Jonathan Tremblay: Clinging to Historical Corpses
Prime minister of Israel from 2001 to 2006, Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke while in office and has since been in a vegetative state. The comatose Prime Minister remains a vivid character for the Middle East, having been the defence minister that orchestrated the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon that killed hundreds of Palestinian refugees. Furthermore, as Prime Minister, he initiated the building of the wall that now isolates the Palestinian West Bank. To never forget the man and to use him as a symbol of Israeli vitality, artist Noam Braslavsky sculpted a life-size Sharon in pyjamas, connected to an intravenous drip and lying in a hospital bed in a comatose state. The sculpture even has animation and appears to breathe.
Exhibited at the Kishon Art Gallery, the sculpture will undoubtedly be visited by thousands of well-wishers, less-than-well-wishers and journalists. Some have criticized the piece as “very unique” while others question the exhibition of a man in the weakest, frailest and perhaps most undignified period of his life. Unfortunately, once Mr. Sharon chose to be a public figure, he took the chance that he would become a symbol. As such, his image is now on display (presumably) without his knowledge and history has some pointers for what might happen to his body once the 82-year-old passes away.
Ghosts of Communists Past
Vladimir Lenin is one of the XXth century’s most well-known and influential figures. Mastermind and leader of Russia’s Communist Revolution in 1917, Lenin advocated a worldwide overthrow of capitalism and elimination of class-based society with his famous speech “Workers of the world, Unite!”. After a short period at the head of a shining new Soviet Union, Lenin died in 1924 but the symbol of Lenin was to become immortal. More than a picture and much more than his writings, Lenin was to be a literal symbol of undying Soviet and communist ideologies. Visionary architects and engineers were hired and given one mission, to immortalize the body of Lenin.
Primitive yet ingenious, Soviet scientists rediscovered the ancient process of embalming and perfected it to maintain fresh-looking skin on a long-dead leader. Precise humidity control, daily injections of preservatives and periodic chemical baths have permitted the body of Lenin to remain on display in his Red Square tomb for over eight decades now. The Communist symbol lost some of its importance and prestige with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and indeed government funding for his upkeep dried up (so to speak). Private investments now maintain the body and tomb that have become more historical and tourism oriented than anything else in the XXIst century. A serious debate in Moscow now questions the dignity of such a tourist attraction and the people are considering a burial for the immortal-looking shell.
(As an interesting side note, Josef Stalin was embalmed and placed beside Lenin in 1953. This symbol of communism however was also a symbol of ambitious tyranny and the subsequent Soviet governments had him removed and buried elsewhere.)
With the technology going further east and into the communist partners of Soviet Russia, Vietnam was to recycle the idea to immortalize their leader. President Ho Chi Minh had read the declaration of Independence of his people (From the French) in 1945. The following decades of war, first against the colonist French and second against the anti-communist Americans, saw Ho Chi Minh become the hero of the Vietnamese republic and a symbol of both communism and nationalism. As such, with his death in 1969, Moscow provided the technology and the Vietnamese built a sumptuous mausoleum to their president that displays his embalmed corpse to this day. Built from materials and adorned with plant life from all corners of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh has become inseparable from the Republic of Vietnam and retains his importance while encased in a crystal tomb.
A few years later, a similar nationalist and communist symbol, Chairman Mao Zedong, passed away in neighbouring China. The race to embalm and display him however was far from easy. With Mao’s death in 1976, communist China did not have many allies and had even made an enemy of the Soviet Union due to conflicting interpretations of communist dogma. As such, the complicated process of preserving a world leader was only known in Beijing through Chinese ambassadors to Moscow and limited Vietnamese knowledge on the matter. After almost a year of testing, the proper quartz-crystal coffin, Xenon gas illumination, humidity and pressure control systems and housing structure were finally completed and the body of the chairman was put on display in Tiananmen Square where once stood the main gates of the Forbidden City. Half a century later, Mao’s body still retains importance but has mostly been relegated to the state of tourist attraction as can be seen in the “Souvenir Shop” of his mausoleum.
Finally on to the most difficult of these communist leaders to visit, the tomb of “Great leader” and “Eternal President of North Korea” Kim Il-sung. Displayed in a crystal sarcophagus and draped in the communist workers’ flag of his country, the corpse is, strangely enough, still the head of this secretive communist country. His son Kim Jong-il is technically second-in command. As such, the President has an official guard and is rarely accessible to tourists. Kumsusan Memorial Palace in downtown Pyongyang is even protected by a moat (?) and everything about this resting place, including the various ceremonies surrounding it scream MOURN NOW! Obligatory mourning periods even brought about suicides in past years, as North Koreans are not necessarily allowed to forget their nation, their communist ideology and their deceased president whom they can visit.
In the end, it is a little strange that the practice of embalming and displaying great leaders has become an exclusively communist tradition. Furthermore, each one of these displays clearly exists for the preservation of memory and the diffusion of a symbol yet none of them permit photography of any kind. Perhaps even the Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian and North Korean governments see a touch of the morbid in these displays. In the end, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is still alive and I would suggest that he was never radical enough to be embalmed and exposed (just enough to be recreated as an animated piece of “unique” art).