Serbian vampires and a journey along the Danube

While the Serbian documentary on vampires I posted about last year has been removed from youtube, here is a video from Radio Television Vojvodine about, as far as can I gather, a specific vampire incident in Radojevo. However, readers more familiar with the language are welcome to supply more exact information.

As for Serbia, here are a couple of extracts from Servia and the Servians by the Reverend William Denton, published in 1862. The book contain Denton's observations from a journey along the Danube. In Northern Serbia, Denton one evening 'strolled to the village of Dobra about a mile and a half to the west of the place where our boat had been moored for the night':

'The way to the village led past two small cemeteries, one apparently deserted, and both of them at least half a mile from any houses. The little village cemeteries of Servia are less squalid and forlorn looking than similar ones in France and Germany, but they lack the neat appearance and the shade and repose of an English churchyard. The entrance lies through what is known in England by the name of a lych gate. Such gates, however, as with us are only seen at the entrance of a churchyard, are in Servia common not only to cemeteries, but also to private houses> the piece of shingle roofing being absolutely necessary for the protection of the wood work of the gate from the effect of the sun. In the centre of the first cemetery which I entered stands a square piece of cob-wall with a shingle roof, but whether tool-house or chapel it was impossible to determine. One or two dry twigs stuck at the head of some of the grass evidenced an attempt at planting a tree, which seemed to have failed from want of water. The tombstones were of very singular forms, but scarcely any could be met with older than the time of the War of Independence. Over the little mounds of earth and in and out of the graves sported large green lizards, besides troops of small brown ones. In no place are so many lizards found as in these cemeteries; the dry hillocks of earth which rise over the graves, and the uninterrupted quiet which reigns around makes the abodes of the dead a favourite retreat for these beautiful beings. Eastern fables represent the spirit of man under the shape of a lizard: and the reason for so doing seemed clear enough, as I looked on the number of these reptiles sporting around the graves or lying basking in the rays of the sun on the top of a tombstone.' (p. 110-1)

Denton also visits the village Medvedja in Eastern Serbia, that some people have erroneusly identified with the Medvedja of Flückinger's Visum et Repertum:

'A drive of about an hour and a half brought us to the village of Medvedje, where we found the parish priest the service in the church having been over more than two hours before seated under the far projecting roof of a little tavern, and engaged in explaining to his flock the provisions of a bill, as we should call it, then before the Skoupschina, or Servian Parliament, for an alteration in the law of assessment to the public service. The main feature of the new bill was, that it proposed to lighten the amount of taxes to be paid by the classes which had been hitherto the sole contributors to the revenue of the country; but by enlarging the area of taxation to maintain, or perhaps to increase, the whole sum received by the Treasury. In order that the wishes and sentiments of the people should be made known, the Government had directed the various parish priests throughout the country to assemble their parishioners, and invite a discussion on the proposed alteration. When we drove up to the inn-door, the pastor or pope of Medvedje was engaged in reading the proposed enactments clause by clause. An animated and very creditably conducted debate on the part of the people then ensued, and the opinions of the village parliament appeared to be much divided as to the prospective advantages of the new bill. On the whole, however, it seemed to me that the proposed scheme of the Ministry of Prince Michel was regarded with disfavour by the majority of the community. At least, the villagers of Medvedje, which probably comprised a larger proportion than some other districts of hitherto non-paying members, were not disposed to acquiesce in the alteration of the law, which would deprive them for the future of exemption from taxation. Of course, it is impossible to please those who feel the constant pressure of a direct tax, but it must be owned that the temper and ability with which the bill was discussed by the Medvedjean Parliament was very creditable to them, and might advantageously be imitated in larger popular assemblies.

