La Recoleta Cemetery, part 2

The great burial places described in my book of the same name contain the tombs of many famous and powerful women. Two, in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, bear mention.

Remedios de Escalada, María (1797-1823) was the wife of the leader of the Argentine war of independence, General José de San Martín. The Escaladas were prominent in local commerce and became active supporters of the May Revolution of 1810. It was at this time that María met José de San Martín, a general who had recently moved to Buenos Aires after serving in the Peninsular War. They married in 1812. María was fourteen at the time. Her husband’s military responsibilities kept them apart until 1814, when San Martín was appointed Governor of Mendoza Province.

Maria raised huge amounts of money in support of her husband’s efforts to organise and fund the Army of the Andes, a military force that he had raised as part of his campaign to free Chile from Spanish rule. His departure for Chile marked the beginning of a prolonged separation from her husband, during which time she developed tuberculosis. After heading the Protectorate of Peru (1821-22), San Martín travelled to Buenos Aires but Maria died before he arrived. She was 25. She was buried at the La Recoleta Cemetery and the following year San Martín left for France, where he died in exile in 1850.

The most famous person buried in La Recoleta is Evita Perón. María Eva Duarte de Perón (1919-52) was the second wife of Argentine President Juan Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. During this time she was a powerful figure within the pro-Peronist trade unions. She also ran the Ministries of Labour and Health, championed women’s suffrage, and founded and ran the nation’s first large female political party, the Female Peronist Party. In 1951 she made a failed bid for the vice-presidency.

Evita Peron's tomb.

Evita Peron's tomb.

The following year she was given the title of “Spiritual Leader of the Nation” by the Argentine Congress. That same year she died from cancer at the age of 33. Then followed a posthumous odyssey that lasted for 35 years, with burials in Milan, Madrid and at several places in Buenos Aires, including in the grounds of the presidential palace. Finally she was laid to rest in the Duarte family mausoleum in La Recoleta. Almost three million people lined the streets of Buenos Aires for her state funeral. It is easy to miss the stately mausoleum that contains her remains as the name above the entrance is that of her family, Duarte. For security reasons her coffin lies beneath those of her other family members, two levels under the main marble floor.

La Recoleta Cemetery, part 1

There are many poignant stories in my book Great Burial Places, but two that come to mind are about two women buried in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentine.

The tomb of Liliana Crociati de Szaszak is of special interest due to its unusual design. The daughter of an Italian painter and poet, Liliana was enjoying her honeymoon in the Austrian Alps in 1970 when an avalanche struck the hotel in which she and her husband were staying. The 26-year-old was killed, allegedly at that same instant that her beloved dog Sabú died, thousands of kilometers away in Argentina. Designed by her mother and modelled on the room Liliana lived in as a young girl, her tomb is made entirely of wood and glass and features narrow gothic style windows. A plaque displays a poem in Italian, written by her father. A bronze statue of Liliana, tinted bluish-green, stands outside the tomb. She is depicted wearing the wedding dress in which she was buried, her right hand resting on Sabú’s head.

Perhaps the saddest story is that of that of Rufina Cambaceres, a young woman who was buried alive in 1902. She had probably fallen into a coma and a few days after her interment workers heard screams from the tomb but before they could reach her she had died of a heart attack. When the tomb was opened it revealed scratches on her face and on the coffin from her attempts to escape. Her mother then built an art nouveau masterpiece, which has become a symbol of La Recoleta. Her coffin is of Carrara marble, carved with a rose on top and it sits behind a glass wall. A statue of a young girl at the door of the tomb, also in marble, turns her head to those watching her. She looks as if she is about to break into tears as her right hand rests on the door of her own tomb.

Cambaceres tomb

Cambaceres tomb

Spend a day with the dead.

“Tombstone tourism” is on the rise. Cemeteries, those places most of us strive to stay out of, are once again popular tourist destinations. Part of the reason is that cemeteries, and historic cemeteries in particular, have become more “tourist-friendly.” The best of them have free guide maps, an information booth at the entrance, and there’s sure to be a refreshment stall at the main gates. Immerse yourself in local history, enjoy nature and get within six feet of some famous people. Best of all, admission is always free.

It’s easy to forget that cemeteries were made for the living.

