Sergei Medvedev on the Secret Burial of Plisetskaya's Remains in Moscow

Historian and writer Sergei Medvedev writes about a mysterious ceremony held on April 16 at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery, where the remains of legendary ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and composer Rodion Shchedrin were buried under heightened secrecy. Medvedev treats this incident as the use of human bodies to serve political purposes.

Historian and writer Sergei Medvedev raises harsh questions regarding a ceremony held on April 16 in Moscow, during which Russian authorities buried the remains of legendary ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and composer Rodion Shchedrin at Novodevichy Cemetery under heightened secrecy.

According to Medvedev, the event was shameful and peculiar, conducted largely beyond public view. In the writer's assessment, such conduct reflects the Russian regime's treatment of cultural heritage and human dignity even after death — the remains of the deceased are used to reinforce state narratives.

Plisetskaya, who died in 2015 in Munich, was one of the greatest ballerinas of the twentieth century. She spent her final years outside Russia, and her relationship with her homeland's authorities was complicated. Shchedrin, her husband, was still alive at the time of the ceremony, and the disregard for his wishes raises ethical questions.

Medvedev sees in this incident a broader pattern he calls trafficking in human remains — a way in which the Russian state appropriates the legacy and remains of cultural figures regardless of the actual wishes of the deceased or their loved ones. This, in the author's view, is part of a larger propaganda effort through which the Kremlin regime seeks to establish historical legitimacy for itself.