Though the village of Medvedje does not, so far as I know, appear in any map - at any rate it is not marked in Kiepert's map, which I carried with me - it lies about equal distances from Swilainatz and the monastery of Manassia, on the cross road which leads to towns and villages in four different directions. The village itself seems to have grown out of the necessities of such a position, and consists largely of small taverns and eating houses, mingled with the homes of labourers and small cottage proprietors. For their needs a church was just about to be erected. The ground had been cleared, and the stone for building had been collected and brought to the spot, by the various inhabitants, and a small assessment on real property would soon supply the means for paying the workmen. Judging from what I saw in the course of my rambles, there must be a considerable amount of church building going on in Servia. My travelling led me through thinly peopled and rural districts more than through towns and amongst a concentrated population; yet merely taking account of those which were building by the road-side, there seemed to be every disposition on the part of the people to supply themselves with churches adequate to the population. Indeed, a monk with whom I had an interesting conversation on the state of the Church in Servia, whilst lamenting that so many persons neglected the service of the Church, yet added, what might well be the confession of other priests than those of this country, "The people are ready enough to build churches and are willing to die for their religion at any time, but it is not so easy to get them to come to church." There is great truth, no doubt, in these words; but the difficulty, as I assured the monk, was not altogether and solely a Servian one. In the present case it may perhaps be a satisfaction to sermon-writers to know that the disinclination does not arise either from the length or the quality of the sermons as people are but little troubled with preaching in the orthodox Church - at any rate in this part of it.' (p. 188-90)

Ashes to ashes

Learned people in the 17th and 18th century knew that corpses can be fully or partially preserved for a long period. Some three hundred years later, the processes involved in decomposition are still a matter of research, as this German documentary shows. The background is the problem of corpses not decomposing in the cemeteries as fast as necessary, and the aim is to speed up the process 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'...

Macabre speculations

I recently mentioned Andrew Miller's new novel Pure, which in the meantime I have read. It certainly is a macabre tale, but also a gripping story of the people involved in the destruction of the Les Innocents cemetery a couple of years before the French Revolution. Most of the characters are fictional, but some historical persons crop up, in particular the well-known physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who in the novel is studies the various stages of human decomposition that are found during the unpleasant exhumation of thousands of bodies in the cemetery. The novel provides entertainment as well as an interesting view of the period. That the story of a young engineer destroying an ancient church and its cemetery can be interpreted as a metaphor for a major change in society is lost neither on the reader nor the engineer himself.

A paper from 1997 on Deadly Fears: Dom Augustin Calmet's Vampires and the Rule Over Death by Marie-Hélène Huet, published in Eighteenth-Century Life Vol. 21 (May 1997), p. 222-232, speculates on  both Calmet's work on vampires and the move of cemeteries from central Paris to its outskirts. Personally, I think Huet overinterpretes this conjunction, but she provides some interesting information on e.g. the cemeteries:

'Toward the end of the century, when new legislation finally authorized the closing of overcrowded cemeteries and new locations were chosen, one of the primary concerns was to find a soil where the bodies would decompose quickly. Long before the Cemetery of the Innocents was closed, officials complained that "the soil has difficulty absorbing the bodies buried there" (qtd. in Thibaut-Payen, p. 211). A similar anxiety would spread through Paris during the Revolution, with endless complaints that the guillotined bodies failed to decompose and were rejected by the clay of the Madeleine cemetery where they were first buried.

In the second half of the century, one notices a growing repulsion toward and dread of the dead as the sacred respect due them seemed to be superseded by a rising fear of their nefarious powers. Michel Vovelle quotes a 1781 Lettre du Baron de *** à son ami sur l'affaires des cimetières, from an anonymous author protesting a proposed "lieu de dépôts" or "temporary storage" of the dead in Paris:

"A sick person dies and is kept at home twenty four, sometimes forty eight hours: shall we have to keep it uncovered for another twelve hours? ... Here is a corpse that casts its most dangerous infection into the air; the many moves one will be obliged to make, to take it to church, onto the cart, moving and emptying the cart, will increase this infection, letting it escape into the air. What will be the scope of this infection, already so dangerous when it comes from a single body, when it is multiplied by all the corpses of Paris and air temperatures? ... All of Paris, at all times and in all its quarters, will be filled with cadaverous and pestilential putrefaction." (pp. 202-3)

A growing antipollution movement brought together village priests and villagers, as well as members of the Academy of Medicine and of the Academy of Sciences, all of whom were anxious to relocate cemeteries outside the cities, far from the living. The famous decision in 1785 to close the Cemetery of the Innocents testifies to several concerns, writes Thibaut-Payen, chief among them, "the dangers of insalubrity presented by the presence of a necropolis inside the city limits" (p. 221).' 

