thumb|Merry Cemetery and its church

320px|thumb|right|Merry Cemetery (video)

thumb|The workshop at [[Stan Ioan Pătraș's house where the tombstones of Merry Cemetery were created]]

The Merry Cemetery ( , ) is a cemetery in the village of Săpânța, Maramureș County, Romania. It is famous for its brightly coloured tombstones with naïve paintings describing, in an original and poetic manner, the people who are buried there in addition to scenes from their lives. The Merry Cemetery became an open-air museum and a national tourist attraction. It has been listed as one of the Seven Wonders of Romania by Imperator Travel.

The unusual feature of this cemetery is that it diverges from the prevalent belief, culturally shared within European societies, that views death as something indelibly solemn.

A collection of the epitaphs from the Merry Cemetery exists in a 2017 volume called Crucile de la Săpânța, compiled by author Roxana Mihalcea, as well as in a photography book titled The Merry Cemetery of Sapanta by Peter Kayafas.

The founder

The cemetery's origins are linked with the name of Stan Ioan Pătraș, a local artist who sculpted the first tombstone crosses. In 1935, Pătraș carved the first epitaph and, as of the 1960s, more than 800 of such oak wood crosses came into sight. The inscription on his tombstone cross says:

{| cellpadding="10" valign="top"

|Romanian

De cu tînăr copilaș<br>

Io am fost Stan Ion Pătraș<br>

Să mă ascultaț oameni buni<br>

Ce voi spune nu-s minciuni

Cîte zile am trăit<br>

Rău la nime n-am dorit<br>

Dar bine cît-am putut<br>

Orișicine mia cerut

Vai săraca lumea mea<br>

Că greu am trăit în ea<br>

|English

Since I was a little boy<br>

I was known as Stan Ion Pătraş<br>

Listen to me, good people<br>

There are no lies in what I am going to say

All along my life<br>

I meant no harm to anyone<br>

But did good as much as I could<br>

To anyone who asked

Oh, my poor World<br>

Because It was hard living in it

|}

Humorous epitaphs

The cemetery is noted for featuring a large number of humorous epitaphs that generally poke fun at the interred person in a light-hearted way or reference a general trope about family relations. The following is an example of an epitaph wrote by a man in honour of his mother-in-law:

{| cellpadding="10" valign="top"

|Romanian:

Sub această cruce grea <br>

Zace biata soacră-mea<br>

Trei zile de mai trăia<br>

Zăceam eu și cetea ea.<br>

Voi care treceți pă aici<br>

Incercați să n-o treziți<br>

Că acasă dacă vine<br>

Iarăi cu gura pă mine<br>

Da așa eu m-oi purta<br>

Că-napoi n-a înturna<br>

Stai aicea dragă soacră-mea

|English:

Under this heavy cross<br>

Lies my poor mother-in-law<br>

Three more days should she have lived<br>

I would lie, and she would read (this cross).<br>

You, who here are passing by<br>

Not to wake her up please try<br>

Cause' if she comes back home<br>

She'll scold me more.<br>

But I will surely behave<br>

So she'll not return from grave.<br>

Stay here, my dear mother-in-law!

|}

<gallery widths="px" heights="px">

File:Cimitirul Vesel de la Sapanta6.jpg|The Merry Cemetery crosses in pale blue color

File:Cimitirul Vesel de la Sapanta3.jpg|The tombstone of Stan Ioan Pătraş (1908–1977), the creator of Merry Cemetery

File:Cimitirul Vesel de la Sapanta4.jpg|Short description of the life of a villager carved on the cross

File:Cimitirul Vesel de la Sapanta5.jpg|Profile of the Orthodox Church located near the Merry Cemetery

File:Rumunia, Sapanta, Wesoły Cmentarz -Aw58- 28 kwietnia 2012 r..jpg

File:Rumunia, Sapanta, Wesoły Cmentarz -Aw58- 28.04.12 r..JPG

File:Rumunia, Sapanta, Wesoły Cmentarz -Aw58- 28 IV 2012 r..jpg

File:Rumunia, Sapanta, Wesoły Cmentarz DSCF7052.jpg

File:Rumunia, Sapanta, Wesoły Cmentarz DSCF7027.jpg

File:Merry Cemetery VP8.webm|Merry Cemetery crosses

</gallery>

See also

  • Tourism in Romania
  • Seven Wonders of Romania

References

  • Photos of the Merry Cemetery
  • The Merry Cemetery of Sapanta on Purple Martin Press
  • Brandon's Photos of the Merry Cemetery
  • More (in Romanian)