A cemetery in Üsküdar / Un cementerio en Üsküdar


Don’t go to a cemetery at noon. In the sharp light without transitions the shadowy part of the grave posts turns black, the sunny part fades illegible on the pictures, and the pattern of the branches of the trees projected onto them dissolves their contours in one large waving. When we went to Nikolsburg, the largest medieval Jewish cemetery of Central Europe, we had a hard time to make usable photos. Fortunately by the time we arrived to the end of the cemetery, already a colorful afternoon light was brushing the stones, so on the way back to the entrance it was easy to take better photos of the ones we have previously picked out.
No vayáis a un cementerio a mediodía. Bajo la cruda luz sin matices, la parte en sombra de las lápidas queda negra en las fotos y en la que bate el sol se difuminan los detalles hasta casi perderse, y las ramas de los árboles proyectan una mancha que disuelve los contornos. Este verano, cuando fuimos a Nikolsburg, el mayor cementerio judío medieval de Europa Central, tuvimos un sol muy duro para hacer  buenas fotos. Por suerte, al llegar al final del cementerio la tarde empezaba a teñir las piedras y de vuelta  a la salida pudimos fotografiar de nuevo los lugares más interesantes.


Nevertheless, we arrived at noon to Üsküdar, the old cemetery behind the 16th-century Mihrimah mosque. We just dropped in on our way to elsewhere, and we did not even hope that we would have an opportunity of taking good photos. But the deep carvings and strong shapes of Turkish grave posts, just as the inscriptions of Egyptian obelisks, are enlivened exactly by the strong sunlight.El caso es que llegamos a Üsküdar a mediodía. El viejo cementerio está detrás de la mezquita de Mihrimah, del siglo XVI. Llegamos allá al azar de nuestros pasos, con pocas esperanzas de tener la oportunidad de tomar ninguna foto decente. Pero los marcados relieves y las duras sombras de los postes sobre las tumbas turcas, al igual que las inscripciones de los viejos obeliscos, revivían bajo el fuerte sol.


Erecting a grave post in a mosque garden in the 16th and 17th century was just as a privilege as at us to be buried inside the church, next to the altar. The tomb inscriptions outline the network of the high class families of a rural or urban neighborhood, whose names are sometimes listed in modern transcription at the entrance of more visited mosques. Some of the people laying here were also landlords, fortress captains or officials in the Ottoman empire’s Hungarian vilayet, whose center was Istanbul after Buda. Thus these grave posts are close to us not only because of their beauty and antropomorphic shapes, but also because we feel as if they stood instead of those epitaphs that could not be erected in the same period in the churches of Hungary under Turkish dominion.Poder erigir un poste de piedra en el jardín del cementerio de una mezquita de los siglos XVI o XVII es un privilegio tan grande como para nosotros ser enterrados en el interior de la iglesia, cerca del altar. Las inscripciones visibles subrayan la red de relaciones familiares de la alta sociedad de un vecindario rural o urbano, cuyos nombres en ocasiones también se listan, en transcripción moderna, a la entrada de las mezquitas más concurridas. Algunos de los que aquí descansan fueron terratenientes, capitanes de fortaleza u oficiales del vilayato (o valiato) húngaro del imperio otomano, cuyo centro fue Estambul, después de Buda. Por ello, estos postes fúnebres nos eran próximos no solo por su belleza y formas antropomórficas, también por sentir que estaban ahí en lugar de aquellos epitafios que no pudieron erigirse en el mismo periodo en las iglesias húngaras bajo el dominio turco.

















3 comentarios:

  1. la forma di quelle pietre tombali ricorda i moai dell'Isola di Pasqua; vengono dal passato e "guardano" verso qualche futuro

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  2. "Don't go to a cemetery at noon." I thought this was the beginning of an old folk tale you were going to tell us.

    Your blog is always fascinating - both the writing, pictures and the places. So familiar yet strange.

    Thank you.

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  3. Thanks a lot! I’m glad you find it so. Come back again to taste more.

    Well, to me it was in fact as if I were in an old folk tale when I entered this fabulous cemetery. I’m happy if I unintentionally managed to convey this impression.

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