Time has been unkind to Lenin, whose remains here in Red Square are said to sprout occasional fungi, and whose ideology and party long ago fell to ruins. Now the inevitable question has returned. Should his body be moved?
Ew. Fungi?
But it’s an interesting article about the controversy, with some very good quotes.
“Our country has been shaken by strife, but only a few people were held accountable for that in our lifetime,” said the aide, Georgi Poltavchenko. “I do not think it is fair that those who initiated the strife remain in the center of our state near the Kremlin.”
Uhm, ya think?
Mr. Putin said in 2001 that he did not want to upset the civic order by moving the founder’s remains. “Many people in this country associate their lives with the name of Lenin,” he said. “To take Lenin out and bury him would say to them that they have worshiped false values, that their lives were lived in vain.”
If the shoe fits …
Sometimes it’s the most healing thing in the world to actually admit you have worshiped a “false value”, and to make a clean break with the past. We’ve all done it. Perhaps not to the extent that we worshiped a despot, or a tyrant … but we’ve all put our values in the wrong places from time to time. Is it best to deny this, not admit the mistake, and keep the trappings of that “false value” all around you? Or is it better to just say, “You know what? We fucked up. Let’s start anew.”
Besides, he’s sprouting fungi in the middle of Red Square and that is just disgusting.
(via Ann Althouse)
Well, for his sake I at least hope the fungi is red and not some capitalist blue or green.
Ivan Lenin’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave…
It’s even scarier to realize that one branch of the family saw fit to name Stalin’s great-great grandson Isoif Vissarionovich Dzugashvili:
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5590-3.cfm
What really gets me is this had to be planned over two genrations: the middle name in Russia is a patronymic – the father’s name plus an “ovich” for males or an “ovna” for females. This Yevgeny character had to name is son Vissarion over thirty years ago, just in the hopes the the grandson could be named Iosif in the mid-1990s. Scarier than hell.
John – woah.
Bingley –
hahahahaha
“Besides, he’s sprouting fungi in the middle of Red Square and that is just disgusting.”
Quote of the week.
here’s how much of a biology geek I am – instead of thinking about the sociological implications of keeping a dead-and-imperfectly-embalmed former dictator on display in a country that is now trying to refute his political philosophy, I found myself thinking “Fungi? Wow! What species, I wonder – are they basidiomycetes, or ascomycetes, or something else? Is it real little mushrooms, or just mold, or something you can’t see under the surface.”
I don’t know…I almost hope it’s little mushrooms. There’s a certain irony in that.
Emily –
hahaha Yeah, it’s almost like I’m just pissed off at his BAD MANNERS for sprouting fungi in public. “Dude, keep it together … at least in public!”
ricki – Mushrooms??
I have often wondered at how they keep him fit for display – I know that there are people who have that as their full-time job: maintaining the corpse, guarding the corpse – whatever – but I certainly don’t know the process. Is it possible to just keep someone on display like that forever?
Sprouting Fungus
My favorite quote of the week, taken out of context to be given any variety of meanings: “Besides, he’s sprouting fungi in the middle of Red Square and that is just disgusting.”…
some years back, “60 Minutes” (I think it was them) did a segment on the whole Lenin’s Tomb thing. I found it very, very creepy (this was before the Soviet Union broke up). These long, long files of people streaming through to pay their respects, the constant piped-in repetition of a particular classical piece (damn – I can hear it in my head now but can’t think of the name? Traumerei? something by Rachmaninoff? Damn.)
It was just very spooky. I may have been as young as 10 at the time, but it’s stuck with me all those years – all those old Russian people, bundled up in coats, standing there in the rain, waiting to pay their respects to a dead leader that might have died before some of them were born, even. And this was in a technically atheistic country, where the party line was that the dead were dead and there was no afterlife – that always struck me as strange, the veneration of the remains in that case.
In the 60 Minutes segment, they touched a bit on the processes, but there was a lot of handwaving and “Ancient Russian Secret” talk (this was, after all, the Breshnev-era Soviet Union). There was an implication that most of the body was actually a wax replica.
although, if he died of syphilis, as is rumored – one of the treatments for that disease in that day was mercury-based compounds – perhaps he had enough toxic chemicals in his remains to prevent a certain amount of decay.
I don’t know – I just still find it monumentally creepy. (But then again, I find it uncomfortable when I go to a funeral and find that the family has chosen “open casket”).
