Another now somewhat forgotten ‘jewish invention’ myth – probably because it has to do with the Soviet Union and more specifically Lenin’s embalmed corpse that famously sits in Moscow to this day – is the idea that jews were responsible for embalming Lenin which Slava Bazarsky indirectly claims on his website.
He writes as follows:
‘Boris Zbarsky (Ber Elievich) - bactericide, with which he embalmed Lenin’ (1)
The interesting things about Boris Zbarsky is that he was an ardent Bolshevisk precisely because he was jew – he explicitly joined the Bolsheviks because of the alleged ‘anti-Semitism’ of Tsarist Russia – and the writer Boris Pasternak – famous for his 1957 novel ‘Doctor Zhivago’ – lived with Zbarsky and his family as a young man. (2)
However, the truth is that Zbarsky didn’t come up with the secret chemical mixture – which I presume Bazarsky’s comment is actually referencing - as the website dedicated to Lenin’s embalming – ‘Pickling Lenin’ – explains:
‘An ambitious biochemist and fervent Bolshevik named Boris Zbarsky knew that his acquaintance, gregarious Ukrainian anatomist Vladimir Vorobiov, had been questioned (and his advice ultimately ignored) by the Committee. Also that Vorobiov knew of an embalming method which would involve soaking the body in a very particular blend of chemicals and might, possibly, just work. Also that this method had never been tried.
Vastly expensive refrigeration equipment had been ordered and was already being built when tests on the corpses of prisoners finally demonstrated to the senior politicians that freezing the body could never work. With guile and enthusiasm, Zbarsky was then able to land himself and Vorobiov the task of embalming the body. With Stalin seeing this as an essential step in establishing his grip on ultimate power, producing anything other than a perfect relic would see both men damned.
Working for months in a Laboratory underneath Lenin’s temporary mausoleum in Red Square, Zbarsky, Vorobiov and their team of assistants prepared the body and their secret chemical bathwater. A glass bath (to avoid contamination) was called for at very short notice, but when it was discovered no glass baths of an appropriate size existed anywhere in Russia, Dzerzhinsky got the foreman of a nearby factory to wake the whole town (it was a Saturday), come to work, and make Lenin a rubber bath instead. When Dzerzhinsky discovered that the scientists had been working flat out, eyes stinging from the formaldehyde and the lack of sleep, he drove a train carriage into Red Square, filled with soft beds and fine foods.’ (3)
The truth is then that Zbarsky was not really responsible for embalming Lenin at all, but rather he knew someone who could – the Ukrainian anatomist Vladimir Vorobiov – and introduced/advocated to the head of the OGPU (successor to the Cheka) Felix Dzerzhinsky for Vorobiov to be the one to embalm Lenin. It was only after Vorobiov was purged in 1937 by the NKVD (4) that Zbarsky modified the story of Lenin’s embalming to make it seem like he – Zbarsky – was the man responsible for the secret chemical mixture used to embalm Lenin. (5)
So thus, we can see that Zbarsky did not in fact ‘pickle Lenin’ but Vladimir Vorobiov did!
References
(1) https://slavaguide.com/en/blog/jewish-inventors-and-jewish-inventions
(2) https://picklinglenin.wordpress.com/the-characters/boris-zbarsky/
(3) https://picklinglenin.wordpress.com/the-story/ also see https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/theater/28embalmer.html
(4) https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/theater/28embalmer.html
(5) https://picklinglenin.wordpress.com/the-characters/boris-zbarsky/