All Saints Day is among the most important events of the year. It's a day when you are supposed to show off in front of your neighbors how you uphold traditions and how you stick together as a family. You have to bring the most flowers and candles to the graves of your deceased relatives, after you have spent hours scrubbing the graves clean the previous weekend. Fun times. I have both sets of grandparents burried by now, thus two cemeteries to visit and tend to this time of the year. On Saturday we go to Krnča, my maternal grandparents' village. Aunt Marta, mother's sister still lives there. Uncle Palo does too, but we don't talk to him. I don't quite remember why, but that's how things are. Uncle Palo, like most men in the village, is a raging alcoholic, which is perhaps among the reasons why we don't visit his family. Marta's husband is another one, he has been restricted to the basement part of the house, and he doesn't eat at home anymore either. Marta cannot stand him. You don't divorce in the village, but you can sort of separate, within the same household. Aunt Jara comes with my cousin Eva. Eva is a more-or-less cured alcoholic (damn, I better watch my own drinking!) and anorectic, her brother is socially challenged - sleeps during the day, watches TV throughout the nights, does not do much more than that. Both aunts are cool though. We have Marta's famous schnitzels (which she soaks first in milk for hours and then breads them twice. Deep fried in lard. You haven't lived if you haven't had Marta's schnitzels) and even more famous pickles, and head out to the cemetery. We have 7 or 8 stops. We have to place flowers at Marta's first child's grave (died when he was just a few months old), at grandmother's sister's grave, great-grandfather's grave, neighbor's mother's grave, mother's neighbor's grave, and god knows who else. Since absolutely everyone in the village is either Varga or Remeň or Kačina with but a few first names variations (Ján or Pavol for males, Katarína or Anna for females), it is awfully hard to keep track of who is who. We stand around my grandparents grave (Katarína and Pavol Varga, of course), being checked out by the village folk. We are evaluated for our dress code, for flowers and wreaths that we brought, how we aged or gained weight since the last time we were visiting. That sort of a thing that a city dweller has to count on upon visiting the ancestral village. My mom was born here, but me and my dad, who also happens to be a publicly known figure, draw attention. We're outsiders. Looking for a quick way out. Mom has to stop every five meters and chat with distant cousins, classmates, friends she forgot but has to pretend to remember. Me and dad scuttle away to a distant part of the cemetary where the oldest graves are. We are considered weird - nobody goes to that part. Those grave stones are all crooked and folding in, what do we want there?
Funny thing, this village cemetary obsession. People can not afford a car or a house, but they will spend hundreds of thousand of crowns on the graves, which has to be made of polished marble with gold lettering. The more kitch you can squeeze into one grave, the more esteemed you are. Aunt Marta has already spent hours scrubbing the grave away, so luckily we're at least spared of that. Grandma was doing that before her. Yes, grandma. She and granddad bought their grave years before they died. She personally lamented since she was forty that she has one foot in the grave and was getting ready to die any minute. She died when she was in her eighties. They used to bring flowers to their own grave. Funny in a sick way, but that's how things are in the village. No dispute.
Anyhow, after we are liberated, we drive home to Bratislava. There we have to tend to the faternal grandparents' grave (say hello to Grandma and Grandpa Kusy on the picture below). Aunt Daška, father's sister, has already been there - cleaned around, put flowers and lit candles. She's always first, it's a sick little competition we have going on each year. Well, less work for us. We add flowers and candles, readying the place for Tuesday, All Saints Day.
Coming to the cemetary on Tuesday is a major social event. One has to don the best clothing and funky hats and gloves if one has some, and walk through the neighborhood to the cemetery. Some people drive these days, but it's a tradition to walk, bringing more wreaths and flowers. Only lights at the cemetary is coming from candles. This year's fashion is however unfortunate. Instead of a bunch of candles and tea lights, people buy these red and yellow lanterns (and one has to have them to show that we can afford them and that we care that much about our deceased). They emanate much less light then plain candles, which used to line the cemetery paths in the previous years. We follow our usual path. First we stop by the grandparent's grave. Uncle Palo ( a different one, Daška's husband) is
also buried there - kinda stuck on to the side of the grave. He, too was an alcoholic, as was grandpa. Oh boy. It is so common in Slovakia that I haven't even realized half of my family were alcoholics until I put it in writing.
Next we move on to Danuška's grave (left). Danuška was a 17 year old student shot dead by the Soviet soldiers during the Warsaw Invasion of 1968. During communism we were the only people visiting her grave, as it could have been (and was) seen as a protest and provocation. It was among the things held against my father when he was in detention, awaiting trial in 1989. He got Revolution and breakdown of the regime instead. Her grave was rediscovered after 1989, just as the church and other things were. Suddenly the land was filled with conscientious Christians. Who knows where were they during communism. Ah well.
Next stop is usually Dominik Tatarka's grave. But we have to pass the Slovak Nazi State's President's grave. Jozef Tiso was a catholic priest who is celebrated as the first president of independent Slovakia (independent my ass, it was a puppet state). He is still revered by many - mostly seniors and skinheads, but also Catholics and others, who might have a more complicated love and hate (at the same time) relationship with him. My father cannot come too near, nationalists would recognize him, but I sneak in to take a photo, a bit nervous whether the 'babky demokratky' (grandma democrats, term used for nationalist old country women following the populist politicians to mass meetings) that gathered around won't get upset and violent. They are armed with walking sticks and they don't hesitate to use them against the evil czechoslovakists, or Hungarians or other devils.
Dominik is among the best writers that Slovakia ever produced. He was a dissident, one of the three that signed the Charter '77 document, along with my dad. Third was a historian Jan Mlynarik, also dead by now. He has a beautiful simple grave with an obelisk that his children brought from High Tatras, mountains that he loved. Simple mount of dirt with ivy, grass, and wild flowers growing around.
Among the nicest All Saints Day traditions is putting candles under the cross in the middle of the cemetary. You light one for each of the close people in your life that have died but whose graves you cannot visit. By the end of the night the sea of candles is almost endless, from one end of the horizon to the other. It's among the few genuine moments of togetherness that this day brings. When I see kids gazing at the candle sea I remember the feeling of amazement and some sort of connectedness with universe and All Things Big and Important that it used to bring.
Despite the petty small town fogyism and hypocrisy that this day is surrounded with, I sure hope it doesn't die out in favor of Halloween that is gaining some ground in Eastern Europe in the past few years. It's nice, even if it has to be forced upon family members each year, to get together and remember those who are in the better place. I sure hope though that those red lanterns will have the shortest life span ever. Liberation to the candles from the wicked stained glass! Damn the silly graveyard fashion.