Particularly far-fetching are in my opinion Huet's comments on the 'deep Christianity' of the 1732 story of 'Arnold Paul', Calmet being her prime source:

'Undoubtedly, most of the elements of the classical vampire story are here. But the most striking part of the story lies in its deep Christianity, in its hardly disguised evocation of Christ's life: the forty days reminiscent of the days spent fasting in the desert, fighting the devil's temptations, the ressurection from the dead. But at the same time, everything is reversed: the vampire's public life starts after his death, and, instead of fasting and resisting temptation, he indulges in blood feasts that cannot be stopped until forty days after his life as a vampire has started. Like an inverted image of Christ, the vampire wins disciples who will, in turn, make their victims into new converts. Vampirism is not just a plague, it is a false religion. The sacrificial burning of vampires cannot fail to evoke the burning at the stake of heretics and devil worshippers.'

I object to this analysis, because I cannot recall reading any contemporary 18th century speculations along these lines. For more or less the same reason, I also find her thoughts regarding the name of 'Arnold Paul' speculative:

'Moreover, the name of the deadly vampire, Arnold Paul (which Calmet remarked himself was a most unlikely name for a Hungarian vampire), must have immediately reminded readers of the great Jansenist Arnauld. Certainly, vampire stories, articulated on countless episodes of grave profanation and extraordinary attacks on Jansenists, provided the Benedictine monk with a thinly disguised religious parable.'

A stone's throw away

Living next door to a cemetery, earlier today I noticed a grave where the family had placed various sorts of food and drink: Fruits, biscuits etc. as you can see in the photo above. Out of respect I am not disclosing the identiy of the buried person, but the gravestone carries an Oriental name so this is obviously a tradition from those parts, like e.g. the Chinese Qingming festival which, however, I think took place earlier this month:

'The Qingming Festival is an opportunity for celebrants to remember and honour their ancestors at grave sites. Young and old pray before the ancestors, sweep the tombs and offer food, tea, wine, chopsticks, joss paper accessories, and/or libations to the ancestors. The rites have a long tradition in Asia, especially among farmers. Some people carry willow branches with them on Qingming, or put willow branches on their gates and/or front doors. They believe that willow branches help ward off the evil spirit that wanders on Qingming.'

Les Mystères de Paris

Spending some time in Paris this summer, I of course tried to take a look at some things that might be of relevance to this blog.

At Versailles there was a small outdoor exhibition of the suits of some professions, including the astrologer's as shown above, and, of course, the busts and statues of some people who have played a role in vampire history. Not least Voltaire (below) who actually visited Senones, but later on attacked Calmet in his oft-quoted:

'Quoi ! C’est dans notre xviiie siècle qu’il y a eu des vampires ! C’est après le règne des Locke, des Shaftesbury, des Trenchard, des Collins ; c’est sous le règne des d’Alembert, des Diderot, des Saint-Lambert, des Duclos qu’on a cru aux vampires, et que le RPD Augustin Calmet, prêtre, bénédictin de la congrégation de Saint-Vannes et de Saint-Hidulphe, abbé de Sénone, abbaye de cent mille livres de rente, voisine de deux autres abbayes du même revenu, a imprimé et réimprimé l’Histoire des Vampires, avec l’approbation de la Sorbonne, signée Marcilli !'

The naturalist Buffon, who was the first to use the word vampire for a bat, can be found in various places (like the statue below) in the Jardin des plantes, even depicted like some kind of Dr. Doolittle who almost can talk to the animals. There is also a plane tree (platanus orientalis) that he planted in that garden in 1785.



The statue of Buffon is facing the Grande Galerie d'evolution, which actually carries the name of the botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, who before Buffon had been involved in developing the garden. In vampire history, Tournefort is of course known for observing and describing Greek revenant belief in his Relation d'un voyage du Levant.



A curious honouring of the dead can be seen at the Père Lachaise cemetery, cf. the tombs of Jim Morrison and Victor Noir. Currently there is an exhibition of photos of cemeteries from around the world, including one from Highgate Cemetery in London.

The mysterious, but fake tomb below can be found in a private vampire museum run by author Jacques Sirgent. Situated on the border of old Paris, it is easy and fast to go to Le Musée des Vampires by Metro, but entrance is only possible on request. Well, I couldn't go to Paris without trying to see a vampire museum, so I and my wife visited the place and had a pleasant time with Sirgent who talked about his books and his views on vampires, the possible location of Vlad Tepes's corpse etc.

