Kremlin Wall Necropolis

Coordinates: 55°45′13″N 37°37′11″E / 55.75361°N 37.61972°E / 55.75361; 37.61972
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Red Square, Moscow
CountrySoviet Union
Coordinates55°45′13″N 37°37′11″E / 55.75361°N 37.61972°E / 55.75361; 37.61972

The Kremlin Wall Necropolis is the former

cremated ash in the Kremlin wall itself. Burials in the ground resumed with Mikhail Kalinin
's funeral in 1946.

The Kremlin Wall was the de facto resting place of the Soviet Union's deceased national icons. Burial there was a status symbol among Soviet citizens. The practice of burying dignitaries at Red Square ended with the funeral of General Secretary

Russian Federation and many other former post-Soviet states
continue to pay their respects to the national heroes at the Kremlin Wall.

Site

As recently as 1800, the site of the Necropolis was a boggy moat spanned with stone bridges.
Main article: Red Square

The eastern segment of the Kremlin wall, and Red Square behind it, emerged on its present site in the 15th century, during the reign of

towers. From 1776 to 1787, Matvey Kazakov built the Kremlin Senate that today provides a backdrop for the present-day Necropolis.[3]

Throughout the 18th century the unused, neglected fortifications deteriorated and were not properly repaired until the 1801

Joseph Bove proposing in 1813 the outright demolition of the towers to prevent the wall's imminent collapse.[3] Eventually, the main structures of the towers were deemed sound enough to be left in place, and were topped with new tented roofs designed by Bove. Peter's bastions were razed (creating space for nearby Alexander Garden and Theatre Square),[6] The Kremlin wall facing Red Square was rebuilt shallower than before, and acquired its present shape in the 1820s.[7]

Timeline of burials in Red Square
Ivan YakubovskySoyuz 11Sergei KirovDmitry UstinovGeorgy ZhukovSergey KamenevStalinLeonid BrezhnevKonstantin ChernenkoStalinAndrey ZhdanovMikhail KalininPyotr VoykovYakov SverdlovOctober Revolution

Burials from 1917 to 1927

Red Square Mass Graves

Between the 1917

Nikolskaya
towers was used for mass and individual burials of people who had to some extent contributed to the socialist revolution or the Bolshevik cause. This included ordinary soldiers killed in battle, victims of the Civil War, militia men fallen while fighting anti-Bolsheviks and noted Bolshevik politicians, as well as individuals associated with creating the new Soviet society. Burial plots of the 1917–1927 period are currently organized into 15 landscaped grave sites with the names of the buried inscribed on black marble tablets.

Mass graves of 1917

10 November 1917. Mass grave on Red Square
27 July 2016. Mass grave on Red Square

In July 1917, hundreds of soldiers of the Russian Northern Front were arrested for mutiny and desertion and locked up in

Bolsheviks in Moscow. Late at night on 27–28 October, a detachment of approximately two hundred men marching north to Tverskaya Street confronted the loyalist forces near the State Historical Museum
on Red Square. During the fighting, 70 of the Dvintsy, including their company commander, Sapunov, were killed at the barricades.

The following day, loyalists led by Colonel

Kremlin Wall
, where indeed most of them were killed.

Voices reached us across the immense place, and the sound of picks and shovels. We crossed over. Mountains of dirt and rock were piled high near the base of the wall. Climbing these we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen feet deep and fifty yards long, where hundreds of soldiers and workers were digging in the light of huge fires. A young student spoke to us in German. "The Brotherhood Grave," he explained.
–

Ten Days that Shook the World.[10]

A total of 238 dead were buried in the mass graves between

Nikolskaya towers in a public funeral on November 10[11] (John Reed incorrectly mentions 500);[10] two more victims were buried on the 14 and 17 of November. The youngest, Pavel Andreyev, was 14 years old. Of 240 pro-revolution martyrs of the October–November fighting, only 20, including 12 of the Dvintsy, are identified in the official listing of the Moscow Heritage Commission.[12] As of March 2009, three Moscow streets are still named after these individual victims,[13] as well as Dvintsev Street named after the Dvintsy force.[citation needed
]

