Navje

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neoclassical arcades on Navje cemetery

Navje, the redesigned part of the former St. Christopher's Cemetery (Slovene: Pokopališče pri sv. Krištofu), is a memorial park in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. It is located in the Bežigrad district, just behind the Ljubljana railway station.

History

St. Christopher's Cemetery

St. Christopher's Cemetery was blessed in May 1779 by Johann Karl von Herberstein, the Bishop of Ljubljana, and was located in the area of today's Exhibition and Convention Centre.[1] Between the late 18th century and the early 20th century, it was the central town cemetery. In 1906, a new cemetery was established next to Holy Cross Church and most of the graves were gradually moved there. Since 1926, St. Christopher's Cemetery was abandoned.

Design of Navje

In the 1930s, a small portion of the old cemetery, including the arcades that were built around 1865,[2] was transformed in a "pantheon" of famous Slovenes. The memorial park was designed by the architects Jože Plečnik and Ivo Spinčič in collaboration with the gardener Anton Lah. Already in 1932, Plečnik had proposed building a monumental church on the same site, which would include a crypt with tombs of famous Slovenes. The project, planned together with his student Edvard Ravnikar, was however rejected, and so Plečnik proposed the creation of Navje.

Later history

Between 1936 and 1940 several graves and tombstones of notable personalities were moved into the park, but because of the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 the project was never completed. Many of the tombs planned to be moved into Navje, such as Prešeren's, Trubar's, Maister's and Rusjan's, were not brought in, while many tombs of unimportant individuals, planned to be moved to Žale, have remained in the park. Plečnik's plans to enlarge the park were never carried out. After World War II, the park was largely neglected and renovation took place only in the 1990s.

Famous tombs

The writers' tomb in Navje is the tomb of eight notable Slovene poets and writers: Anton Aškerc, Fran Gestrin, Fran Levstik, Josip Podmilšak (Andrejčkov Jože), Anton Raič, Božidar Raič, Ivan Resman, Simon Rutar, Josip Stritar, and Ivan Železnikar.

Notable people buried in Navje include:

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Navje.
  1. ↑ Kladnik, Darinka (1996). Mestna hiša v Ljubljani: pomembni dogodki v zgodovini mesta [The Ljubljana Town Hall: Significant Events in the Town History] (in Slovene). Viharnik. p. 58. ISBN 9789616057059. 
  2. ↑ Sapač, Igor. "Rudniško gledališče v Idriji" [Mine Theatre in Idrija]. Retrieved 18 October 2012. 

Coordinates: 46°3′37.98″N 14°30′42.67″E / 46.0605500°N 14.5118528°E / 46.0605500; 14.5118528

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.