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

er side of the square at what is now Molnár utca was the plague cemetery. In the late 18th century new cemeteries were opened outside the city walls. One was in the area be­tween today’s Calvinist Church in Kálvin tér and Erkel ut­ca (there had been a Turkish cemetery in this location be­tween the late 16th and the late 17th centuries) and an­other in the spot where the National Museum stands to­day. Besides these, there were innumerable smaller grave­yards wedged in between houses inside or along the city walls. In Józsefváros (Joseph Town) in an area between what are now Dugonics utca and Kálvária tér was the old Józsefváros Cemetery, while Terézváros (Theresa Town) Cemetery lay between today’s Jókai utca and Teréz körút. There are no recorded data available on the number of dead buried in the various cemeteries, as it was not en­tered into church registers in which particular cemetery the deceased were interred. A reverend Nedeczky, prebend of the Belváros Church, did in fact record the location of the individual funeral services as well as the particulars of the deceased from 1699 onwards. He mentions two large ce­meteries on the Pest side, one by the name of Coeme- terium ante portám superiorem (the cemetery by the up­per gate), which probably refers to the cemetery by the Vác Gate; the other under the denomination Coemeterium ante portám inferiorem (the cemetery by the nether gate), a likely reference to the Kecskemét Gate. It was in the 1790s that Pest’s first central graveyard called Váci út Cemetery was opened in an area flanked on its three sides by Váci út, Taksony utca and Lehel út. This was where for example the eminent botanist Pál Kitaibel was buried. As testified to by etchings surviving from the period, the cemetery featured fine vaults and artistic mon­uments. Bodies were laid to rest in the vaults long after in­terment of the dead was terminated here in 1849. That a military cemetery is also likely to have been here is sug­gested by the fact that when the foundations of the Western Railway Station and the apartment blocks around it were being laid, workers sold military decorations and the copper buttons of tunics for a few pennies. Váci út Cemetery was permanently eliminated around 1910. In the early part of the 19th century (around 1825), new cemeteries were opened in Ferencváros (Francis Town) and Józsefváros. The new Ferencváros Cemetery is bor­dered by Haller tér, Mester utca, Gát utca and Vágóhíd ut­ca on its four sides. It is here that the legendary gypsy mu­sician János Bihari was interred in 1827. A description of the cemetery was given by Mór Jókai in his novel És mégis mozog a föld (The Earth Mooes), and the eminent histo­8

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