Introduction

In 1993 I did numerous photographs with a double lense Mamyia C 330 at the Kerepesi Temetö,Budapest. At that time I visited Budapest regularly every a year and often stayed over the weekends,which I used for extended sight seeing in the town. I got more and more interested in hungarian history and especially in the architecture of the city Budapest.

Finally one day I stepped into this large cemetery where many of the most important personalities in politics,economy and arts from the so called golden age, end of 19th century and later are buried. I felt as if I was entering a completely different world,not only because the noise of the city was suddenly cut off by high walls. I discovered a park with beautiful avenues and silent paths that lead you through hungarian history since end of the 19th century. Many of the most famous hungarian personalities in politics,economy,science and art are buried in this place. Impressing monuments remind of important statesmen like Kossuth and others.

I was so fascinated that I decided to start a kind of photo essay with the intention of later publication, which never happened until now. A good friend Mrs. Erika Bierbaum helped me with translations and in contact to the administration,which kindly allowed the work in exchange of copies of the slides for archival purposes. In the beginning of 1990´s the cemetery was not very well kept. Lots of half wild city cats were living there and the administration didn´t have enough resources to keep all the green in good shape. This contributed to a special atmosphere of decay and past time,which has gone meantime for the most part for good reasons

I hope you will enjoy this journey in hungarian history and culture. It´s a kind of time travel for me in several ways. Many years I was not able to make use of the work I had done during several years,but I kept the archive hoping that publication would become affordable some time. I gave up photography just about the time when internet came up and of course I didn´t even dream that I could publish and share these images in the way that I do it now.

Martin Stankewitz
January 2007

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