Smolensky Cemetery () is the oldest continuously operating

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 ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

.The Encyclopaedia of St. Petersburg
It occupies a rectangular parcel in the western part of

Vasilievsky Island Vasilyevsky Island (, Vasilyevsky Ostrov, V.O.) is an island in St. Petersburg, Russia, bordered by the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva Rivers (in the delta of the Neva River) in the south and northeast, and by Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finl ...

, on the bank of the small Smolenka River, and is divided into the Orthodox,

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

, and

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

n sections.

Orthodox cemetery

The Orthodox cemetery is known to have existed in 1738, but lacked official recognition until 1758. Not only was it far removed from the city center, but it was also damp, necessitating the construction of drainage canals. The cemetery has two churches. The older church is dedicated to the Theotokos of Smolensk. The azure-painted Neoclassical building was erected between 1786 and 1790. The

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

closed the church for worship between 1940 and 1946. The newer (1904), under repair, is dedicated to the

Resurrection of Christ The resurrection of Jesus () is Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, starting—or restoring—his exalted life as Christ and Lord. According to the New Testament writing, Jesus w ...

. It is the only example of

Naryshkin Baroque Naryshkin Baroque, also referred to as Moscow Baroque or Muscovite Baroque, is a particular style of Baroque architecture and decoration that was fashionable in Moscow from the late 17th century into the early 18th century. In the late 17th centur ...

in Saint Petersburg. The church used to be known for its dazzling

Neo-Baroque Neo-Baroque may refer to: * Neo-Baroque music * Neo-Baroque painting, a painting style used by Christo Coetzee and others *Baroque Revival architecture * Neo-Baroque film *the Organ reform movement The Organ Reform Movement or ''Orgelbewegung'' ...

icon screen with a set of

Vasnetsov Vasnetsov () is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Apollinary Vasnetsov (1856–1933), Russian painter * Viktor Vasnetsov (1848–1926), Russian painter {{surname, Vasnetsov Russian-language surnames ...

icons. Other buildings on the grounds included the first wooden church, that of

Michael the Archangel Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel and the warrior of God in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second- ...

(destroyed by the ), then rebuilt in stone as a Church in honor of the Holy Life-giving Trinity (1831–1932) and an

almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) is charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the Middle Ages. They were often built for the poor of a locality, for those who had held ce ...

Luigi Rusca Luigi Rusca (Алоизий Иванович Руска; 1762–1822) was a Neoclassical architecture, Neoclassical architect from Ticino who worked in Russia, Ukraine and Estonia between 1783 and 1818. Life and career Rusca was apprenticed to ...

. The cemetery became a traditional burial place for the professors of the

Imperial Academy of Arts The Imperial Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov, the founder of the Imperial Moscow University, under the name ''Academy of th ...

(founded in 1757) and of

St. Petersburg University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

(founded in 1724) – both sited on Vasilievsky Island.The cemeteries of St. Petersburg
/ref> Up to 800,000 people are estimated to have been interred at the Smolensky Cemetery before the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

of 1917, making it the largest 19th-century cemetery of Saint Petersburg. Interments included: *

Xenia of Saint Petersburg Xenia of St. Petersburg (Russian language, Russian: Святая блаженная Ксения Петербургская, born as ''Xenia Grigoryevna Petrova'' (Russian language, Russian: Ксения Григорьевна Петрова), ...

(died ), the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

of the city; her tomb is marked by a chapel. *

Vasily Trediakovsky Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky (; – ) was a Russian poet, essayist and playwright who helped lay the foundations of classical Russian literature. Biography The son of a poor priest, Trediakovsky became the first Russian commoner to rec ...

(1769) * Mikhail Kozlovsky (1802) *

Andreyan Zakharov Andreyan Zakharov (; 19 August 1761 – 8 September 1811) was a Russian architect and representative of the Empire style. His designs also alternated neoclassicism with eclecticism.George Heard Hamilton. ''The Art and Architecture of Russia''. Yale ...

(1811) * Elisabeth Kulmann (1825, later moved to the

Tikhvin Cemetery Tikhvin Cemetery () is a historic cemetery in the centre of Saint Petersburg. It is part of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and is one of four cemeteries in the complex. Since 1932 it has been part of the , which refers to it as the Necropolis of the ...

