Olšany Cemeteries

opening hours

history

The Olšany Cemeteries, with an area of more than 50 hectares, is the central and largest cemetery complex in Prague and the largest burial ground in the Czech Republic. It comprises twelve cemeteries, with approximately 25,000 tombs, nearly 200 chapel tombs, 65,000 graves, 20,000 urn graves, six columbarium walls, and two scatter meadows. During their existence, approximately 2,000,000 dead have been buried here.

The origins of Olšany Cemeteries are intertwined with the plague epidemic that struck Prague in 1679. In January 1680, the Old Town municipality of Prague acquired land in the old village of Olšany (Wolšany) to establish a plague cemetery. The bodies of the deceased were placed in shafts located at the present site of the Church of St. Roch, a branch church of the Roman Catholic parish at the Church of St. Procopius.

Further plague outbreaks in 1713-14 necessitated the cemetery’s expansion. After 1786, when burials within Prague were prohibited, Olšany Cemetery became the central Catholic cemetery for the right-bank Prague districts. That same year, the former plague cemetery was transformed into the official Cemetery I, while the new Cemetery II was founded and consecrated. Seven more cemeteries were added in the 19th century, and in May 1900, to mark the transfer of Pavel Josef Šafařík’s remains from the abolished Evangelical Cemetery in Karlín, the non-denominational Municipal Cemetery I was opened. Jana Želivského Street separates Cemetery X, added in 1910, from the Municipal Cemetery II, where burials began in 1917.

The main entrances are situated on Vinohradská Street. The entrance to Cemetery IV, near the OC Flora shopping centre, was created in the 19th century. The main entrance from 1928 is located roughly in the middle. To its left is the central ceremonial hall, built in 1894 and remodelled in 1928. The upper entrance is near Jana Želivského Street. It leads to the ceremonial hall built in 1898 and converted in 1921 by architect František Nevol into Prague’s first crematorium, serving as a new ceremonial hall since 1932. The Municipal Cemetery II houses an Orthodox cemetery with the Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos, designed by architect Vladimír Brandt and consecrated in 1925. The church crypt holds the remains of the first Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, JUDr. Karel Kramář. Honorary military cemeteries from World War I and World War II occupy a significant portion of Municipal Cemetery II. 

The Olšany Cemeteries stand as a remarkable monument, boasting an artistically valuable collection of funerary sculptures and architecture from Classicism to the present day. Noted artists represented here include I. F. Platzer, F. X. Lederer, V. Prachner, J. Max, J. Malínský, J. V. Myslbek, B. Schnirch, J. Štursa, J. Kotěra, O. Zoubek, and many more. Numerous prominent figures from diverse spheres of public life, including Žižkov natives Franta Sauer and Jaroslav Ježek, representatives of science, culture, politics, and sports, are among those buried.

Adjacent to Municipal Cemetery II lies the New Jewish Cemetery, which opened in 1890 after the closure of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Žižkov on Fibichova Street, part of which survives in today’s Mahler Gardens. The ceremonial hall with a dignified prayer room, the purification house for funeral ceremonies, administrative and ancillary buildings, and a protective wall around the cemetery were constructed in the Neo-Renaissance style.
The ceremonial hall was designed by architect Bedřich Münzberger. Among the most popular sites is the grave of writer Franz Kafka, and writer Ota Pavel is also buried here. Burials continue to take place at the cemetery, and although Jewish tradition prohibits cremation, the cemetery has a special permit to operate an urn grove. This option is primarily used by mixed marriages.