10 great people whose graves their admirers will never be able to visit

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

To bring flowers to the resting place of an idol, to pay tribute to the memory of a departed genius, by silent at the tombstone - sometimes it is impossible, because the one who is worshiped by millions does not have a grave - and on the other hand, the whole globe becomes it. Why does the great make such a decision - to turn to dust and be scattered in the wind?

1. Isaac Asimov

The American science fiction writer was born in 1920 in the Smolensk province and at first bore the name Isaak Yudovich Azimov. At the age of three, he moved with his parents to the United States - by his own admission, he was transported "in a suitcase." Asimov was able to publish his first story at the age of 19, and in just his literary career, he published about five hundred books. Almost all of them compiled the so-called "History of the Future" - a chronology of upcoming events for mankind, described in science fiction works. Thanks to Azimov, the terms "robotics", "psychohistory" appeared, he is also the author of three famous laws of robotics. The short story "The Coming of Night" - about a planet where night fell once every 2049 years - was voted 1968 the best science fiction story ever written by the American Science Fiction Association.

Despite the fact that Azimov's parents belonged to the Orthodox, he himself considered himself an atheist. Isaac Asimov died at the age of 72 from AIDS, having contracted a blood transfusion during surgery nine years earlier. The writer learned about his illness three years before his death, but this information was made public only in 2002. According to Asimov's will, his body was cremated, and the ashes were scattered.

2. Arkady Strugatsky

One of the members of the national duet of science fiction writers, Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky was born in 1925 in Batumi. During the war, the family of the future writer ended up in besieged Leningrad, the father of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky died during the evacuation from the besieged city. After the war, Arkady was educated as a translator from Japanese and English, worked in his specialty, taught, and in the fifties of the last century devoted himself to writing works of art. The first experience of Strugatsky's literary work took place in 1946, it was the story "How Kang died". During the joint work of the brothers, three dozen novels and stories in the genre of science and social fiction, collections of stories, and several plays were written. Arkady Strugatsky wrote several of his own books, including under the pseudonym S. Yaroslavtsev.

The eldest of the Strugatsky brothers died in 1991 from liver cancer. According to his will, after the cremation, the body was scattered over the Ryazan highway from a helicopter in the presence of six witnesses.

3. Boris Strugatsky

The younger brother of Arkady Strugatsky, Boris, was born in 1933, graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of Leningrad State University, became an astronomer, worked at the Pulkovo Observatory - continuing to do space research even when the fame of the Strugatsky brothers thundered throughout the Soviet Union.

In 2001, Boris Strugatsky wrote "Commentary on the past," the history of the creation of the brothers' works, included in the complete collection of their works.

After the death of his brother, Boris Strugatsky wrote two of his own novels, both under the pseudonym of S. Vititsky. The writer died in 2012 from lymphosarcoma. A year later, his wife, Adelaide Karpelyuk, also died. According to Strugatsky's will, his ashes were scattered along with the ashes of his wife in April 2014 over the Pulkovo Heights.

4. Albert Einstein

The great theoretical physicist was born in 1879 in Germany. Among the many achievements of Einstein in science - the creation of several physical theories, the development and popularization of new concepts of physics, the protection of the rights and civil liberties of different categories of people: in the middle of the century, such an authority as Einstein, by his appearance at a court hearing, sometimes achieved the desired result.

Einstein's religious views are controversial, but he himself considered himself an agnostic, while proclaiming a belief in a pantheistic god, and not like a man. Until the age of twelve, by his own admission, Einstein was deeply religious, but after that faith was replaced by skepticism and free-thinking - the scientist himself linked this with the knowledge that was revealed to him about the structure of the world.

After writing his will, Einstein added - "I have completed my task on Earth." He died in 1955 at Princeton of an aortic aneurysm. It is believed that before his death, he uttered a few words in his native language - in German, but the nurse who heard them did not know the language and could not remember the last words of the genius. The scientist's grave does not exist - his body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered.

5. Indira Gandhi

A politician, public figure and the only female prime minister in Indian history, she was born in 1917 to Jawaharlal Nehru, a fighter for Indian independence. Indira studied at the People's University of India, later continuing her education at Oxford. At the age of twenty-five, she became the wife of Feroz Gandhi. It is noteworthy that no family ties connected her with another politician and her compatriot Mahatma Gandhi, although they were familiar with each other.

