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

Lights around a sanctuary lamp on All Souls’ Day

properly have been called the Cemetery of Víziváros Residents. Its military section was opened in 1797. This is where the casualties who had died under the emperor’s flags in the War of Independence were buried, of whom the most distinguished were later reburied on the precincts of the cadet school in Hűvösvölgyi út. Another significant cemetery in use in largely the same period was called Tabán Cemetery, opened in 1796 to replace a small graveyard at the foot of Gellért Hill. What remained of the Tabán burial ground, which lay to east of today's Alkotás utca, was in a sad condition as early as the beginning of this century. Its site is now occupied by a sports facility and a park. This is where the Hungarian soldiers killed in the siege of 1849 were laid to rest as well as such prominent figures of the century as Benedek Virág or Gábor Döbrentei. The cemetery’s crucifix dating back to 1833 stands today by the side of the Szépvölgyi út church (the chronostichon on the cross refers to the person who installed it).

When these two, related, graveyards were full, the Németvölgyi út Cemetery took over their function, accepting the deceased from 1885 for the remarkably short period until the 1910s. A municipal decree ordered that it serve for all time as a cemetery of honour where monuments and soldiers’ tombs from closed-down graveyards can find a final resting place. It seems promises can turn to dust, too, as the site of the cemetery is now occupied by a hotel, a conference centre and a park. The park features an obelisk dedicated to the Soldiers of ’49 standing as it does above the actual site of the mass grave containing the anonymous dead. When it was closed down in 1963, relics

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