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FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE 20TH CENTURY
Lot 253:
A black and white soviet photograph of the Red Square Lenin’s mausoleum.
The current owner purchased this matted photo (gelatin silver print) in Riga, Latvia in 2015.
Footnote: Historians claim that upon Lenin’s death, the Party officials, in response to thousands of letters from Soviet citizens traveling from far corners of the USSR to pay their last respects, made the decision to embalm Lenin. Stalin in particular was adamant about embalming Lenin’s remains even when Krupskaia, Lenin’s wife, objected. Stalin understood that preserving Lenin’s body would enable him to perpetuate Lenin’s cult of personality. Furthermore, Stalin believed that by keeping Lenin’s body in view, he could draw on the accepted Russian Orthodox practice of making pilgrimages to venerate the remains of saints. After the opening of the mausoleum on November 10, 1930, Soviet citizens were encouraged to pay their respects to the Revolutionary Leader on their initial trip to the capital of the USSR. Thus, soldiers, sailors, collective farm workers, Stahanovites, students, teachers, and local party officials made it a point to pay their respects or at least appear to be doing so on their first trip to the capital! On my first trip to Moscow with the Rutgers University student group in 1967, our Intourist guide marched us to the front of a line no shorter than the one in the photo. We did not have to wait for hours. Much to our surprise, we did not see or hear anyone in line object to this move. The Intourist guide explained to us that since we were foreign tourists and our stay in Moscow was brief, every Intourist guide with foreign tourists had the privilege of cutting in ahead of the local population.
23 1/2 x 16 1/2 in., (59.7 x 41.9 cm.)
Condition: Very good, no teas or folds.
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