Haydarpasa Cemetery
Encyclopedia
Haydarpaşa Cemetery, also known as Haidar Pasha Cemetery, Istanbul , located in the Haydarpaşa
neighborhood of Üsküdar
district in the Asia
n part of Istanbul
, Turkey
, is a burial ground
established initially for British
military personnel, who took part in the Crimean War
(1854-1856). The cemetery holds also graves of Commonwealth
soldiers from the two World Wars, and civilians of British nationality.
epidemic in the first organized military hospital in modern history created by Florence Nightingale
. Around 6,000 soldiers died during the war in the Selimiye Barracks
(aka Scutari
Barracks) in Istanbul, which was converted into a military hospital. The graves of the dead, of which only a few are marked today, were placed at two separate plots on a hillside close to the Sea of Marmara
next to the military hospital. The land, formerly owned by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent
(1495-1566) , was donated to the British Government in 1855. The two plots were linked in 1867 by a second land grant.
An obelisk was erected in 1857 by Queen Victoria
(1819-1901) within the cemetery to commemorate the British soldiers from the Crimean War. A bronze plaque, attached by the British community in Turkey on the plinth of the Crimean Memorial and unveiled on Empire Day, 1954 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale
’s nursing service in this region, bears the inscription:
Other monuments in the cemetery include a symbolic broken column in memorial of German Jäger
officers who fell in the Crimea
, and a British memorial, which was erected 1855 initially in the Therapia Crimean Cemetery (today Tarabya
on the Europe
an part of Istanbul) and later transferred here together with the graves of 18 personnel of Royal Navy
and Royal Marines
who died in the sultan’s mansion, which was converted into a military hospital in Therapia .
(1533-1603) to the Sublime Porte between 1588 and 1596, who died in 1598 on the island of Heybeliada in the Sea of Marmara
, and his remains were transferred later here. A chapel in memory of Sir Nicholas O’Conor-Don, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire
from 1898 to 1908, is another historic monument in this plot.
Some military graves outside of the World War periods are also located in this section.
, who died in Turkey mostly as prisoners of war
or some during the occupation of Istanbul
(1918 to 1923) after the Armistice of Mudros
.
Two other memorials of World War I are found in the cemetery, one bearing the names of a little over 200 soldiers of United Kingdom and Undivided India, who fell in various parts of Russia
or on the borders of Turkey, and whose burial grounds could not be maintained. The other memorial is dedicated to the servicemen of the Indian Army
, who died between 1919 and 1920 in the prisoner-of-war camps in southern Turkey near Adana
and were interred in the Maslak and Osmaniye Indian Cemeteries. In 1961, when those cemeteries could not be further maintained, the earth with the ashes of the cremated remains of these men was transferred here and scattered near the monument, and the remains of their Muslim
comrades were re-interred.
In addition to the burials of World War I, graves of 38 servicemen of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force
and one pilot of the Australian Imperial Force
, who were all killed in action in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II
at the borders of then neutral Turkey, are found in the Haydarpaşa Cemetery.
has taken over the duty on behalf of the British Government.
next to the marshalling yard down on the street Tıbbiye Caddesi from Üsküdar to Kadıköy
.
Haydarpasa, Istanbul
Haydarpaşa is a neighborhood within the Kadıköy district on the Asian part of Istanbul, Turkey. The place, on the coast of Sea of Marmara, borders to Harem in the northwest and Kadıköy in the southeast...
neighborhood of Üsküdar
Üsküdar
Üsküdar is a large and densely populated municipality of Istanbul, Turkey, on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphorus. It is bordered on the north by Beykoz, on the east by Ümraniye, on the southeast by Ataşehir, on the south by Kadıköy, and on the west by the Bosphorus, with the areas of Beşiktaş,...
district in the Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n part of Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, is a burial ground
Burial Ground
Burial Ground is the ninth studio album by Swedish death metal band Grave, released in June 2010.-Track listing:# "Liberation" - 3:40# "Semblance In Black" - 7:50# "Dismembered Mind" - 6:10# "Ridden With Belief" - 7:57# "Conquerer" - 4:44...
established initially for British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
military personnel, who took part in the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
(1854-1856). The cemetery holds also graves of Commonwealth
Commonwealth
Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has sometimes been synonymous with "republic."More recently it has been used for fraternal associations of some sovereign nations...
soldiers from the two World Wars, and civilians of British nationality.
Crimean War graves
The cemetery was first established for British soldiers from the Crimean War, who died mostly as the result of choleraCholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
epidemic in the first organized military hospital in modern history created by Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
. Around 6,000 soldiers died during the war in the Selimiye Barracks
Selimiye Barracks
Selimiye Barracks, also known as Scutari Barracks is a Turkish army barracks located in the Üsküdar district on the Asian part of Istanbul, Turkey...
(aka Scutari
Scutari
Scutari may refer to:*Üsküdar , in Anatolia, Turkey*Scutari Barracks in Üsküdar; former hospital where Florence Nightingale worked*Shkodër, in Albania; also known as Scutari in antiquity...
Barracks) in Istanbul, which was converted into a military hospital. The graves of the dead, of which only a few are marked today, were placed at two separate plots on a hillside close to the Sea of Marmara
Sea of Marmara
The Sea of Marmara , also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis , is the inland sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey's Asian and European parts. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black...
next to the military hospital. The land, formerly owned by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
(1495-1566) , was donated to the British Government in 1855. The two plots were linked in 1867 by a second land grant.