I think there was a book out a couple years ago called “Lenin’s Tomb” that talked a little about the whole embalming process.
Or is it better to just say, “You know what? We fucked up. Let’s start anew.”
Indeed, Lenin’s remains are clearly making the effort to start anew. Why can’t Putin take the hint?
Fuzzy Green Fungus for Russian Prime Minister in ’08!
ricki
The campaign starts here.
We should have T-shirts made up. And big placards.
Oh Christ. Does this mean that everybody is going to start referring to each other as “comrade”? That would suck.
I saw that same 60 Minutes epsiode. It was stuff like that that made me want to go to the USSR and see for myself. I have a picture of a bunch of litte Pioneers (about the age of Webelos and Brownies) in red hats and kerchiefs standing in line to go see the Mummy. Ick. It was even weirder in person. Perhaps because of the historical context: every shot you see of Stalin and his cronies in Red Square reviewing the troops is on top of the mausoleum. And it gave you the impression that all this Glasnost stuff in the air (~1989) could come crashing down at any moment.
I think they ought to tear the whole mausoleum down. You can almost feel the malevolent presensce of Salin, Beria, Voroshilov, Molotov, Kirov – the whole rogues gallery standing on top of that thing. It reminded me of a giant red and black toad brooding about what to devour next.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/photos/large/2004_04/2004_04_16/court_2.jpg
http://academic.mwsc.edu/ascher/russia/B-Zhukov-Stalin.gif
http://academic.mwsc.edu/ascher/russia/stalinLenin2.jpg
Comrades, salute the fungi!
Ricki – personally, I hope it’s basidiomycetes – something about Lenin growing fairy rings strikes me as truly hilarious…
John – those photos are amazing. It does say it all.
Sheila:
There are two Real Audio files in here
http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/voices/realaudio/
that might interest you. Both are far down in the list:
stalin1.ra
and
lenin1.ra
Have you ever heard their voices?
Lenin says –
Vote for the Fungi, comrades.. or the Mummy gets it.
[/campaign slogan]
Another possible slogan – with a nod to the mummy bozo:
Russia found fungi lying in the streets and simply picked it up!
John – no! I haven’t heard their voices! I will listen to those later when I get home … I’m a little bit scared. I’ve heard about Stalin’s speaking style, in particular.
No, we need to come up with a cooler term than “comrades.” Hmmm…fungi are multicellular organisms made up of mycelia. Or hyphae, if you prefer.
“Mycelia! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
“Diploidy is the opiate of the masses!” (Most organisms are diploid; that is, they have two copies of every gene. All (most?) fungi are haploid, in that they have only one copy of each gene).
“From each according to his hyphal growth, to each according to his sporulation!”
Kathy…I know, I know. I love the idea of little rings of tiny mushrooms springing up on the former Exalted Leader’s chest or forehead or whereever. Much more interesting than just a plain old mold.
And to bring this all back ’round…one of the necessary substances used in the production of vodka (during the fermentation step, not the distillation step) is yeast, another fungus.
So fungus is deep in the heart of Lenin, and deep in the livers of ordinary Russians. (And Yeltsin, I suppose, if the rumors are true).
(Incidentally, this is the REAL reason why I earned a Ph.D.: so I can sit around and shoot the sh*t with other learned people and go way off into my individual geekery. That Ph.D. has little to do with my having wanted a job in academe.)
“From each according to his hyphal growth, to each according to his sporulation.”
My life is now complete now that that sentence has been uttered on my blog.
“From each according to his hyphal growth, to each according to his sporulation.”
Hahahahaha!!
and I needed cheering up.. have you seen the apocalyptic annoucement that Emily noted, Sheila?
peteb – yes. Lisa also informed me of the terrible news in the first post on this page.
I know it’s so silly. But I SO held out hope that she would ditch that guy. I don’t know why it’s so important to me.
Mainly because I despise the C of S – and this has the undeniable whiff of a victory for Xenu. It just sucks.
I’ll get over it, but the whole thing depresses me, frankly.
For me, it was important, again for some unknown reason, that she could see the train wreck approaching.. I don’t know, a belief that people are more insightful than the evidence suggests perhaps?
That interview with Cruise I linked to way back really emphasised to me how intent the man is on disguising himself – with the parasitic connivance of The Cult, of course.
The thing is, for me, we’ll get over it.. but she’ll have to live with it.
Not to mention that there’ll be one more loaded Scientologist in the world. Poor Katie.