Indira Gandhi's government led India to economic growth, industrial development and the economy, but some measures, including the forced sterilization of women and men to control the demographic situation, were received negatively.

Indira Gandhi was killed in 1984 by her own bodyguard mercenaries on her way to interview Peter Ustinov. The body was cremated in accordance with Hindu customs, and the ashes were scattered over the Himalayas - such was the will of Gandhi.

6. Lilya Brick

Mayakovsky's muse and friend of many of her contemporaries, the owner of the salon, an indispensable component of the cultural life of the Silver Age - Lilya Kagan was born in 1891. At twenty-one, she married Osip Brik, who became Lily's loyal companion throughout their controversial marriage. Brik met Mayakovsky in 1915, and the day of the first meeting in the poet's autobiography is marked as "the happiest date."

The "Triple Alliance" with Mayakovsky, and then with others, has excited and continues to excite the public for decades. This, like the worship of Mayakovsky, communication with the very color of the creative intelligentsia, and rumors about working for the Soviet special services, gave Lilya Brik a special charisma. According to Yves Saint Laurent, Lilya Brique was one of three women (besides Marlene Dietrich and Catherine Deneuve) who was able to be elegant "out of fashion."

She died at the age of 87, having made the decision to voluntarily pass away after a hip fracture. The ashes were scattered in the suburbs, most likely near Zvenigorod.

7. Bernard Shaw

The Irish playwright, second only to Shakespeare in popularity, lived a long life that combined Victorian traditions, English theater reforms and world cinema. In 1939, Bernard Shaw won an Oscar for the screenplay of Pygmalion. He also won the Nobel Prize in Literature - this happened fourteen years earlier. Shaw began his path in literature by writing novels - but they did not receive recognition, and then in 1885 he took up the first play - "The Widower's House", which was staged on the stage of the Royal Theater in London. The show actively promoted vegetarianism, criticized school education - especially physical punishment.

After Shaw's death in 1950, according to his will, the body was cremated, and the ashes were scattered simultaneously with the ashes of his wife, Charlotte Payne-Townshend.

8. Alfred Hitchcock

"King of Horrors" Alfred Hitchcock spent the first half of his life in England, and in 1939, at the age of forty, moved to the United States. At the film studio, he first appeared in 1920 as an electrician, and in 1925 he directed the first film "The Pleasure Garden" as a director. Hitchcock brought the phenomenon of suspense to the world cinema - a feeling of anxiety, a premonition of something terrible, fear of the unknown. It is interesting that the great master of horror himself was prone to fear: he was prone to ovophobia - the fear of eggs and everything that had an oval shape.

Hitchcock considered himself Catholic, and yet bequeathed after his death to scatter the ashes over the Pacific Ocean, which was done in 1980.

9. Marlon Brando

From the day Tennessee Williams uttered the phrase "I found my Stanley Kowalski," Brando's stellar career began. The role in the famous play "A Streetcar Named Desire", and then in the film of the same name, made the young actor from Omaha, Nebraska, in demand among filmmakers and praised by the audience. Brando has set landmarks for other Hollywood actors, starring in the films Julius Caesar, The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris and several dozen others. Brando was married numerous times and had 11 children, three of whom were adopted. In his declining years, Brando became very fat and died in 2004 from respiratory failure.

Brando was considered a difficult person to communicate, accused of arrogance and megalomania. He himself considered actor Jack Nicholson to be his real friend. Another person close to Brando, actor Wally Cox, bequeathed after his death to scatter his ashes over the sea, and Marlon, in whose hands the urn was, fulfilled the will of his friend, but kept some of the ashes for himself. After the death of Brando himself, according to his last will, his ashes were scattered partly over Tahiti, partly - along with the ashes of Cox - over Death Valley in California.

10. George Harrison

One of the legendary Beatles was born in 1943 into a Catholic family. Younger than John Lennon and Paul McCartney, at first he was perceived by them as a child, but his good guitar skills, as well as a reserved character soon brought him not only the authority of the band members, but also the attention of millions of fans. In the sixties, Harrison embraced Hinduism and turned to the cult. Krishna. Continuing his musical career, he combined it with a constant spiritual search.

George Harrison was diagnosed with lung cancer and brain cancer and died in 2001. The cremation was carried out on the same day - according to the traditions of the Hindus. Also based on Harrison's religion, his ashes were scattered over river Ganges at its confluence with the Yamuna.