Marshal Zhukov cremated and interred in the Kremlin Wall despite his family's request

Today is the birthday of Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov (1896-1974)

When Zhukov died, his family appealed to the country's supreme leadership to have his body committed to the earth, as the Marshal of Victory himself had wished, but in vain: he was cremated, and his ashes were interred within the Kremlin Wall. It would seem that when a man becomes a symbol, it is not only his memory that is nationalised but his body too, and he no longer belongs fully either to himself or to his family.