The Merry Cemetery in Săpânța is a place where people’s lives and death are captured through humorous verses engraved on colourful tombstones. They are tourist attractions, full of charm and surprise, yet they work differently for local people who have them in view as a foreseeable grave. Through their social organization, the commemorative practices in Merry Cemetery are a celebration of death reminding locals that their life is under scrutiny of others.

Figure 1. Example of a colourful tombstone in Merry Cemetery

The verses represent a short and synthetic biographical note that defines how the dead inhabitants of the village are collectively remembered. The space has evolved around the figure of Stan Ioan Pătraș, who is acknowledged as the founder of the Cemetery since he was the first who conceptualized and manufactured this specific mortuary design. Being located in Northern Romania, in a county characterized by multiple cultural influences, and being socially organized at the intersection between religious beliefs in afterlife and secular tourism, the Cemetery supports the creation of a world of blended emotions and vivid traditions.

The colourful tombstones in Merry Cemetery are practices that remind local people that they are under the collective gaze and judgment, and that their lives will be told through the eyes of the community (Matei, 2015). This is achieved through the process of producing, distributing and experiencing the tombstones.

– First of all, for their authors there is an issue of social entitlement. A limited number of persons are eligible to write the short biographical note in verses. These artisans are the ones who decide what aspects generally known in the life of the commemorated person are worth of being eternally engraved on the tombstone. Moreover, by ordering tombstones for the deceased persons to these artisans, it is the community members who establish who is entitled to write the memorial verses, thus collectively acknowledging those persons as legitimate successors of Stan Ioan Pătraș.

– Secondly, there is an issue of social intelligibility. The knowledge that is circulated through memorial verses is a type of knowledge that gains meaning and concreteness only in relation with various events lived and known in the village. This kind of knowledge makes sense differently for community members than for tourists. For local people, the knowledge is grounded in a direct experience with the commemorated person, while for visitors the knowledge remains a covert testimonial. The tombstones in Merry Cemetery receive different meanings depending on the position of the commemorator in relation to the community.

The talkative, humorous and judgmental tombstones of Săpânța invite local people to think of themselves as subjects to community gaze, and therefore to live their life as worthy, storytellable members for the community. This is to be achieved by fulfilling collective expectations in terms of conduct and discipline, thus making some deeds subject of remembrance. The tombstones are forms of positively or negatively sanctioning behaviours, thus having a normative and regulating role.

References

Matei, Ștefania (2015). Tehnologii ale comemorării. Forme de susținere a amintirii și agentivității postume din perspectiva sociologiei timpului. PhD Thesis. University of Bucharest.