The Great Cemetery (; ) was formerly the principal

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

, established in 1773. It was the main burial ground of the

Baltic Germans Baltic Germans ( or , later ) are ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their resettlement in 1945 after the end of World War II, Baltic Germans have drastically decli ...

in Latvia. Extensive damage and removal of many headstones and graves by the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

authorities governing the

Latvian SSR The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Also known as the Latvian SSR, or Latvia) was a Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republic of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941, and then from 1944 until 1990. The Soviet occupation of the Bal ...

after 1945 led to the suspension of burials and the eventual conversion of the burial ground to a public

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

. Despite this, a significant number of old graves have survived. The 22-hectare (54 acres) property is currently owned by the Rīga City Council, located in the Vizdeme suburb of Rīga, and crossed by Senču street. It is somewhat impossible to accurately determine the exact number of interred due to damaged records, particularly by Soviet authorities. Despite damage throughout, combined with lack of tending to the property, many artistically valuable gravestones still survive, and reflect various artistic styles of their eras.

History

Between 1771 and 1772,

Catherine the Great Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...

, empress of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, decreed that no-one, regardless of their social standing or class origins, was to be buried in a church

crypt A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) ''wikt:crypta#Latin, crypta'' "Burial vault (tomb), vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, Sarcophagus, sarcophagi, or Relic, religiou ...

churchyard In Christian countries, a churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church (building), church, which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language and in both Scottish English and Ulster S ...

; all burials were to take place in the new cemeteries to be built throughout the entire Russian empire, which were to be located outside town boundaries. These measures were intended to overcome the congestion of urban church crypts and graveyards, and were prompted by a number of outbreaks of highly contagious diseases linked to inadequate burial practices in urban areas, especially the

black plague The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the list of epidemics, most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. ...

which had led to the Plague Riot in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

in 1771. Against this background the Great Cemetery in Riga was founded in 1773. It served as a burial ground for over 170 years for almost all Baltic Germans who died in the city between 1773 and 1944. Additionally, numerous Latvians of upper social status were buried there as well. The cemetery was divided into three section: Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox Christian. One of the first to be (re-)buried there was the founder of the city,

Albert of Riga Albert of Riga or Albert of Livonia ( – 17 January 1229) was the third Catholic Bishop of Riga in Livonia. As the Bishop of Livonia, in 1201, he founded Riga, the modern capital city of Latvia, and the city was later made a bishopric. The bu ...

, whose remains were exhumed from one of the city's main churches and transferred to the cemetery in 1773.

Final burials 1939–1944

Burials at the cemetery were drastically reduced after

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

forced transfer Forced displacement (also forced migration or forced relocation) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of perse ...

, under the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

, of tens of thousands of Baltic Germans from Latvia in late 1939 to occupied areas in western

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. Burials at the cemetery continued on a much smaller scale until 1944, principally among those Baltic Germans who had refused Hitler's call to leave the region.

Situation after 1944

Hundreds of

headstone A gravestone or tombstone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. A marker set at the head of the grave may be called a headstone. An especially old or elaborate stone slab may be called a funeral stele, stela, or slab. The u ...

s and

grave A grave is a location where a cadaver, dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is burial, buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of buria ...

s were removed or destroyed by the

authorities during the second

occupation of the Baltic states The occupation of the Baltic states was a period of annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the Soviet Union from 1940 until its Dissolution of the Soviet Union, dissolution in 1991. For a period of several years during World War II, Naz ...

. In 1957 the cemetery was closed completely for any further burials and began to fall into disrepair. In 1967 or 1969 the city council decided to bulldoze large sections of the cemetery in order to transform it into a public memorial park. The

Russian Orthodox The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

section of the cemetery, later named Pokrov Cemetery, is the only area which was not added to the territory of the Memorial Park and therefore was the only part to remain well preserved.

Protected monument status

In the 1970s, the architectural ensemble of the Great Cemetery Garden, together with the buildings, was included in the List of State Protected Monuments of the

. 12 grave monuments were included in the List of Art Monuments of the Latvian SSR, and 15 objects were included in the List of Historical Monuments. Today, the selection of monuments is based on the Order No. 128 of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia of 29 October 1998, which 16 historical, 24 art monuments and the ensemble of gardens and parks "Great Cemetery" with memorial buildings were recognized as historical monuments of national importance in the Great Cemetery. In the late 1990s, 19 chapels, 242 monuments, 58 gravestones, 66 decorative fences, and 16 memorial graves remained in the Great Cemetery. Many thousands of gravestones are located in the territory of the Improvement Department on Varoņu Street. After long discussions, in 2000 , the Finance Committee of the Riga City Council decided to allocate 13,262 LVL from the city reserve fund for the arrangement of the gravestone warehouse on Varoņu Street - for inventory, survey and evaluation, as well as for moving and paying for transportation work, as the warehouse contained approximately 14,000 gravestones, including those of historical and artistic value.

