Rahumäe

Rahumäe (red) district in Tallinn's Nõmme (yellow) district

Rahumäe (in German "Friedensberg") is a district ( Estonian asum ) of the Estonian capital Tallinn . It is located in the Nõmme district .

description

Houses on Pernauschen Street (Estonian: Pärnu maantee)

The city district has 2,978 inhabitants (as of May 1, 2010). Its area is 1.75 square kilometers. Rahumäe has remained one of the greenest and most natural residential areas in Tallinn to this day.

The wooded area was opened up at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries by the construction of the Rahumäe cemetery, which today covers an area of ​​29 hectares. The cemetery became one of the largest burial places in Estonia. More than 30,000 Estonians were buried there as early as the 1930s. The district is popularly known as the “city of the deceased” ( surnute linn ).

Later the cemetery gave its name to the entire Rahumäe district. The construction of the cemetery also brought about the settlement of industry. In addition to operations for the production of tombs, large printing works were built in Rahumäe.

Rahumäe has had its own train station since 1926, which is now served by the Estonian railway company Elektriraudtee . The large Tallinn shopping center Järve keskus is located in Rahumäe .

Rahumäe cemetery

Main entrance to the Rahumäe cemetery

The Rahumäe cemetery was inaugurated in November 1903. The reason was the lack of space in the Tallinn cemeteries near the city center.

The plans to build a cemetery in the wooded area on what was then Tallinn's outskirts went back to the end of the 19th century. The cemetery grounds were under the Tallinn parishes of St. John's Church , the St. Charles Church , the Holy Spirit Church and the Baptist church split. The site was expanded to the west in 1919 and to the east in 1928. In 1926 a separate section was added for the dead Tallinn firefighters. There is also a Swedish cemetery and a poor cemetery.

The cemetery area is surrounded by a curtain wall. In 1913, a chapel with two towers was inaugurated, mimicking the architecture of Tallinn's Charles Church. The plans came from Anton Uesson . The two bells were delivered from Germany. In 1932 a restrained, functionalist chapel of the parish of the Heiliggeist Church was built (architect Elmar Lohk ).

The cemetery has been under the supervision of the Estonian state since 1940. Among the thousands of tombs there are significant works of art of Estonian sepulchral art .

Numerous Estonian personalities have found their final resting place in the cemetery. They include the politician Julius Seljamaa (1883–1936), the writers Adalbert Kirschenberg (1905–1933), Jakob Mändmets (1871–1930), Jaan Oks (1884–1918), Juhan Jaik (1899–1948) and Jaan Kross ( 1920–2007), the educator Jakob Westholm (1877–1935), the film director Konstantin Märska (1896–1951), the photographer Georg Johannes Parikas (1880–1958), the Esperantist Jakob Rosenberg (1881–1937), the Evangelical Lutheran Archbishop Jaan Kiivit (1906–1971), the athlete Aleksander Klumberg (1899–1958), the artists Aleksander Tassa (1882–1955) and Natalie Mei (1900–1975), the artist twins Kristjan (1865–1943) and Paul Raud (1865 –1930) and the botanist Teodor Lippmaa (1892–1943).

The cemetery has been a place of honor since 1931 for the Estonians who perished in Tallinn on October 16, 1905 during the first Russian revolution . It is framed by the graves of some of those killed at the time. In 1959 a memorial by the sculptor Juhan Raudsepp was moved to the cemetery. The monument, created in 1931, originally stood in front of the Estonia Theater in downtown Tallinn. 94 people were killed and over 200 injured in the demonstration in Tallinn against tsarist rule. In 1969 parts of the complex were destroyed by Red Army soldiers . In 1974 the memorial was redesigned.

Seven Estonian policemen and soldiers are buried in another memorial in the cemetery, who were killed in the crackdown on the attempted communist coup against the then Estonian government on December 1, 1924.

Jewish Cemetery

Rahumäe Jewish Cemetery Chapel

The Jewish cemetery ( Juudi kalmistu ) adjoins the Rahumäe cemetery in the east . It was built in 1909. There are numerous tombstones with inscriptions in Hebrew , Yiddish , German and Russian on it . A wooden chapel from 1911 is maintained by the Tallinn Jewish Community .

The art historian and art collector Julius Genss (1887–1957) is buried in the cemetery. He had studied law in Tartu and art in Munich . The athlete Sara Teitelbaum (1910–1941) was also buried in Rahumäe . She was Estonian athletics champion 17 times and set 28 national records.

In 1970 a memorial for the victims of the German occupation of Estonia (1941–1944) was inaugurated in the cemetery. It represents a two-meter-high, unfinished pyramid. On a black granite stone, the "victims of fascism" are remembered in Russian and Hebrew.

literature

• Karl Laane: Tallinna kalmistud ["The Tallinn Cemeteries"]. Tallinn 2002, pp. 125-183 ( ISBN 9985-64-168-X )

Web links

Commons : Rahumäe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• History of Rahumäe (Estonian)
• Rahumäe Cemetery (Estonian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ http://eja.pri.ee/Religion/Uus%20synag1_es.html

Coordinates: 59 ° 23 '  N , 24 ° 42'  E