The cemetery of Ieud

Dan Dinescu: The upper church in Ieud (click for the full image)
From the album The Wooden Architecture of Maramureș, 1997

The upper church of Ieud is considered the oldest wooden church in Maramureș, with the year of construction of 1364. The present building, however, is only as original as the ax, whose head was replaced twice and its handle three times. Due to the recurring Tatar invasions, it burnt down several times, and each time it was rebuilt, for the last time in the late 17th century. Nevertheless, it still retains the Gothic shape characteristic of the wooden churches of Maramureș, which markedly differ from the Rusyn wooden churches with squat towers and central domes, to the north of the upper reaches of the Tisza. Inside it is adorned by naive folk murals with the fanciful depiction of the Last Judgement, and outside it is embraced with the no less fanciful old cemetery of the village.

Every cemetery has its own unique motifs, copied from generation to generation and from tomb to tomb by the members of the local community; motifs, which distinguish the graveyard even from that of the next village. In Ieud these are the photographs in folk costume inserted in the legs of the crucifixes, and the multitude of tin Christs, the aesthetics of redundancy, which is characteristic also for the inside of the wooden churches, nevertheless the sight of a million little Christs puzzle the unsuspecting visitor.

The cemetery also has a separate geniza corner, where the crucifixes left without a tomb – as they bear the image of Christ, so cannot be destroyed – wait in silence for the end of times.

In another corner of the cemetery a new grave is being digged. “Hello, hello!” calls the gravedigger’s sister the tourist roaming among the crucifixes, like a naively painted siren, but fortunately she does not offer us the grave, but rather țuică, plum brandy for twenty-five lei, and necklines made of glass beads. Although a peasant woman, she easily switches from Romanian to French and Italian. “Where did you learn it so well?” “Well, I took my language book in the evening, and I crammed it.” She carefully re-ties her scarf for the photo, then she gives me the address where we can bring it the next time, and at the same time buy some more țuică. When I ask her about the Jewish cemetery, she pops up: “Sure, I’ll take you there.” But this will be already the next story.

Maramureș-Bukovina

Maramureș and Bukovina, the two most archaic regions of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were traditionally separated from each other by the north-south range of the Carpathians and the border running on it, but were also tied by the more than thirty ethnic groups living on both sides of the mountain. The Hutsul and Hasidic loggers floated their rafts on both side of the Carpathians, along the Tisza and Cheremosh, the German and Hungarian miners had settlements on both sides, the Romanian peasants of Maramureș went on pilgrimage to the monasteries of Bukovina, and the Hasidic community of Sighetu Marmației was also directed for a long time from the Bukovinian Vizhnitsa.

The border now runs from east to west, cutting in two both regions, whose one half belongs to the Ukraine, and the other to Romania. Their ethnic diversity also declined, but being border regions, and in the absence of industrialization, they still largely retained their traditional culture, wooden architecture, and of course their stunningly beautiful mountain landscapes.


Between May 24 and 29 we start to the discovery of this still largely unknown world. We enter Maramureș through the medieval city of Baia Mare, we tour the Romanian and Hutsul wooden churches included in the World Heritage List, visit the abandoned Hasidic Jewish cemteries, on the market of Sighetu Marmației we still taste something from the former ethnic diversity, go to see the merry cemetery of Sapănța, by crossing the Ukrainian border we have a lunch in the geographical center of Europe, walk to the source of the Tisza, see the beautiful Hasidic cemeteries of Kuty and Vizhnitsa, spend a day in Czernowitz, the former capital of Bukovina with thirty nationalities and Viennese atmosphere, and at Sireth we return to Romania again to visit some of the richly painted Bukovinian Renaissance princely monasteries, also included in the World Heritage List.

Apart from Czernowitz, where we spend a night in hotel, our accommodations will be everywhere in the mountains, in traditional guesthouses. The participation fee for the six-day tour (accommodation + minibus + guide) is 300 euro. Registration and deadline of payment: May 15, Wednesday.

Rădăuți

Who finds more historical errors in the single short sentence of the Wikipedia entry on the origins of the Jews of Rădăuți?

Many Jews fleeing the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (as well as other Habsburg areas) from intense persecution and anti-Semitism during the Middle Ages settled in Rădăuţi.

Do not stop at the (at least) three obviously blatant errors. Come inside, always inside, gentlemen and beautiful ladies.

The photo and image is just an illustration, they have absolutely no errors

Flora

Prislop, Borsai Pass, crossing from Maramureș to Bukovina

Who can name them?

There it is, in so many places

Walls.
Clays deserted.
Closed desks, books.
Synagogue, dust, traces.
Covers, hinges – and time stopped.
Absence. Books placed there to wait.
Books rescued from the fire.
Books closed so that the words do not escape.
Books of lead.
Traces written in the dust. A message deprive of a sense. Like the bat which falls when stops to hear.

And you, where are you?

Not enough men for a prayer where formerly there were hundreds.
Not a child between these walls, where the world was full of words.
Not a whisper.
Not a page that rustles when it is turned, not a foot that hits the wooden desks.
Books of lead, too heavy for those who would lift them. Who can yet read here?
In the sunshine, in the buzzing of the flies. An invalid’s chair, a sick man’s bed, hungry to be fed. Dead to be buried.
Everything is waiting, and everything – there’s a chair at the table – is waiting for you.

But you, where are you?

Vaults veiled by ash, a short circuit in the 70s before they closed the places by iron bars.
Turned into factories, furniture storages, cinemas.
Naked earth where the pavements were torn. Naked brick where the plaster crumbled. Naked sky where the roofs were burned.

You, bird perched on a summer-bean high above us, have you seen it all?

Later, two gypsies of ashen face, sitting on their cart. Contemplating their horse as it goes ahead, grazing along the road. Horses everywhere, and men, watching us. Horses and walkers, patient and silent, along the road – and time stopped. A man holding a cow at the end of a long rope, they both move in the ditch along the road. Women leaning on the black earth, planting tubers.

In the great green of the spring, where are you hiding?

Cemeteries on the slope, eroded by the fields stretching behind the houses, by an approaching building site, by the eroding land, by the winds. And all these little souls under these stones, patiently waiting for the end of time. Lions, birds, laces of letters, helping hands, sometimes faces. Stones on the crest of a hill as the skeleton of a big animal caught in the waters of the Flood. The small souls probably fled long ago: there remain only these clamps to hold them here.

Where are you, eh?

Who remains here?
Who comes still here, when everyone gradually withdraws? They suffer, they leave, and there remains only the dust. The candles die out, the songs fall silent.

You, you… where are you?

The night falls on the dead walls. Silence and oblivion everywhere.



Two boys on their bikes soar behind – no hands! shouts the younger one –, full of grace, they recede towards the light.

Lass dein Aug in der Kammer sein eine Kerze,
den Blick einen Docht,
lass mich blind genug sein,
ihn zu entzünden.

Let your eyes become a candle in the chamber,
your glance a canon,
let me become blind enough
to light it.

Paul Celan

Synagogues of Khust, Shargorod, Bolekhiv.
Palace of Tsadik Friedman of Ruzhyn in Sadhora (Czernowitz),
Cemeteries of Bila Cerkva, Czernowitz, Medzhibozh, Bolekhiv