Raadi cemetery
Coordinates: 58°23′40″N 26°43′40″E / 58.39444°N 26.72778°E
The Raadi cemetery, Estonian: Raadi kalmistu) is the oldest and largest burial ground in Tartu, Estonia, dating back to 1773. Many prominent historical figures are buried there. It is also the largest Baltic German cemetery in Estonia after the destruction of Kopli cemetery in Tallinn. Until 1841, it was the only cemetery in the town.
The cemetery currently includes several smaller graveyard sections, the oldest of which date back to 1773.
Between 1771 and 1772, Russian empress Catherine the Great, issued an edict which decreed that from that point on no-one who died (regardless of their social standing or class origins) was to be buried in a church crypt or churchyard; all burials were to take place in the new cemeteries to be built throughout the entire Russian empire, which were to be located outside town boundaries.
These measures were intended to overcome the congestion of urban church crypts and graveyards, and were prompted by a number of outbreaks of highly contagious diseases linked to inadequate burial practices in urban areas, especially the black plague which had led to the Plague Riot in Moscow in 1771.
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