Historian Russian culture minister calls for burying Lenin

MOSCOW — Russia’s new culture minister had already riled liberals who viewed him as the odd monarchist who is also somehow an apologist for Stalin.

Vladimir Medinsky, a best-selling author, then decided to aggravate the Communists, too, when he called for burying Lenin’s preserved corpse and renaming streets after the murdered czar’s family.

“Maybe, indeed, many things in our life would symbolically change for the better after this,” Mr. Medinsky said in a recent radio appearance, alluding to efforts to put the Soviet past behind today’s Russia....