The loyalists secured a permit to publicly bury their dead on 13 November. This funeral started at the old Moscow State University building near Kremlin; thirty-seven dead were interred at the Vsekhsvyatskoye Cemetery (now demolished) in the then-suburban Sokol District.[14]

Burials of 1918–1927

Red Square Mass Grave No. 4
Red Square Mass Grave No. 5, inscriptions for Inessa Armand, John Reed, Ivan Rusakov and Semyon Pekalov
Red Square Mass Grave No. 13, inscriptions for Ivan Zhilin, Ivan Konstantinov, Valerian Abakovsky and Paul Freeman

Mass and individual burials in the ground under the Kremlin wall continued until the funeral of

White Guards fired on a pro-Bolshevik street rally; the eight victims were also buried under the Kremlin wall.[15]

The largest single burial occurred in 1919. On 25 September,

socialist revolutionary Donat Cherepanov set off an explosion in a Communist Party school building in Leontyevsky Lane when Moscow party chief Vladimir Zagorsky
was speaking to students. Twelve people, including Zagorsky, were killed and buried in a mass grave on Red Square.

Another unusual incident was the 24 July 1921 crash of the

collieries, but on the return trip to Moscow, the aerowagon derailed at high speed, killing 7 of the 22 people on board, including its inventor Valerian Abakovsky
. This was the last mass burial in the ground of Red Square.

crematoria since 1919, but the first burial of cremated remains in a niche in the wall did not take place until 1925.[15]

Mausoleum, 1924–1961

Main article: Lenin's Mausoleum
The first wooden Mausoleum in 1925

Vladimir Lenin died of a stroke on 21 January 1924. While his body lay in state in the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions, the Politburo discussed ways to preserve it, initially for forty days, despite objections from his widow and siblings.[17][18] Joseph Stalin gave instructions to install a vault for Lenin's embalmed remains inside the Kremlin wall, and on 27 January, Lenin's casket was deposited in a temporary wooden vault built in a single day.[17] The first proper Mausoleum was built of wood in March–July 1924 and officially opened on August 1[19] (foreign visitors were allowed inside on August 3).[20][21] The contest to design and build a new, permanent, Mausoleum was announced in April 1926; construction of Alexey Shchusev's winning design began in July 1929 and was completed in sixteen months.[20] The Mausoleum has since functioned as a government reviewing stand during public parades.

The glass sarcophagus of Lenin's tomb was twice vandalized by visitors, in 1959 and 1969, leading to installation of a bulletproof glass shell.[22] It was bombed twice, in 1963, when the terrorist was the sole victim,[22] and in 1973, when an explosion killed the terrorist and two bystanders.[22][23]

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia has petitioned Russia to dismantle the cult of personality and bury Lenin's body, seeking to "rid Red Square of the remains of the main persecutor and executioner of the 20th century,"[24][25] although the Russian Orthodox Church demurs.[26]

As of 2022, Lenin's body remains in the Mausoleum, excluding the period of evacuation to Tyumen during 1941–1945.[27]

Stalin's mummy

Two days after

Harold Skilling, who visited the Mausoleum in November of the same year, noted that "everyone was so curious to see the new grave of Stalin... Unlike others, his [grave] was not yet graced by a bust and was marked only by a tablet with the name I.V. Stalin and dates of birth and death".[31] The existing tomb of Stalin carved by Nikolai Tomsky[30] was installed in June 1970.[32]

Ashes, 1925–1984

An early burial of cremated ash in the wall
Ruthenberg, MacManus, Landler, Haywood
)
A visitor (Fyodor Yurchikhin) laying flowers at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, 2010

The first person to be cremated and interred in an urn in the Kremlin wall, 45-year-old former People's Commissar of Finance Miron Vladimirov, died in Italy in March 1925. The procedure for dealing with human remains in an urn was still unfamiliar at the time, and Vladimirov's urn was carried to his grave in an ordinary coffin.

Between 1925 and the opening of the

Charles Ruthenberg)[15] while the latter was granted only to top Party executives (Mikhail Frunze, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Nariman Narimanov and Pyotr Voykov
).

