Today In History with The Retrospectors Let's Embalm Lenin
The corpse of Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union, was placed on display in Moscow's Red Square on 27th January, 1924 - where, astonishingly, he remains viewable to this day.
He’d wanted to be buried next to his mother in Saint Petersburg, but after he suffered a series of strokes, the Soviet government instead secretly planned to build a mausoleum for his body, in part to deify him as a quasi-religious figure.
In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how pioneering embalming techniques were created by ‘The Lenin Lab’ to look after the cadaver; ponder how mausoleum architect Alexey Shchusev contented with the January freeze; and consider whether an embalmed Queen Victoria would be just as popular a tourist attraction…
Further Reading:
• ‘Death of Lenin’ (The Guardian, 1924): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/23/death-of-lenin-archive-1924
• ‘Lenin's Body Improves with Age’ (Scientific American, 2015): https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lenin-s-body-improves-with-age1/
• ‘Russia: 100 Years on from Revolution’ (BBC News, 2017): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPmlX4kWgjs
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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.
Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.
Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026.
This episode originally aired in 2023.
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