lenin’s Corpse”

July 22, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Like Albert Einstein’s brain, Vladimir Lenin’s corpse has done its fair share of traveling. Embalmed in 1924 at the behest of Joseph Stalin, Lenin’s leftovers have been considered differently during the many shifts in his homeland’s tortuous politics. Christopher Buckley, more than most, has had a close relationship with the remains. From his New York Times Op-Ed piece, “What’s a Body to Do?“:

“The saga of Lenin’s remains is a uniquely Russian story. His caretakers got drunk on the alcohol used in embalming Lenin’s corpse, and in one instance, one was caught groping the other’s daughter. There are group photos of them striking jaunty poses, as if they’ve gathered for a picnic.

And here was Khrushchev in 1956, growling, ‘The mausoleum stinks of Stalin’s corpse.’ Stalin was embalmed and laid out beside Lenin between 1953 to 1961, until Khrushchev said enough and ordered him buried beneath the Kremlin wall.

Lenin remains — Sleeping Beauty From Hell. Perhaps when his heir, President Vladimir V. Putin, is finished shipping combat helicopters to shore up his friend Bashar al-Assad of Syria he will have time to consider his minister of culture’s modest proposal.

Footnote: In 1991, when I was editing a publication for Forbes, I engaged in a hoax and briefly persuaded the world that the Russian government was preparing to auction off the body.

The story garnered quite a lot of play. A none-too-happy Russian interior minister denounced me for my ‘impudent lie’ and called it ‘an unpardonable provocation.’ (Which sort of made my day.)

But a number of readers of the magazine apparently didn’t get the memo that it was all a hoax. The Kremlin was deluged with offers.”

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