The Czech Republic is a superpower in cremations. But when did it all start for us?

If we are talking about the real beginnings of cremation burial, we have to dig into really ancient history, actually prehistory. Cremated remains 40,000 years old have been found and also many ancient civilizations chose this way of saying goodbye to the deceased. In India, for example, cremation was an essential element of the Hindu religion, and it still is today. In Ancient Greece, cremation was reserved for the greatest heroes and kings, on the contrary, in ancient Egypt it concerned the common people, as pharaohs and high officials allowed themselves to be mummified.

In the Christian cultural circle, however, cremation was rejected for a long time because, according to the church, it contradicted the idea of ​​resurrection. As more and more people moved to cities, the need for a more efficient and hygienic way of burial than the traditional burial in the ground began to arise. While, for example, in the United States, the first crematorium was built as early as 1876, in Austria-Hungary, the ban on burial by scalding was in force for the entire period of its existence. And it logically also concerned the Czech lands. However, this does not mean that there are no supporters of cremation in our country.

The effort to legalize cremation in our country came from German residents living in Liberec. The people of Liberec were very active members of the association of friends of žehu a as early as 1898, despite the ban on cremation burials, they officially strove for their own crematorium. The fight with the Austrian authorities could not be won immediately, but the ice began to break.

Liberec received permission to build a crematorium in 1912. However, this does not mean that cremations were allowed there. Therefore, since 1909, their supporters had themselves cremated on the other side of the border in Zittau, Saxony.

The construction of the crematorium itself is interesting, at one time it was even considered that it should stand on top of Ještěd. However, the project of the architect Bitzan from Dresden eventually began to grow on the so-called Monster Hill. Today it is part of the wider city center. Construction began in 1915 and was completed in August 1917. However, permission to carry out cremations still did not exist.

However, the end of the First World War and the collapse of Austria-Hungary brought a fundamental change. Thanks to him, the very first person could be cremated in Liberec on October 31, 1918, burgher Robert Jahn. Not that the Czechoslovak authorities would have solved the issue of the ban on cremations already three days after the establishment of the republic, but the Liberec people took advantage of the legal vacuum that arose after the collapse of the monarchy.

In the following years, the number of cremations in Czechoslovakia rose rapidly until they became the most common method of burial. How is it possible that the Czechs liked cremation so quickly and on such a scale? It will probably be a combination of various reasons, but the fact that Historically, the Czechs stood in a certain opposition to the Catholic Church. This position was suppressed during the Austro-Hungarian period, but during the First Republic this position began to gain strength again. But there is no doubt that it also has its negative sides, especially the record number of burials without a ceremony and unclaimed urns. And speaking of the church: it first admitted the possibility of cremations in the twenties, but officially lifted their ban only in 1963.

Currently, cremations clearly prevail in our country, the question is whether their dominance will not be disrupted by new methods of burial, e.g. cryocremation or body composting.