'Life Begins in the Heat of Love and Ends in the Heat of Fire': Four Views on the Development of Cremation in Czech Society

Abstract

Třebaže přinejmenším v sociálních a humanitních vědách již zvolna dochází k překonání "tabuizace smrti" 2 a problematika umírání a nakládání s pozůstatky či ostatky zemřelých 3 v některých zemích tvoří dokonce samostatnou (sub)disciplínu, v české akademické obci se jí zatím věnovali jenom jednotlivci. 4 Je tomu tak vzdor skutečnosti, že se jedná o vysoce důležité téma, které se týká vpravdě každého člověka

A Century of Funeral Change in Burial Practices: From Church Burial to Cremation Without a Ceremony

“…For example, the architectural design of the crematorium in Pardubice (completed according to a design by the architect Janák in 1923) was comparable to a Slavonic shrine and has also been described as drawing on temples from antiquity (Hnídková 2011). Similarly, inspiration from the architecture of the ancient east (in my opinion, Assyrian and Babylonian) is also apparent in the case of a crematorium in Brno, completed in 1929 according to a design by the architect Wiesner, or the "temple of progress" in Most, where the (old) crematorium from 1924 was designed by the architect Kirstein (see Nešpor -Nešporová 2011;Svobodová 2009). It was considered indisputable "that the appearance of a crematorium must be serious, but divergent from that of a church" (Krematorium 1946: 3).…”

“…It became possible with the birth of the Czechoslovak Republic, when it was legally officially permitted in 1919. 15 The number of cremations and crematoria grew gradually during the first half of the 20th century (Nešpor -Nešporová 2011). Across the equivalent of the present-day Czech Republic's entire territory there were a total of 13 crematoria 16 in 1940 and roughly 6% of the deceased were buried by incineration 17 (Mottl 1940/41).…”

“…Due to the interplay of many circumstances, such changes in the Czech lands were more extensive and happened faster than they did in most other developed countries. In concrete terms this concerns, for example, the majority transition from interments to cremations, from religious funerals to secular ones, and the massive spread of cremations without any kind of ceremony (Nešpor -Nešporová 2011;Nešporová 2011).…”

Pohřební Rituály Na Venkově

“…180/1919 Sb.). Příklon k občanským pohřebním rituálům ještě více zesílil ve druhé polovině 20. století především díky vlivu komunistické ideologie (Babička 2005;Nešpor, Nešporová 2011;Nešporová 2013). Zatímco ještě v 50. letech minulého století mělo asi 75 % zemřelých katolický pohřeb, v roce 1987 to bylo téměř o polovinu méně, tedy 39 % zemřelých (Babička, 2005;Kotrlý, 2013).…”

Communist Funeral Reform in Central Europe (1948–1989): From Religious to Civil Funerals in Czechoslovakia and Hungary

“…Cremationists established institutional structures in both states: in Hungary, the Association of Hungarian Cremationists (1886) had a very limited impact, while in the Czech lands the movement grew steadily, making Bohemia one of the main centres of cremation in Europe by the first half the 20th century. While in both cases, cremation was supported mainly by the educated middle and upper-middle classes, in the Czech lands, the movement enjoyed a broader social basis uniting various urban groups, liberal and anti-clerical movements and intellectual and non-religious elites, and was often associated with freethinker associations (Nešpor & Nešporová, 2011; Nešporová, 2021). The difference in the social acceptance of cremation can, in part, be explained by the strong influence of the Catholic Church in Hungary, which effectively blocked the establishment of crematoria.…”