ST. PETERSBURG: The magnificent St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg was an appropriate setting for the reburial service for Empress Maria Fyodorovna, the Danish-born mother of the last Russian czar.
After 78 years, she was being laid to rest by the side of her husband, Czar Alexander III. Her remains had been taken to St. Petersburg by a Danish naval ship from the burial site of the Danish royalty, accompanied on the journey by Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, representatives of the Romanoff dynasty and other foreign and Russian dignitaries.
As I listened to the beautiful chantsof the Russian Orthodox Church, and later to Patriarch Alexiy II's eulogy for the empress, I thought it was great that Russia was coming to terms with its history and trying to settle the score with its past.
The reburial concluded yet another chapter in the tragic history of a family and an even greater tragedy in the history of Russia.
But I was also thinking that this was not enough. There is another, much bigger account from Russia's past that needs to be settled.
will it finally be Lenin's turn?
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and more so since the remains of Czar Nicholas II and his family were reburied eight years ago, there has been talk of moving Lenin out of his mausoleum on Red Square and to bury him alongside his mother in St. Petersburg's Volkovskoye Cemetery, as he requested in his last will. But the idea has not gained any momentum in Russia.
Removing the embalmed body of the father of the Russian revolution from the grand mausoleum, which served as the symbolic heart of the Soviet Union, would be the beginning of a necessary confrontation between Russia and the murderous dictatorships of Lenin and Stalin.
It would begin the catharsis that Russia so badly needs to rid itself of theskeletons in the closets of its history.
Russia needs the same kind of a showdown with history that Germany has gone through, or that South Africa faced in the aftermath of apartheid.Russia, by contrast, has always had trouble accepting and living with its past, preferring to reject it, rewrite it or just forget it.
Of course, removing Lenin from his mausoleum would be a much more controversial and demanding process than bringing back Maria Fyodorovna's remains.
It would require resuming the de- Stalinization process that Nikita Khrushchev started 50 years ago but never completed. Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin picked up some of the pieces, but their attempts drowned in the chaos of the collapsing Soviet empire. So now it is President Vladimir Putin's turn.
The first step would be to bring to an end the bizarre cult of Lenin's remains. That in itself would secure him a lasting place in Russian history.
While I was standing in glorious autumn sunshine outside the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral for the final part of the reburial ceremony, I recalled President Ronald Reagan's famous phrase when standing in front of the Berlin Wall: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Today we need someone to say, "Mr. Putin, tear down this mausoleum." Give the millions of innocent victims of Lenin and Stalin the apology that they and their descendants deserve and let the historic truth finally be heard all over your country.
Considering that Putin has said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest tragedy of the 20th century, it's likely that the reburial of Lenin, with all the repercussions it would trigger, will not happen on his watch.
Like millions of Russian citizens of his generation, he grew up with the slogans "Lenin lives!" and "Lenin is with us!" For him, the mausoleum is a sacred shrine; doing away with the Lenin myth would be like patricide.
The irony is that Lenin is not an idol for very many Russians any more. Not many people are lining up at the mausoleum to pay respect to Lenin.
They are lining up instead at the stands of tourist vendors selling T- shirts with a picture of Lenin and the text "McLenin" along with the McDonald arches. A Lenin look-alike offers visitors to be photographed with him for a few dollars in the vicinity of Red Square.
The new Russia permits this kind of profanity and commercialized mockery. The Russians are ready to bid Lenin good bye. How sad that the Kremlinacts as if Lenin is still with us.
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