Georgi Dimitrov mausoleum

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Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum in August 1969

The Georgi-Dimitrov-Mausoleum ( Bulgarian Мавзолеят на Георги Димитров ) was a memorial for the Bulgarian politician Georgi Dimitrov , who was well-known beyond its national borders . It was completed until 1950 after the death of Dimitrov (1949) and was located in the center of the Bulgarian capital Sofia until its demolition in 1999 .

history

Design and construction

Just one day after Dimitrov's death in July 1949, the Bulgarian Council of Ministers, headed by Wassil Kolarow , had decided to embalm the body and to have a mausoleum built in Sofia for public laying out based on the model of the Lenin mausoleum in Moscow. After an improvised architectural competition, the Bulgarian architect Georgi Ovtscharow was entrusted with the execution. His staff included Ratscho Ribarow and Ivan Danchev. Ovcharov's plans provided for a flat hall building with Doric columns , which was rejected by the Central Committee of the BKP shortly before completion . The construction had to be simplified in such a way that now four rectangular unadorned pillars were used on the sides and on the front . A platform was erected in front of the temple-like building. It was about two to three meters above street level and could be used as a grandstand for state events.

The construction management was in the hands of the engineer Georgi Natow, General Ivan Winarow supervised the work. The mausoleum in the center of Sofia was not officially opened until September 1st, 1950, because the embalming and interior decoration of the building had taken so long. In the field above the pillars was the name of the dead man in Cyrillic letters.

Furnishing

Inside the hall, the corpse of Georgi Dimitroff, embalmed in Russia using technology there, was in a glass, airtight, lockable coffin on a red flag under constant climatic conditions (17 ± 0.5 degrees Celsius). The temperature constancy could be monitored by means of a sensor attached to the teeth and readjusted electronically. The sarcophagus was placed under protective gas during visiting hours and the lighting in the hall was carried out by means of special radiators and filters in front of it, so that no biochemical reactions could occur on the dead body. The ceiling of the hall was clad with red cloth, the clothes of the corpse were specially made in Bulgarian textile factories and completely changed after regular medical examinations. The Soviet team of specialists in control of the corpse remained in Sofia until 1955, when responsibility was transferred to Bulgarian bodies.

The mausoleum building was clad in white Russian marble, which was later replaced with local material (Wratscha stone). Bronze busts were erected to the right and left of the entrance, next to that of Georgi Dimitrov there were depictions of his political companions Dimitar Blagoew , Georgi Kirkow and Wassil Kolarow . All technical facilities were in the basement area. On the platform stood a mausoleum at the annual May Day demonstrations occasionally in military parades, the highest state officials, including representatives of friendly countries. For the politicians, there should also have been rooms in the front or basement area where they could relax during such hours-long events.

In 1974/75 the main hall of the mausoleum was enlarged and the entire technical equipment was modernized. The largely revered Bulgarian revolutionary and first communist president could be seen here by visitors from all over the world for forty-nine years, and the mausoleum became a place of pilgrimage. (After the building was demolished, it turned out that a nuclear shelter had been built underground in 1958. In the event of a war, there were already plans to move the corpse to a cave in the Balkan Mountains in a special bus.)

Elimination

On September 9, 1989, the platform of the mausoleum was once again used for a show of force by the state; then angry Bulgarians sprayed graffiti and anti-communist slogans and called for political changes. The mausoleum was closed to the public the following day.

With the now sealed end of the socialist era in Bulgaria, the new government had considered the inflated honor of a single person no longer appropriate. The maintenance costs for the mausoleum were too high: water, electricity, salaries of the technical specialists in the Bulgarian army - there were a total of 12 to 13 employees, including medical staff - the equipment had to work around the clock, which is why the water and electricity supply of the mausoleum were duplicated. On July 17, 1990, the new Council of Ministers, headed by Andrei Lukanov , decided to cremate the body and have it buried in the Sofia Central Cemetery . There a tombstone and a portrait remember Dimitrov. The mausoleum building was blown up on August 21, 1999 and the rubble was removed by August 27. The previous location is no longer recognizable; it is part of the garden in front of the Sofia National Theater on Fürst-Alexander-I.-Platz .

Others

In some socialist states there were or are mausoleums of deceased former leaders:

see also list of burial places of famous people

Web links

Sources and Commentary

  • the Bulgarian side to the Dimitrov mausoleum
  1. ↑ In the course of de-Stalinization, Khrushchev had Stalin's body removed from the mausoleum on the evening of October 31, 1961 and buried in the cemetery of honor behind the mausoleum (the so-called necropolis on the Kremlin wall ).

Coordinates: 42 ° 41 ′ 43.9 "  N , 23 ° 19 ′ 30.3"  E