Description of the attraction
The Passy Cemetery, opened in 1820, is located in a wealthy area on the right bank of the Seine, not far from the Champs Elysees. Naturally, it immediately became the burial place of the Parisian aristocracy. Here for the first time a heated hall for funeral ceremonies appeared - an unprecedented luxury for cemeteries of that time.
Passy is a small (only about 2000 graves) and very interesting cemetery. Built like a hanging garden, it is above the level of the Trocadero, but behind the chestnuts and the high wall it is not visible. On the wall overlooking the Trocadero, there is an expressive bas-relief of military glory that appeared after the First World War.
There are many tombstones in the cemetery made by famous sculptors - Rodin, Zadkine, Landovski. The family crypts of famous families are adorned with magnificent stained glass windows. Many people who were once in glory rest here: French politicians Edgar Faure, Gabriel Anoto, Alexander Millerand (12th President of France), the last emperor of Vietnam Bao Dai, artists Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, composers Claude Debussy, Jacques Ibert, founder of the car company Marcel Renault, aviation pioneer Henri Farman, actor Fernandel …
The compositional center of the cemetery is the majestic tomb of Maria Bashkirtseva (1858-1884). The artist, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 25, kept a diary all her life, after her death, published and translated into many languages. Bashkirtseva was the first Slavic artist whose work was acquired by the Louvre, but she is known mainly from her diary. Tsvetaeva and Bryusov admired Bashkirtseva, while Rozanov contrasted her with strikingly frank entries to the Diary of a Russian Woman by Elizaveta Dyakonova. Dyakonova herself wrote about Bashkirtseva's diary: “Poor 19th century! It was reflected in a proud, weak and immoral person. However, later it turned out that the original was not published - almost all the records were censored by the girl's family. 84 notebooks by Maria Bashkirtseva are kept in the National Library of France.
In the tomb of Emile Bastien-Lepage, declared a historical monument, Bashkirtseva's workshop has been recreated. There are busts of her parents, an armchair, a prayer chair, a palette and the artist's last unfinished painting, The Myrrh-Bearing Wives, all visible through the glass.
