Csernus Lukács - Triff Zsigmond: The Cemeteries of Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

Mosaic by Ai^dár Kőrösfői Kriesch

IN A CUPOLA OF THE ARCADES

Pest, surgeon János Balassa, the head physician of the soldiers’ hospital during the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848^19, industrialist-inventor Ábrahám Ganz and Mihály Vörösmarty. However, events took a different turn. Fiumei út (later renamed Mező Imre út, though now Fiumei út once again) has not been broadened ever since. Nevertheless, in accordance with the decree, a drastic process began in the cemetery in which the graves whose rent had expired were eliminated; this process went on at a fast pace until October 1956. In 1953, graves and vaults on an area scheduled to be handed over to the Taurus Rubber Factory were destroyed.

A decree issued by the City Council on 4 October 1956 ordered that a National Pantheon be established in the cemetery. The decree restricted the allotment of burial grounds here to people of outstanding distinction in the field of politics, the sciences or the arts or in any other important field. And indeed, it was here that, two days later, the re-burial of the mortal remains of the rehabilitated László Rajk and his comrades took place in the presence of a huge crowd. The funeral service was a silent demonstration against the political system. The farewell address was delivered by prime minister Imre Nagy, himself to be executed within less than two years.

On grassroots initiative (under the aegis of the People’s Front) a committee was set up in 1968 and put in charge of the National Pantheon. It considered its task the protection of the monuments of artistic value and of the graves having survived elimination which belonged to peo14