How does this artwork elucidate its The Klement Gottwald Mausoleum?
After World War II the renewal of the Monument commenced. Works also began on the new building, to be used as a tribute to the resistance against Nazism. However, the events of February 1948 led to the monument being used in new ways. Vigorous oppression of the legionary tradition commenced in 1950, and following a decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the Monument of Liberation was converted into a proletariat pantheon, thus changing its ideological function. In 1953 the Central Committee decided to establish the Klement Gottwald Mausoleum in the Monument, which remained there until 1962.
The original layout placed a sarcophagus in the Main Hall, as the place where President T. G. Masaryk was to be buried. He eventually rejected the plan, and so did his family after his death. From 1953 to 1962 this area was rebuilt into the Klement Gottwald Mausoleum. The Minister of National Defence and Gottwald's son-in-law Alexej Čepička was in charge of preparatory works for the conversion. The examples came from Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow and the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum in Sofia. The Mausoleum included technical facilities. The construction work also involved the son of the Monument's key architect, Jan Zázvorka Jr., a film architect.
Klement Gottwald's body was exhibited in the centre of the Mausoleum in a glazed sarcophagus. The lid had built-in lights with small mirrors. The body was moved in and out of the underground laboratory by a vibration-free telescopic device. The embalmed body was dressed in the blue general's uniform of the Head Commander of Czechoslovak armies. In 1958 it was changed to civilian attire.
The technical facilities for the Klement Gottwald Mausoleum were built in the underground premises of the Monument. The construction of the underground premises was completed in October 1953 and its original design lasted until Klement Gottwald's cremation in 1962 when the equipment was removed. The only elements of the original design to have been preserved are the control room and the ground plan for the laboratory.
cremation Moscow Sofia Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Klement Gottwald Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum sarcophagus Alexej Čepička Lenin's Mausoleum World War II Czech T. G. Masaryk legionary tradition World War I Czechoslovakia Nazi Czechoslovak