) * Dmitry Bortniansky (1825) * Ivan Martos (1835) *

Taras Shevchenko Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (; ; 9 March 1814 – 10 March 1861) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, folklorist, and ethnographer. He was a fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts and a member of the Brotherhood o ...

(1861, reburied on Chernecha Hora near

Kaniv Kaniv (, ) is a city in Cherkasy Raion, Cherkasy Oblast, central Ukraine. The city rests on the Dnieper River, and is one of the main inland river ports on the Dnieper. It is an urban hromada of Ukraine. Population: Kaniv is a historical tow ...

) * Nikolay Ustryalov (1870) *

Vasily Karatygin Vasily Andreevich Karatygin () (–-) was a leading actor of Russian Romanticism. Karatygin joined the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg in 1820 and moved to the Alexandrine Theatre in 1832. He particularly excelled in the numerous productions of ...

(1880) * Nikolay Zinin (1880) *

Ivan Kramskoi Ivan Nikolayevich Kramskoi (; – ) was a Russian Realist painter and art critic. One of the most prominent artisans during Tsar Alexander II's reign, he is remembered as co-founding member and public frontman of the Peredvizhniki movement ...

(1887) *

Alexander Mozhaysky file:Mozhajskij marka SSSR 1963.jpg, Mozhaysky, identified as the "Creator of world's first airplane", on a 1963 Soviet postal stamp. Alexander Fedorovich Mozhaysky (also transliterated as Mozhayski, Mozhayskii and Mozhayskiy; ) ( – ) was ...

(1890) *

Ivan Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (; – ) was a Russian landscape painter and graphic artist, one of the most famous landscape painters of the post-reform era, and the creator of the iconic painting '' Morning in a Pine Forest''. He was an academician ...

(1898) *

Dmitry Gamov Dmitry Ivanovich Gamov (; 30 June 1834, Vyhovka village, Odoevsky uyezd, Tulskaya province – 22 May 1903, Moscow) was a Russian general and explorer of the eastern coast of Korean peninsula. The Gamov and Gamov peninsula in Posyet Bay were ...

(1903) *

Arkhip Kuindzhi Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi ( ; ; – ) was a Russian landscape painter. Date of birth Kuindzhi's exact date of birth is not known. Although it was believed that he was born in 1842, the latest discoveries in archives suggest that he was born i ...

(1910) * Nikolay Beketov (1911) * Pyotr Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky (1914) *

Leonid Pozen Leonid Vladimirovitch Pozen (born February 26, 1849, Obolon, Poltava Oblast, Obolon, Poltava Oblast — January 8, 1921, Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg)) was a Russians, Russo-Ukrainians, Ukrainian sculptor and politician. Most of his works w ...

(1921) *

Alexander Blok Alexander Alexandrovich Blok ( rus, Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Бло́к, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈblok, a=Ru-Alyeksandr Alyeksandrovich Blok.oga; 7 August 1921) was a Russian lyrical poet, writer, publ ...

(1921) *

Alexander Friedmann Alexander Alexandrovich Friedmann (also spelled Friedman or Fridman; ; ; – September 16, 1925) was a Russian and Soviet physicist and mathematician. He originated the pioneering theory that the universe is expanding, governed by a set of eq ...

(1925) *

Fyodor Sologub Fyodor Sologub (, born Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov, , also known as Theodor Sologub; – 5 December 1927) was a Russian Symbolist poet, novelist, translator, playwright and essayist. He was the first writer to introduce the morbid, pessimistic e ...

(1927) * Fyodor Uspensky (1928) * Nikolay Likhachyov (1936) * Boris Piotrovsky (1990) *

Eduard Khil Eduard Anatolyevich Khil (; 4 September 1934 – 4 June 2012), often anglicized as Edward Hill, was a Russian baritone singer. Khil became known to international audiences in 2010, when a 1976 clip of him singing a non-lexical vocable versio ...

(2012) After the

the local authorities announced plans to demolish the cemetery by 1937, replacing it with a public garden "for

sanitation Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems ...

's sake".The History of Smolensky Orthodox Cemetery
/ref> Entire tombs or their sculptural details were moved to museums in order to preserve them. The remains of Kozlovsky, Zakharov, Martos, Bortniansky, Karatygin, Kramskoi, Shishkin and Kuindzhi were transferred to the

Alexander Nevsky Lavra Saint Alexander Nevsky Lavra or Saint Alexander Nevsky Monastery was founded by Peter I of Russia in 1710 at the eastern end of the Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg, in the belief that this was the site of the Neva Battle in 1240 when Alexa ...