An obelisk was erected in 1857 by Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
(1819-1901) within the cemetery to commemorate the British soldiers from the Crimean War. A bronze plaque, attached by the British community in Turkey on the plinth of the Crimean Memorial and unveiled on Empire Day, 1954 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
’s nursing service in this region, bears the inscription:
"To Florence Nightingale, whose work near this Cemetery a century ago relieved much human suffering and laid the foundations for the nursing profession."
Other monuments in the cemetery include a symbolic broken column in memorial of German Jäger
Jäger (military)
Jäger is a term that was adopted in the Enlightenment era in German-speaking states and others influenced by German military practice to describe a kind of light infantry, and it has continued in that use since then....
officers who fell in the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
, and a British memorial, which was erected 1855 initially in the Therapia Crimean Cemetery (today Tarabya
Tarabya
Tarabya is a neighbourhood in Sarıyer district of Istanbul, Turkey. It is located on the European shores of the Bosphorus, between the neighbourhoods of Yeniköy and Kireçburnu....
on the Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an part of Istanbul) and later transferred here together with the graves of 18 personnel of Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
and Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
who died in the sultan’s mansion, which was converted into a military hospital in Therapia .
Civilian burials
Since 1867, more than 700 civilians are interred in a separate section within the cemetery. Among them is the grave of Sir Edward Barton, British ambassador of Queen Elizabeth IElizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
(1533-1603) to the Sublime Porte between 1588 and 1596, who died in 1598 on the island of Heybeliada in the Sea of Marmara
Sea of Marmara
The Sea of Marmara , also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis , is the inland sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey's Asian and European parts. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black...
, and his remains were transferred later here. A chapel in memory of Sir Nicholas O’Conor-Don, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
from 1898 to 1908, is another historic monument in this plot.
Some military graves outside of the World War periods are also located in this section.
World War graves
There are just over 400 graves of military personnel from World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, who died in Turkey mostly as prisoners of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
or some during the occupation of Istanbul
Occupation of Istanbul
The Occupation of Constantinople was the occupation of the capital of the Ottoman Empire by the Triple Entente, following the Armistice of Mudros which ended Ottoman participation in the First World War. The first French troops entered the city on November 12, 1918, followed by British troops the...
(1918 to 1923) after the Armistice of Mudros
Armistice of Mudros
The Armistice of Moudros , concluded on 30 October 1918, ended the hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I...
.
Two other memorials of World War I are found in the cemetery, one bearing the names of a little over 200 soldiers of United Kingdom and Undivided India, who fell in various parts of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
or on the borders of Turkey, and whose burial grounds could not be maintained. The other memorial is dedicated to the servicemen of the Indian Army
Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...
, who died between 1919 and 1920 in the prisoner-of-war camps in southern Turkey near Adana
Adana
Adana is a city in southern Turkey and a major agricultural and commercial center. The city is situated on the Seyhan River, 30 kilometres inland from the Mediterranean, in south-central Anatolia...
and were interred in the Maslak and Osmaniye Indian Cemeteries. In 1961, when those cemeteries could not be further maintained, the earth with the ashes of the cremated remains of these men was transferred here and scattered near the monument, and the remains of their Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
comrades were re-interred.
In addition to the burials of World War I, graves of 38 servicemen of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
and one pilot of the Australian Imperial Force
Australian Imperial Force
The Australian Imperial Force was the name given to all-volunteer Australian Army forces dispatched to fight overseas during World War I and World War II.* First Australian Imperial Force * Second Australian Imperial Force...
, who were all killed in action in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II
Mediterranean Theatre of World War II
The African, Mediterranean and Middle East theatres encompassed the naval, land, and air campaigns fought between the Allied and Axis forces in the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and Africa...
at the borders of then neutral Turkey, are found in the Haydarpaşa Cemetery.
Notable burials
- Count Richard Guyon (aka Hurşid Pasha), Turkish PashaPashaPasha or pascha, formerly bashaw, was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire political system, typically granted to governors, generals and dignitaries. As an honorary title, Pasha, in one of its various ranks, is equivalent to the British title of Lord, and was also one of the highest titles in...
of FrenchFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
descent, HungarianHungaryHungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
nationalist and general, hero of the Hungarian Revolution in 1848-49, born in England – killed in action on October 11, 1856 in the Crimean War. - Marian LangiewiczMarian LangiewiczMarian Langiewicz, full name Marian Antoni Melchior Langiewicz , was a Polish patriot notable as a military leader of the January Uprising in 1863.-Biography:He was born in the province of Posen, his father being the local doctor...
- a Polish patriot notable as a military leader of the January UprisingJanuary UprisingThe January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
of 1863. - Dr. Alexander McGrigor – British physician, who worked together with Florence Nightingale in the Selimiye Barracks
- William Henry Wrench - British Consul at Constantinople, born on November 21, 1836, in Salehurst, Sussex, England, died on October 13, 1896, in Kandilli, Bilecik, Turkey, also served in Damascus and Beirut.
Administration
Until 1925, the British Government was directly responsible for the maintenance of the cemetery. From then on, the Commonwealth War Graves CommissionCommonwealth War Graves Commission
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves, and places of commemoration, of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars...
has taken over the duty on behalf of the British Government.
Location
The cemetery is situated today between the military hospital and the Port of HaydarpaşaPort of Haydarpasa
The Port of Haydarpaşa, also known as the Port of Haidar Pasha is a general cargo seaport, ro-ro and container terminal, situated in Haydarpaşa, Istanbul at the southern entrance to the Bosphorus...
next to the marshalling yard down on the street Tıbbiye Caddesi from Üsküdar to Kadıköy
Kadiköy
Kadıköy is a large, populous, and cosmopolitan district of İstanbul, Turkey on the Asian side of the Sea of Marmara, facing the historic city centre on the European side of the Bosporus...
.