Jacques Sirgent is the author of a number of books, including Le livre des vampires and Erzsebeth Báthory: Le sang des innocentes. One of his books is available in English: Drakula's Tomb.

Historical cemetery affected by metro

A local newspaper here in Denmark reports that the remains of 4-10.000 bodies are going to be excavated in connection with the construction of a new underground metro station in Copenhagen. The station will be located beneath the cemetery that I wrote about here. The excavation will not affect the graves of such world famous people as Niels Bohr and Søren Kierkegaard, who are buried there, but people have been buried here between 1805 and 1998, so it is certainly a piece of cultural history that will be affected by the work.

Apart from the unique and delicate nature of the work, it is interesting to read that a rule of thumb is that on average the bodies of 13 people can be expected to have been buried in each burial plot over the past 200 years, and that apparently few of these bodily remains have been removed. That is why the archaeologists who will carry out the work expect to find the remains of an unknown, but pretty large number of people.

Alte Johannisfriedhof

When I visited Leipzig, I was obviously looking for traces of some of the people who were involved in the vampire debate of the 1730'ies. So I went to have a look at Leipzig's old graveyard, the Alte Johannisfriedhof. Unfortunately, this graveyard has experienced a lot of turbulence over the centuries since it was founded in the 14th century. The ground that used to be the oldest part of the cemetery is now the site of a building housing three museums. Consequently, most graves are from the 19th century, and the few older ones aren't in the best shape.

You can, however, still find graves of well-known people at The Alter Johannisfriedhof, e.g. famous German publishers like Brockhaus and Reclam. The grave of Johann Heinrich Zedler unfortunately no longer exists. As the cemetery is located quite close to the city centre, you can easily go there for a walk around the relatively limited area, and perhaps a visit to the three Grassi museums.

A haunted cemetery

A friend of mine asked me to join him for a special walk in one of Copenhagen's cemeteries yesterday evening. As part of an annual cultural event called in Danish Kulturnatten (The culture night), the old Assistens Kirkegård was open to the public, and on this particular evening a few eerie ghosts were haunting the cemetery! So we walked around in the dark and came pretty close to some female 'apparitions' dressed in white garments, one of them even being very tall with her shroud floating around her.

One may take the opportunity to reflect upon why a the people in charge of the cemetery arrange this kind of event. I suppose that some would even find it disrespectful of those who are buried there to make their graves the site of entertainment. I do, however, think it was done in a relatively respectful way, and the few people who were actually going around the cemetery seemed to act responsibly. For this reason I myself have no particular qualms about it, and of course, historically cemeteries have been used for various purposes, so why not a bit of 'haunting'?

First and foremost the event to me indicates that most of us are not really so afraid of meeting a revenant or ghost to avoid the opportunity to enter a cemetery by night. On the other hand, the question of 'what if' probably 'tickles' our imagination so much that it is attractive to go and see what happens.

The cemetery in question is the burial site of many well-known Danes, e.g. the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, the author Hans Christian Andersen, and the physicists Hans Christian Ørsted and Niels Bohr. For those interested in vampires and magia posthuma, this is also the burial site of the Danish author Dan Turèll, who has written a book on vampires, and of the painter Nicolai Abildgaard whom I wrote about in an earlier post.

It is also the cemetery where an interesting incident concerning premature burial occurred in the late 18th century. Tradition has had it that when grave robbers came to steal from the corpse of a young woman called Giertrud Birgitte Bodenhoff, they found her alive and killed her. This tale had been retold for about 150 years when it was decided to exhume the remains of the corpse and examine it to ascertain whether there was any truth in the stories of grave robbers and premature burial.

Viggo Starcke who was in charge of the examination, concluded that the tradition was true, and wrote a book on the mystery of Giertrud Birgitte Bodenhoff that was published in 1954.

August

August has been busy in other areas than blogging, so there has been a pause in my postings recently. As a 'filler', here is a photo from the cemetery that is just next to my home. Spending so much time reading about corpses that cannot find rest in their graves, it is somewhat reassurring to see how cosy cats and other animals can make themselves around the graves. Incidentally, the head-stone in the photo is placed in memory of a stone cutter.