Merry Cemetery
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The Merry Cemetery (Template:Langx Script error: No such module "IPA"., Template:Langx) is a cemetery in the village of Săpânța, Maramureș County, Romania. It is famous for its brightly coloured tombstones with naïve paintings describing, in an original and poetic manner, the people who are buried there in addition to scenes from their lives. The Merry Cemetery became an open-air museum and a national tourist attraction. It has been listed as one of the Seven Wonders of Romania by Imperator Travel.[1]
The unusual feature of this cemetery is that it diverges from the prevalent belief, culturally shared within European societies, that views death as something indelibly solemn.
A collection of the epitaphs from the Merry Cemetery exists in a 2017 volume called Crucile de la Săpânța, compiled by author Roxana Mihalcea,[2] as well as in a photography book titled The Merry Cemetery of Sapanta by Peter Kayafas.[3]
The founder
The cemetery's origins are linked with the name of Stan Ioan Pătraș, a local artist who sculpted the first tombstone crosses. In 1935, Pătraș carved the first epitaph and, as of the 1960s, more than 800 of such oak wood crosses came into sight. The inscription on his tombstone cross says:
| Romanian
De cu tînăr copilaș Cîte zile am trăit Vai săraca lumea mea |
English
Since I was a little boy All along my life Oh, my poor World |
Humorous epitaphs
The cemetery is noted for featuring a large number of humorous epitaphs that generally poke fun at the interred person in a light-hearted way or reference a general trope about family relations. The following is an example of an epitaph wrote by a man in honour of his mother-in-law:
| Romanian:
Sub această cruce grea |
English:
Under this heavy cross |
Gallery
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The Merry Cemetery crosses in pale blue color
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The tombstone of Stan Ioan Pătraş (1908–1977), the creator of Merry Cemetery
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Short description of the life of a villager carved on the cross
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Profile of the Orthodox Church located near the Merry Cemetery
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Merry Cemetery crosses
See also
References
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External links
- Template:Find a Grave cemetery
- Photos of the Merry Cemetery
- The Merry Cemetery of Sapanta on Purple Martin Press
- Brandon's Photos of the Merry Cemetery
- More epitaphs and photosTemplate:Category handler[<span title="Script error: No such module "string".">usurped]Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". (in Romanian)
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