Milczące cmentarze Pragi
Silent Prague Cemeteries

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the semiotics of Prague cemeteries as well as their role in Czech culture against the backdrop of the cultural role of cemeteries in Central Europe. Prague cemeteries are silent as their presence in the memory and life of Czechs is much less noticeable than one would have assumed it should be as resulting from the 19th century patriotic concepts which accompanied the establishment of national cemetery, the magnifi cence of funeral ceremonies of the time and the signifi cance of necropolises cultural heritage. The Czech way of commemorating the dead personages of cultural merit is naming after them public institutions rather than visiting the graveyard and perceiving the cemetery as an institution of memorialising national history. The refl ection on the cultural role of Prague cemeteries is more often present in Czech literary works than in scientific studies on Czech culture. This peculiar indifference is characteritic of Czech mentality, even though the determining factors to create Prague cemetery did not distinguish Czechs from the nations of Central Europe – national revival and national mythology together with the change in perceiving the cemetery in the urban organism.

• Details
• Contents