Present day

Interments include a significant number of Baltic German and Latvian graves and family plots, including a restored crypt built in 1777 and the graves of

Krišjānis Barons Krišjānis Barons (October 31, 1835 – March 8, 1923) was a Latvian writer who is known as the "father of the Daina (Latvia), dainas" (), largely thanks to his systematization of the Latvian folk song, folk songs, and his labour in preparing ...

and

Krišjānis Valdemārs Krišjānis Valdemārs (in Germanized spelling as Christian Waldemar or Woldemar) (2 December 1825 at Vecjunkuri in Ārlava parish (now Valdgale parish, Courland, Latvia) – 7 December 1891 in Moscow, Russia) was a writer, editor, Education, edu ...

, have survived the post-war destruction. However, many of these graves are in an abandoned or neglected condition. The cemetery temporarily closed on 8 October 2023 due to a storm causing 25 trees to be toppled, and a further 50 requiring assessment. Currently it holds an estimated 60 species of trees and shrubs, including some 39 introduced species. The city of Riga discussed exchanging St Peter's Church for the Great Cemetery so that the city can properly take over maintenance in 2008. In December 2023, an international design competition was publicized by the Latvian Association of Architects to "get creative ideas and proposals on how to respectfully preserve the burials of the Great Cemetery." Gunārs Nāgels, head of the Riga Monuments Agency, stated that "The Great Cemetery is and will remain a cemetery, but it is also a park, and will remain so. Given the people buried there, it can additionally function as a kind of a museum. The ancestors of many people in Riga lie in the Great Cemetery. In view of this, developing and improving the Great Cemetery is a very difficult topic, and with the competition, we hope to find creative and respectful solutions." The memorial park currently holds an estimated 60 species of trees and shrubs, including 39 introduced species

Notable interments

, founder of the city (his remains were transferred here in 1773) * Christoph Haberland, one of Riga's chief

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s *

Johann Christoph Brotze Johann Christoph Brotze (; 1 September 1742 – 4 August 1823) was a Renaissance humanism era German pedagogue, artist and ethnographer. Biography Brotze was born in Görlitz, Electorate of Saxony, into the family of a salt weigher. As a child, ...

, pedagogue and ethnographer *

, Latvian folklorist * Jānis Fridrihs Baumanis, Latvian architect * Andrejs Pumpurs, Latvian poet and writer. * Johann Daniel Felsko, architect of Riga from 1844 to 1879. * Jāzeps Grosvalds, Latvian painter. *

Kārlis Mīlenbahs Kārlis Mīlenbahs (his surname was formerly also written as Mühlenbach, Mühlenbachs, Mǖlenbachs or Mīlenbachs) (18 January 1853 in Courland, Russian Empire – 27 March 1916 in Võru, Livonia, Russian Empire) was the first native speaker o ...

, Latvian linguist and lexicographer. *

Wilhelm Ostwald Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald (; – 4 April 1932) was a Latvian chemist and philosopher. Ostwald is credited with being one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst and Svante Arrhenius. ...

, Baltic German chemist and Nobel laureate. * Heinrich Scheel, Baltic German architect. * Relatives of

Georg August Schweinfurth Georg August Schweinfurth (29 December 1836 – 19 September 1925) was a Baltic Germans, Baltic German botanist and ethnologist who explored East Central Africa. Life and explorations He was born at Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Emp ...

, Baltic German botanist and ethnographer, explorer of Africa and ethnologist (he himself is buried in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

). *

, leader of the Young Latvians movement. * George Armitstead,

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

of Riga from 1901 to 1912 * Reinhold Schmaeling, the chief architect of Riga from 1879 to 1915

References

Sources

History of the cemetery (in Latvian)

External links

Photos of memorial to German and Latvian pastors killed by communists in 1919 at sites-of-memory.de {{Riga Cityscape Baltic-German culture Cemeteries in Riga Lutheran cemeteries in Latvia 18th century in Latvia Monuments and memorials in Latvia Cemetery vandalism and desecration 1773 establishments in the Russian Empire Cemeteries established in the 1770s