Romania’s Merry Cemetery Celebrates Life and Not Death
Where the dead talk to each other and to us
My partner Rebecca and I spent last fall in Romania. I was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of West in Timișoara. Rebecca, fresh from two years of Romanian language Duolingo work, helped us communicate with Romanians as we traveled around this beautiful country. This is one of our travel stories.
“Are you comfortable in cemeteries?” asked Sergiu Dănilă, our Romanian guide.
We said we live across the street from one and walk through it to remind ourselves we’re not ready for permanent residence.
“On our next trip, we should go to the Maramureș region and see the Merry Cemetery of Săpănta,” he replied.
“Why is it called Merry?” we asked. “That’s why you must go and see it. Seeing the cemetery is the only way you will understand why it is called Merry.”
So with Sergiu as our guide, we went to see it. And he was right.
The Cemetery
The Maramureș region is tucked into the northwest corner of Romania. Săpănta is a village of 3500 residents a few miles from Ukraine. On the December day we visited, the weather was cold and rainy as we walked through what is really an open-air museum.
Sergiu and Rebecca stopped in front of many grave sites to translate the inscriptions. The one below was my favorite and fortunately, I was able to find an image with the translation alongside.
“World I leave you behind so others can live in you.” What a wonderful thought. The dead were still talking to us and to each other. Sergiu said that’s the idea behind Merry Cemetery.
In The Merry Cemetery of Săpănta, Peter Kayafus wrote that all the headstones are written in the first person and present tense so that “the deceased existence continues interrupted but not stopped by death.”
But who gives voice to the dead?
The Artist
After spending about an hour at the cemetery, Sergiu asked if we wanted to meet Dumitru Pop who succeeded the Cemetery’s founder Stan Ionan Pătaș in 1977.
Last fall Pop was awarded the title Living Human Treasure by Romania’s Ministry of Culture. This award is “granted to persons who carry, preserve, and transmit elements of intangible cultural heritage.” Pop was the first recipient.
Professor Natalia Lazăr wrote the recommendation for Pop.
Dumitru Pop takes up again the original decorative forms and the specific chromatics imposed by the initiator Stan Ion Pătraș…recreating them, together with the epitaphs with literary valences and accents of Maramureșean vernacular, thus creating a true fresco of the contemporary Săpânța village — authentic and original, full of color and flavour — a cultural space with a well-defined identity.
I asked Pop how long it took to sculpt a cross, draw the image, and write the epitaph for each cemetery dweller. About three weeks, he said. The process begins with a visit with the family who tell him about the deceased. He then creates the tombstone. He created 17 in 2021, including two for Americans and one for a British citizen.
Life and not death
As I walked through Merry with Rebecca on that dreary day, I felt buoyed by the colors, pictures, and words. More important, the idea of this cemetery changed my mind about whether I wanted a headstone.
But not just any. Blue is good. A cross fine.
The epitaph:
Paul got lucky
Late in life
CatHERine has written another cemetery story that inspired me to tell ours.
Sam Millichap has written another Romanian story that also inspired me.