Initially, the bodies of the deceased were

Sergei Kamenev) or political repressions (Andrey Vyshinsky
).

Under

Semyon Budenny in an individual grave.[15]
There were also at least two known cases when groups of professionals pressed the government to extend special honors to their deceased colleagues:

On 26 April 1967, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, who had died in the crash of his Soyuz 1 space capsule,[38] was given a state funeral in Moscow, and his ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Komarov was posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin (for the second time) and the order of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The last person to be buried in the Kremlin wall was Minister of Defence Dmitriy Ustinov in December 1984.

Individual tombs, 1919–1985

The row of individual tombs behind the Mausoleum began to acquire its present shape after the end of

Andrey Zhdanov, as well as for Yakov Sverdlov, Mikhail Frunze and Felix Dzerzhinsky who had died decades earlier. Grey granite stands that separate Red Square from the wall were built in the same period. In 1947 Merkurov proposed rebuilding the Mausoleum into a sort of "Pergamon Altar" that would become a foreground to a statue of Stalin placed atop Senatskaya tower. Dmitry Chechulin, Vera Mukhina and others spoke against the proposal and it was soon dropped.[39]

There are, in total, twelve individual tombs; all, including the four burials of the 1980s, are shaped similar to the canonical Merkurov's model. All twelve are considered to have died of natural causes, although some, such as

Novodevichy cemetery at the request of his family.[40]

The Kremlin wall and the stands erected in the 1940s were traditionally separated with a line of blue spruce (

Picea pungens), a tree not occurring naturally in Russia. In August–September 2007 the aging trees, with few exceptions, were cut down and replaced with young trees.[41] A Federal Protective Service spokesman explained that the previous generation of spruce, planted in the 1970s, suffered from the dryness of the urban landscape; 28 old but sound trees were handpicked for replanting inside the Kremlin.[41] New trees were selected from the nurseries of Altai Mountains, Russian Far East and "some foreign countries".[41] The FPS spokesman also mentioned that in Nikita Khrushchev's period there were plans to plant a fruit garden around the Mausoleum, but the proposal was rejected in fear of fruit flies.[41]

Debate and preservation

The Kremlin Necropolis with a view of Spasskaya Tower

Public discussion on closing the Mausoleum emerged shortly after the breakup of the

honor guard from the Mausoleum (former Post no.1, see Kremlin Regiment) and voiced his opinion that Lenin should eventually be buried in the ground.[45][46] The decision was supported by the Public Committee of Democratic Organisations.[45] By 1995, Yeltsin had "moved to the nationalist center",[47] using the Mausoleum as a government stand like previous state leaders;[47] in 1997, he reiterated the claim to bury Lenin.[48]

Proposals to remove the Necropolis from Red Square altogether met with far more public opposition and did not come to fruition either. Despite the

