The aspect of the modern (municipal) cemeteries of Transylvania and Banat was strongly affected by the process of urban modernization and secularization as well as by mixed marriages (which surpassed the segregationist borders imposed by the traditions of multiethnic and multiconfessional communities).
Municipal cemeteries manage to evolve in a few decades ...
(Show more)The aspect of the modern (municipal) cemeteries of Transylvania and Banat was strongly affected by the process of urban modernization and secularization as well as by mixed marriages (which surpassed the segregationist borders imposed by the traditions of multiethnic and multiconfessional communities).
Municipal cemeteries manage to evolve in a few decades (from the 7th decade of the 19th Century) from a strict segregationist system to the total abandoning of any territorial marking. Moreover, the ever increasing number of mixed marriages imposed a change in the structure of monuments. The monuments of mixed married partners, regardless of their position, had writings in both languages and the identitary religious symbols of both partners.
Usually, except when the monument was pre-ordered, the descendants would decide the aspect of the family monument. If in the 20th Century and in the Interwar Period mixed marriages happened both at the top and lower levels (less visible due to the fact that the poor have no durable monument) of urban society, in villages mixed marriages were very rare. Obviously, our study is based on a ten-year field investigation and it’s the product of the statistical evaluation of monuments from 110 cemeteries from Transylvania and Banat. We excluded from the investigation the monuments of non-theists. During communism the dissolution of confessional differences became a controlled process because of administrative, secular, and egalitarian reasons. This is best illustrated in the case of Victoria, town build during the Socialist Industrial Age; the cemetery is structured into two sectors: the cemetery for veterans of war and the actual cemetery where Neoprotestans, Lutherans, Catholics and Orthodox are buried regardless of any confessional criteria.
Thus, we consider that the funerary monuments of mixed families are an indicator of the evolution of ethnic-confessional relations, phenomenon determined by social and historical dynamics.
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