Where first we come in sorrow we often return again for something else. We discover that places of eternal rest have many moods and designs, from the peaceful, almost romantic air of Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris with its cobbled avenues that have their own street names, to the fields of infinite sacrifice at Arlington National Cemetery. Yet in whichever idiosyncratic precinct we linger awhile, we sense the dead watching and taking our measure as well, keeping us company as much as we are keeping company with them. People today have become too transient, unsentimental, agnostic and forgetful to spend much time in graveyards, which is a shame as a visit can put them back touch with history, back in touch with their ancestors. It can be reflective, restorative, even rejuvenating.

With views to die for, Waverley Cemetery is perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, surrounded on three sides by some of the most expensive real estate in Sydney. It is the last resting place of several important Australian literary and po…

With views to die for, Waverley Cemetery is perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, surrounded on three sides by some of the most expensive real estate in Sydney. It is the last resting place of several important Australian literary and political figures from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Go Gujarat!

I made a trip to India a couple of years ago to collect the material I needed to write about one of the burial precincts in Great Burial Places - the European cemeteries at Surat in Gujarat State. I then hired a car and driver and spent three weeks travelling around Gujarat, a part of India that tourists rarely visit. Of the 800+ princely states that I wrote about in A History of the Indian Princely States, now available as an e-book on this website, over 350 were located in Gujarat.

In most places I stayed in the palaces of the erstwhile maharajas, which are now boutique hotels. Gujarat is packed with history and fascinating places, the people are friendly (they don’t see many foreigners), the festivals are mind-blowing explosions of noise and colour, the food is great and everything is amazingly inexpensive. If you want a great travel experience off the beaten track and without fellow travellers, try Gujarat.

Down Shoestring Road.

I first visited many of the tomb precincts mentioned in Great Burial Places with John Allen, a friend whom I went through high school with. Our first adventure, after we had just finished college in 1964, was to hitch-hike overland from Mumbai to London. We were six months on the road. After a working holiday in London we hitched back overland to Singapore and flew home to Australia from there. John has now resurrected his old travel diaries and photo collection and written two illustrated blogs called Shoestring Road (www.ozac.travellerspoint.com/) and Back Down Shoestring Road (www.ozac3.travellerspoint.com/). Check them out.

The Qing tombs.

The buildings, sculptures and interior decoration of the Ming Tombs in Beijing are the highlights of 5,000 years of Chinese burial practice. They contain the best elements of the culture of Central and North China. However, the following dynasty, the Qing (1644-1912), also left magnificent imperial mausoleums. They are significant examples of the architecture and culture of the Manchus, a nomadic tribe from Northeast China which overthrew the Ming dynasty.

There are two main groups, the Eastern Qing Tombs and the Western Qing Tombs. The Eastern Qing Tombs are located at Zunhua, 125 kilometres northeast of Beijing. They are the largest, most complete and best preserved extant mausoleum complex in China. The Western Qing Tombs are located some 140 kilometers southwest of Beijing in Yi County, Hebei Province.

There are four royal mausoleums which are the last resting places of four emperors along with their empresses, imperial concubines, princes and princesses. Because both groups of tombs are located far from Bejiing they are not often visited by foreigners, which is in itself a good reason to go.

Another great burial precinct in Kolkata.

History buffs visiting Kolkata can find many historic graves outside the South Park Street Cemetery. The city’s original churches and their graveyards, notably St. John’s churchyard, are the last resting places of the city’s pioneers, including Job Charnock, who founded Calcutta in 1690.

Another great burial precinct in London.

Westminster Abbey is not the only great burial place in London. Taphophiles should check out Highgate Cemetery, a huge forested precinct in north London that is the last resting place of many illustrious people, notably Michael Faraday, George Eliot, Malcolm McLaren, Diane Cilento and that famous socio-economic ideologue Karl Marx.

Another great burial precinct in Paris.

Space and content balance meant that in Great Burial Places I could only cover three sites in Paris: Père Lachaise Cemetery, the Pantheon and the Catacombs. But there is one more burial precinct that is well worth a visit. The Basilica of Saint Denis, a beautiful Romanesque abbey church in the north of Paris, was the last resting place of all but three of the kings of France. It was ransacked during the French Revolution and all the bodies buried there were dug up and destroyed, but the building is a magnificent example of medieval French architecture and there have been several royal burials and transfers of royal remains from elsewhere since the Revolution.