VTsIOM poll found that 66% of the respondents supported a funeral in a traditional cemetery, including 28% of those who believed that the funeral should be postponed until the communist generation passes away. 25% of the respondents thought the body should be preserved in the Mausoleum.[49] In October 2005, 51% of respondents had expressed support for a funeral and 40% for preservation.[50]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Kremlin Wall Necropolis". rusmania.com. Archived from the original on 2021-04-16. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  2. ^ Schmidt, p. 13
  3. ^ a b c Schmidt, p. 61
  4. ^ Shchenkov et al., p. 57
  5. ^ Brooke (p. 35) incorrectly dates the demolition after 1812.
  6. ^ Schmidt, pp. 143, 153
  7. ^ Shchenkov et al., pp. 61–62
  8. ^ Based on the list of the Moscow City Heritage Commission "Archived copy". Retrieved 2019-10-22.[permanent dead link]
  9. ^ Colton, p. 85
  10. ^ a b Reed, p. 227
  11. ^ Corney, pp. 41–42, provides a description of the ceremonies
  12. ^ a b Based on the list of the Moscow City Heritage Commission "Братские могилы". Archived from the original on 2009-02-21. Retrieved 2009-04-02. "Братские могилы". Archived from the original on 2009-02-20. Retrieved 2009-04-02. (in Russian) Retrieved 2009-03-28
  13. ^ Lysinovskaya, Pavla Andreeva, Verzemneka Streets
  14. ^ Corney, p. 43
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Zhirnov, Yevgeny (2003). "Sidel-sidel, utrom prosnulis..." (in Russian). Kommersant Vlast, N. 7 (510), February 24, 2003.
  16. ^ a b c Mates, p. 370
  17. ^ a b Quigley, p. 29
  18. ^ Tumarkin, pp. 135–164, provides a detailed timeline of events of January 1924
  19. ^ Quigley, p. 32
  20. ^ a b Quigley, p. 33
  21. ^ Tumarkin, pp. 165–206, provides a detailed timeline of establishing the Mausoleum.
  22. ^ a b c Quigley, p. 35
  23. ^ "Lenin tomb blast is said to kill 3". The New York Times. September 4, 1973. p. 6. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
  24. ^ Rebecca Bluitt (9 November 2017). "Red Square rendezvous: Visiting Lenin's body in Moscow". CNN. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  25. ^ "The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia - Official Website". www.synod.com. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  26. ^ "Russian Orthodoxy and Lenin's Tomb | George Weigel". First Things. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  27. ^ Quigley, pp. 34–35
  28. ^ a b Quigley, p. 38
  29. ^ Topping, Seymour (October 30, 1961). "Stalin's Body to Be Moved From Tomb in Red Square". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
  30. ^ a b "The day when Stalin left Lenin alone" (in Russian). RIA Novosti. 2006.
  31. ^ Skilling, pp. 186–187
  32. ^ "Bust Placed on Stalin Gravel Behind Lenin Mausoleum". The New York Times. 20 June 1970. p. 53. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
  33. ^ a b Half of Haywood's ashes is buried in Moscow, another in Chicago – Brooke, p. 43
  34. ^ a b Based on the list of the Moscow City Heritage Commission[permanent dead link]. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 20 June 2007. Retrieved 2 April 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). MKN (in Russian). Retrieved 28 March 2009.
  35. ^ Kamanin, January 11, 1970
  36. ^ Burgess et al., p. 181
  37. ^ "Указ Президента РСФСР от 06.11.1991 г. № 169". Президент России. Archived from the original on 1 March 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  38. ^ "1967: Russian cosmonaut dies in space crash". On This Day. BBC. 24 April 1967. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
  39. ^ a b c d e f Colton, p. 352
  40. ^ Громыко Андрей Андреевич (in Russian). hrono.ru. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  41. ^ a b c d "U sten Kremlya vpervye za 30 let... (У стен Кремля впервые за 30 лет начали высаживать новые ели)" (in Russian). RIA Novosti, August 15, 2007. 15 August 2007. Retrieved 2009-03-15.
  42. ^ Based on the list of the Moscow City Heritage Commission [1] (in Russian) Retrieved 2009-03-28
  43. ^ a b Ustinova, Irina (2000). "Interview with Iulian Rukavishnikov". Persona (in Russian). Vol. 2.
  44. ^ "Lenin's remains: Russians queue in the cold..." The Independent. December 27, 2000. Retrieved 2009-03-31.[dead link]
  45. ^ a b Higgins, Andrew (October 8, 1993). "Yeltsin seizes chance to purge political enemies". The Independent. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
  46. ^ "Struggle in Russia; Yeltsin Cancels Guards at Lenin's Tomb". The New York Times. October 7, 1993. p. 8. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
  47. ^ a b Erlanger, Steven (April 29, 1995). "Yeltsin to Stand Atop Lenin's Tomb for Parade". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
  48. ^ Hoffman, David (June 7, 1997). "Yeltsin Proposes Plebiscite On Whether Lenin's Body Should Be Buried Formally". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
  49. ^ "41% prozent rossiyan za vynos tela..." Kommersant (in Russian). January 20, 2009. Archived from the original on January 24, 2009.
  50. Novye Izvestiya (in Russian). Archived from the original
    on December 2, 2008.

References

External links

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