Saint Mark Cemetery

Saint Mark's Cemetery or Sveti Marko Groblje is a three and a half acre Serbian Orthodox cemetery dating from the 19th century and the last resting place for an assortment of residents: Italian and German families, many partisans soldiers from WWII, a host of famous citizens and a rare Roman Catholic. The cemetery has many up-right markers and slabs of granite with Christian crosses and angels marking the graves. Dedicated to St. Mark, the cemetery has a small bright yellow chapel with a red bell tower that opened on October 15, 1922. The cemetery's entrance is a concrete arch with a black wrought iron gate, which continues to a black wrought iron fence that surrounds the entire cemetery. One of the most famous graves is that of Gavrilo Princip, the nineteen-year-old who assassinated the Austrian-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. This act may have hastened the start of World War I. His remains, along with his fellow conspirators, are resting in the Vidovdan Heros Chapel. Situated in a highly populated area of East Sarajevo, the cemetery's terrain consists of rolling hills with very few trees. One can easily see the other surrounding cemeteries, which are closely adjacent to St. Mark's Cemetery such as the Roman Catholic St Joseph's Cemetery, the Cemetery of Holy Archangels George and Gabriel, the City Cemetery, the Orthodox Hospital Cemetery, and the Islamic Cemetery with its tall pointed white markers all in a row. The cemetery is closed to any future burials except the graves sites that have been reserved. Using DNA, there is an active project to locate the families of the hundreds of unknowns that were buried in this cemetery. Many of the unknown were killed during the 20th century wars.