The Volkovo Cemetery (also Volkovskoe) (russian: Во́лковское кла́дбище or Во́лково кла́дбище) is one of the largest and oldest non-

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

cemeteries in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. Until the early 20th century it was one of the main burial grounds for

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

Germans in Russia The German minority population in Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stemmed from several sources and arrived in several waves. Since the second half of the 19th century, as a consequence of the Russification policies and compulsory militar ...

. It is estimated that over 100,000 people have been buried at this cemetery since 1773.

Origins 1770–1773

Between late 1771 and 1772,

Catherine the Great , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...

, empress of the

Russian empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, issued an

edict An edict is a decree or announcement of a law, often associated with monarchism, but it can be under any official authority. Synonyms include "dictum" and "pronouncement". ''Edict'' derives from the Latin edictum. Notable edicts * Telepinu Proc ...

which

decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...

d that, from that point on, any person who died (regardless of social standing or class origins) no longer had the right to be buried within church

crypt A crypt (from Latin ''crypta'' "vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics. Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a chur ...

s or adjacent

churchyard In Christian countries a churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church, which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language and in both Scottish English and Ulster-Scots, this can also ...

s. New cemeteries had to be built across the entire Russian Empire and from then on they all had to be located outside city limits. One of the main motivations behind these measures was overcrowding in church crypts and graveyards. However, the true deciding factor which led to the new laws being enforced on such a mass scale across the entire Russian empire was to avoid further outbreaks of highly contagious diseases, especially the

black plague The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

which had led to the

Plague Riot {{noref, date=July 2012 Plague Riot (''Чумной бунт'' in Russian) was a riot in Moscow in 1771 between 15 and 17 September, caused by an outbreak of bubonic plague. History The first signs of plague in Moscow appeared in late 1770, which ...

in Moscow in 1771. The Volkovo cemetery was founded in 1773. The first person to be buried in this cemetery was Johann Gebhard Brethfeld, a merchant in Saint Petersburg.

Current research

The person who has done the most work in investigating the history of the cemetery is Dr. Benedikt Böhm in Saint Petersburg. As of 2007, Dr. Böhm and published four volumes on the history of the cemetery, each of which contain extensive lists of names of those people who were buried there between 1773 and 1936. His 2 main sources for these publications are as follows: *The original

parish registers A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms (together with the dates and names of the parents), ma ...

of burials at the cemetery kept in the states archives in Saint Petersburg. *Countless personal visits to the cemetery itself since 1989 in which he compiled an inventory of all those graves which are still standing today complete with photographs of each gravestone.

Dr Böhm's publications

*Volume 1 contains 3700 names of those buried in the cemetery between 1773 and 1936 ''whose graves are still standing today'' and a further 17,000 names of those interred who were sold a

burial plot A grave is a location where a cadaver, dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is burial, buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial ...

''for eternity'', but which no longer have a

headstone A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a stele or marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. It is traditional for burials in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions, among others. In most cases, it has the deceased's name, da ...

. The book contains a present-day map detailing the location of all headstones and burial plots. *Volume 2 contains 40,000 names of those buried between 1863 and 1919, based on the original parish registers of burials. *Volume 3 contains 40,000 names of those buried between 1820 and 1862, based on the original parish registers of burials. *Volume 4 is a partial repeat of the information in Volume 3. It contains the names of those buried between 1820 and 1867, indicating which of the 27 non orthodox

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

es the deceased person belonged to in Saint Petersburg. The publications are used by

genealogists Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinsh ...

for family research in pre-revolutionary Russia and the early

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

period when

vital records Vital records are records of life events kept under governmental authority, including birth certificates, marriage licenses (or marriage certificates), separation agreements, divorce certificates or divorce party and death certificates. In some ...

are missing or prove difficult to find.

Historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

s use them to research the

social histories Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...

of the city.

References

* Wolkowo lutherischer Friedhof in St. Petersburg, 1998, Dr. Benedikt Böhm, 178 pages * Wolkowo - Lutherischer Friedhof in St. Petersburg, Band 2, Benedikt Böhm, 2003. 512 pages * Wolkowo - Lutherischer Friedhof in St. Petersburg, Band 3, Benedikt Böhm, 2004. 522 pages * Wolkowo - Lutherischer Friedhof in St. Petersburg, Band 4, Benedikt Böhm, 2005. 536 pages

External links

Most famous part of cemetery - Literatorskie mostki (writers' footways)
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927125548/http://www.d-inter.ru/RG-ACAD/en/cmtry/wol.htm , date=2007-09-27
History of this cemetery and others in the nearby area. The information relating to this cemetery is towards the bottom of the entry.
History of Saint Petersburg Cemeteries in Saint Petersburg German cemeteries Lutheran cemeteries Russian and Soviet-German people 1773 establishments in the Russian Empire Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Saint Petersburg

Origins 1770–1773

Current research

Dr Böhm's publications

See also

References

External links