. Alexander Blok was the last to be reburied – in 1944. The outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

put the redevelopment plans on hold. The cemetery eventually reopened for select burials in the early 1980s.

Lutheran cemetery

The Lutheran cemetery on

Dekabristov Island Dekabristov Island (), known prior to 1926 as Goloday Island (остров Голодай – possibly a corruption of a British merchant name Halliday; the original name in ) is an island in Vasileostrovsky District of Saint Petersburg, Russia, ...

is known to have existed in 1747. The minor Smolenka River separates it from the eponymous Orthodox cemetery. This cemetery contained the burials of the parishioners of the

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Katarina The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Catherine (, , ) is an Evangelical Lutheran church located at Malaya Konyushnaya Ulitsa 1 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The building was built in 1885. As it was built by and for Swedish expatriates in S ...

and the Catholic Church of Saint Catherine, including

Leonhard Euler Leonhard Euler ( ; ; ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential ...

, Germain Henri Hess,

José de Ribas José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced very differently in each of the two languages: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , ...

Vicente Martín y Soler Anastasio Martín Ignacio Vicente Tadeo Francisco Pellegrin Martín y Soler (2 May 175430 January or 10 February 1806) was a Spanish composer of opera and ballet. Although relatively obscure now, in his own day he was compared favorably with his ...

, Vasily Dokuchayev,

Moritz von Jacobi Moritz Hermann von Jacobi (; 21 September 1801 – 10 March 1874), also known as Boris Semyonovich Yakobi (), was a German-Russian electrical engineer and physicist. Motors Jacobi began to study magnetic motors in 1834. In 1835 moved to Dorpat ...

Agustín de Betancourt Agustín de Betancourt y Molina (; ; 1 February 1758 – 24 July 1824) was a Spanish engineer, who worked in Spain, France and Russia. His work ranged from steam engines and balloons to structural engineering and urban planning. As an educator, ...

Jean-François Thomas de Thomon Jean-François Thomas de Thomon ( – ) was a French neoclassical architect who worked in Eastern Europe in 1791–1813. Thomas de Thomon was responsible for the design of Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns on the spit of V ...

Xavier de Maistre Xavier de Maistre (; 10 October 1763 – 12 June 1852) of Savoy (then part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia) was a French military man and author. The younger brother of Joseph de Maistre, a noted philosopher and counter-revolutionary, X ...

Ludvig Nobel Ludvig Immanuel Nobel ( ; ; ; 27 July 1831 – 12 April 1888) was a Swedish-Russian engineer, a noted businessman and a humanitarian. One of the most prominent members of the Nobel family, he was the son of Immanuel Nobel (also an engineering pi ...

Georg Friedrich Parrot Georg Friedrich Parrot (15 July 1767 – 8 July 1852) was a German scientist, the first Rector (academia), rector of the University of Tartu, Imperial University of Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia) in what was then the Governorate of Livonia of the ...

Karl Nesselrode Karl Robert Reichsgraf von Nesselrode-Ehreshoven, also known as Charles de Nesselrode (; 14 December 1780 – 23 March 1862), was a Foreign policy of the Russian Empire, Russian diplomat of German nobility, German noble descent. For 40 years ( ...

, and Vladimir Lamsdorf. In the 20th century, several parts of the cemetery were destroyed; the remains of Euler and Betancourt were reburied in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. File:Могила Нессельроде К.В..jpg, The grave of

File:Могила Купфера А.Я..jpg, The grave of

Adolph Theodor Kupffer Adolph Theodor Kupffer Fellows of the Royal Society, ForMemRS (17 January 1799 Jelgava – 4 June 1865) was a Baltic German (subject of Russian Empire) chemist, and physicist. He founded the Depot of Standard Weights and Measures, and the main ph ...

File:Могила Литке Ф.Н..jpg, The grave of Count Friedrich Michael Lütke File:Могила Де Рибаса И.М..jpg, The grave of

Armenian cemetery

The Armenian section of the cemetery has a church consecrated in 1797. The architect was probably Georg Veldten.

In literature

An annual mourning ceremony accompanied by a picnic feast is recorded in

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August 1802 – 15 October 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L. Landon's writings are emblematic of the transition from Romanticism to Victorian literature. Her first major b ...

's poem ''Cemetery of the Smolensko Church'' of 1836.

References

External links