Gaistor Cemetery (Bratislava)
The Gaistor Cemetery ( Slovak Cintorín pri Kozej bráne , Hungarian Kecske-kapui evangelikus temető ) is the former Evangelical cemetery of the city of Pressburg (now Bratislava).
history
The Gaisthore Evangelical Cemetery, which is now a listed building , was laid out in 1783. This cemetery was already the successor cemetery of the Protestant "Michelsfreythoff" (in front of the Michaelerthore), which originally came from the 16th century. When the Holy Trinity Church was built on the site of this old cemetery in 1717 , the Protestant cemetery was moved to Konventgasse, which was not yet built on at the time. However, this extended cemetery soon proved to be too small.
On November 25, 1762, the provisional inspector of the Pressburg Evangelical Church Congregation, Johann (I.) Jeszenák, reported in a convention meeting that he had bought the Schuster'schen Garden between the churchyard and the Kochmeister'schen Grund in order to make it available to the community put. The purchase had become necessary because the old cemetery was too small and could be enlarged by the Schuster'schen garden. In gratitude for this, the community left the Kueffstein crypt to the Jeszenák family as the family members' hereditary burial .
For reasons of hygiene, Emperor Joseph II ordered cemeteries inside the cities to be closed and new ones to be built outside of built-up areas. The evangelical congregation in Pressburg was also looking for a suitable piece of land, which they finally found outside of the fortifications of the time near the Gaistores, which led to the Little Carpathians .
After 1918, and especially after 1945, the cemetery changed its character. During this time important Slovaks were buried here, the number of graves with Slovak gravestones increased rapidly during this time.
Many personalities of the Protestant Pressburg found their last dignified resting place here - over generations. According to conservative estimates, about twenty thousand people were buried between the opening of the cemetery and 1950, when the cemetery was closed to burials. Today around 4,000 graves can still be found here.
After 1950 people were only allowed to be buried in this cemetery with special permission. Although the cemetery is now a listed building, many graves of important personalities are in poor condition. Many gravestones, some of which were designed by well-known sculptors (e.g. Alois Rigele ), urgently need to be restored.
Today the Gaistor Cemetery is registered in the " Directory of National Cultural Monuments " of the Slovak Republic ([Národná kultúrna pamiatka SR]) under the number 101-355 / 1. Even at the end of the communist rule , at the end of the 1980s, the rulers at the time made serious efforts to level all the graves in the cemetery, to destroy the old tombstones and to convert the entire area of the cemetery into a park. At that time there was a particular interest in hiding the German and Hungarian past of the city - of which the grave inscriptions of this divine arbor mainly bear witness. Because it is the cemeteries that bear witness to a very special degree about the ethnicity and ethnic composition of the inhabitants of a place or city. Many gravestones with German or Hungarian epitaphs were therefore removed and destroyed in the time of the 'people 's democracy ' in what was then Czecho-Slovakia .
Buildings
church
In 1868 a funeral chapel was built on the Palisadenweg instead of an older building, which was located next to the former main entrance, according to plans by the architect Ignaz Feigler the Elder. J. erected. The Puritan facade with two pilasters and a rose window above the entrance was built according to the principles of Protestantism. It is reminiscent of the facade designed by the same architect of the Capuchin Church in the center of Pressburg , consecrated to St. Stephen of Hungary . When burials were no longer allowed in the cemetery from 1950, the little church was only used very rarely. In 1976 the Baptist Congregation bought it and rebuilt the church for their own religious needs. The church is used by the Baptists to the present day.
Morgue
The also by Ignaz Feiger d. J. built morgue next to the former main entrance was found to be "worthless" by the communist rulers at the time and demolished in the 1960s.
Selection of the personalities buried here
Jakob Glatz (* 1776, † 1831), ev.-luth. Preacher and professor of theology in Vienna
Wilhelm Josef Jarius (* 1772, † 1843), Evangelical Lutheran preacher
Johann Christian Tremmel (* 1773, † 1845), Protestant Lutheran preacher
Johann Jeszenák de Kiralyfia (* 1800, † 1849), politician, Hungarian magnate
Paul Rázga (* 1798, † 1849), Protestant Lutheran preacher
Karl Friedrich Wigand the Elder Ä. (* 1781, † 1849), printer in Pressburg
Tobias Gottfried Schröer (* 1791, † 1850), literary scholar and professor at the Evangelical Lyceum
Franz Samuel Stromszky (* 1792, † 1861), Evangelical Lutheran pastor and superintendent
Gustav Heckenast (* 1811, † 1878), bookseller and printer
Carl August Raabe (* 1804, † 1878), Protestant Lutheran preacher
Ludwig Geduly (* 1815, † 1890), Protestant Lutheran preacher and superintendent
Karl Friedrich Wigand the Elder J. (* 1817, † 1890), printer in Pressburg
Fritz Wowy (* 1895, † 1917), Imperial and Royal Fliegeroberleutnant
Carl Grüneberg (* 1843, † 1918), manufacturer
Ján Levoslav Bella (* 1843, † 1936), Slovak composer
Georg von Schulpe (* 1867, † 1936), writer and social reformer
Lajos Rajter (* 1880, † 1945), Regens Chori of the Evangelical Church Community AB and father of the conductor Ľudovít Rajter
Carl Eugen Schmidt (* 1865, † 1948), theologian and senior of the German Evangelical Church Community AB in Preßburg
Heinrich Pröhle (* 1870, † 1950), Protestant Lutheran theologian
Dr. Gustáv Szamák (* 1889, † 1950), surgeon and chief physician of the deaconess home in Pressburg
Wilhelm Rátz (* 1882, † 1952), Evangelical Lutheran pastor
Christian Ludwig (architect) (* 1901, † 1967 in Linz), architect
literature
- CESchmidt / S. Markusovßky / G. Ebner: History of the Evangelical Church Community AB zu Preßburg (2 vol.), Pozsony 1906
- Evanjelická encyklopédia Slovenska [Slovak; "Evangelical Encyclopedia of Slovakia"], Bratislava 2001 ISBN
- Viera Obuchová - Štefan Holčík: Cintorín pri Kozej bráne [Slovak; “The Gaistor Cemetery”], Andrej Marenčin, Vydavateľstvo PT, Bratislava 2006 ISBN 80-88912-89-X
- Anton Klipp: Two graves on the Gaistor cemetery in Pressburg in Carpathian Yearbook Stuttgart 2016, p. 85ff; ISBN 978-80-8175-006-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ cit. at Schrödl: History of the Evangelical Church Community AB, Vol. I., pp. 357–358.
- ^ A b Anton Klipp: Two graves on the Gaistor cemetery in Preßburg, in Carpathian Yearbook Stuttgart 2016, p. 85ff
- ^ Christian Ludwig was expelled from Pressburg as a German based on the Beneš decrees . He lived in Linz , where he died in 1967. His remains were only transferred to the Gaistor cemetery after the fall of the Wall in 2004 and buried in the family crypt.