Vyšehrad Cemetery, Prague

Vyšehrad Cemetery is Prague’s national burial ground, holding the graves of major figures from Czech cultural and public life. Among the grave markers and arcades, its defining memorial is Slavín, the collective tomb designed by Antonín Wiehl. Built from eighteen eighty-nine to eighteen ninety-three, Slavín was created for leading people in Czech culture, art, scholarship, and technology, with sculpture by Josef Mauder.

The cemetery’s transformation into a national burial place was proposed by František Ladislav Rieger and brought about through the work of Vyšehrad chapter member Václav Štulc. Writers Karel Čapek, Božena Němcová, and Karel Hynek Mácha rest here, alongside composers Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana. Mácha’s reburial here on the seventh of May nineteen thirty-nine became a national demonstration during the opening phase of Nazi occupation.