Santiago General Cemetery | |
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Details | |
Established | 9 December 1820 |
Location | Commune of Recoleta, Santiago |
Country | Chile |
Coordinates | 33°24′46″S70°38′57″W / 33.41278°S 70.64917°W |
Size | 85 hectares (210 acres) |
No. of interments | ~ 2 million |
Find a Grave | Santiago General Cemetery |
The Santiago General Cemetery (Spanish : Cementerio General de Santiago) in Santiago, Chile, is one of the largest cemeteries in Latin America with an estimated two million burials. The cemetery was established in 1821 after Chile's independence when Bernardo O'Higgins inaugurated the Alameda de las Delicias along the old course of the Mapocho River. O'Higgins set aside more than 85 hectares of land for the foundation of what became a magnificent grounds filled with ornate mausoleums surrounded by palm and leaf trees set amidst lush gardens and numerous sculptures, which have been estimated be 237. [1] The cemetery, which is located northwest of Cerro Blanco, serves as a true urban park for Santiago located in the municipality of Recoleta.
This cemetery is the final resting place for at least 172 of the most influential people in Chile, [1] including all but two of the deceased Presidents of Chile, the exceptions being Gabriel González Videla and Augusto Pinochet. One of the most visited memorials is that of former President Salvador Allende who had been buried in the Santa Ines cemetery at Viña del Mar following his suicide in the 1973 coup d'état. With the democratic changes that began in the 1990s, Allende was exhumed and his remains were transported in a solemn procession through the streets of Santiago to a place of honor in the Cementerio General de Santiago. The cemetery also has a memorial to the people that were 'disappeared' during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet that ousted President Allende.
The gatehouse that serves as the main entrance to the cemetery is crowned by a dome, which acts as a terminating vista for La Paz Avenue. This entrance is preceded by the Plaza La Paz, a semicircular plaza whose curved portion is framed by two exposed brick arcades. At the center of the square stands a monument dedicated to the people who died in the Church of the Company Fire. The cemetery can be accessed via Cementerios metro station.
The historical portion of the cemetery was designated as a national monument in 2010, [1] reaching the same status as Patio 29.
The territory of Chile has been populated since at least 3000 BC. By the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors began to colonize the region of present-day Chile, and the territory was a colony between 1540 and 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. The country's economic development was successively marked by the export of first agricultural produce, then saltpeter and later copper. The wealth of raw materials led to an economic upturn, but also led to dependency, and even wars with neighboring states. Chile was governed during most of its first 150 years of independence by different forms of restricted government, where the electorate was carefully vetted and controlled by an elite.
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a socialist politician, who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until his suicide in 1973. As a democratic socialist committed to democracy, he has been described as the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America.
Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter and Communist political activist. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced plays to world classics, as well as the experimental work of playwrights such as Ann Jellicoe. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva canción chilena movement. This led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of President Salvador Allende.
Eduardo Nicanor Frei Montalva was a Chilean political leader. In his long political career, he was Minister of Public Works, president of his Christian Democratic Party, senator, President of the Senate, and the 27th president of Chile from 1964 to 1970. His eldest son, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, also became president of Chile (1994–2000).
The Socialist Party of Chile is a centre-left political party founded in 1933. Its historic leader was President of Chile Salvador Allende, who was deposed in a coup d'état by General Augusto Pinochet in 1973. The military junta immediately banned socialist, Marxist and other leftist political parties. Members of the Socialist party and other leftists were subject to violent suppression, including torture and murder, under the Pinochet dictatorship, and many went into exile. Twenty-seven years after the 1973 coup, Ricardo Lagos Escobar won the Presidency as the Socialist Party candidate in the 1999–2000 Chilean presidential election. Socialist Michelle Bachelet won the 2005–06 Chilean presidential election. She was the first female president of Chile and was succeeded by Sebastián Piñera in 2010. In the 2013 Chilean general election, she was again elected president, leaving office in 2018.
Palacio de La Moneda, or simply La Moneda, is the seat of the President of the Republic of Chile. It also houses the offices of three cabinet ministers: Interior, General Secretariat of the Presidency, and General Secretariat of the Government. Located in downtown Santiago, it occupies an entire block in the Civic District, bordered by Moneda street to the north, Morandé street to the east, Alameda del Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins to the south, and Teatinos street to the west.
Patricio Aylwin Azócar was a Chilean politician from the Christian Democratic Party, lawyer, author, professor and former senator. He was the 30th president of Chile and the first president to be elected after the absolute rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet, and his election marked the Chilean transition to democracy in 1990.
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the Popular Unity government in Chile led by the democratic socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon. On 11 September 1973, a group of military officers, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule. In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of René Schneider, who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration. 2023 declassified documents showed that Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist, were aware of the coup and its plans to overthrow Allende's democratically-elected government.
Jorge Eduardo Alessandri Rodríguez was the 26th President of Chile from 1958 to 1964, and was the candidate of the Chilean right in the crucial presidential election of 1970, which he lost to Salvador Allende. He was the son of Arturo Alessandri, who was president from 1920 to 1925 and again from 1932 to 1938.
The Rettig Report, officially The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report, is a 1991 report by a commission designated by Chilean President Patricio Aylwin detailing human rights abuses resulting in deaths or disappearances that occurred in Chile during the years of military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet, which began on September 11, 1973 and ended on March 11, 1990. The report found that over 2,000 people had been killed for political reasons, and dozens of military personnel have been convicted of human rights abuses. In addition, many reforms have been made based on the recommendations of the report including an official reparations department.
¡El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido! is a music album released by the Chilean folk group Quilapayún in 1975.
The Radical Party was a Chilean political party. It was formed in 1863 in Copiapó by a split in the Liberal Party. Not coincidentally, it was formed shortly after the organization of the Grand Lodge of Chile, and it has maintained a close relationship with Chilean Freemasonry throughout its life. As such, it represented the anticlericalist position in Chilean politics, and was instrumental in producing the "theological reforms" in Chilean law in the early 1880s. These laws removed the cemeteries from the control of the Roman Catholic Church, established a civil registry of births and death in place of the previous recordkeeping of the church, and established a civil law of matrimony, which removed the determination of validity of marriages from the church. Prior to these laws, it was impossible for non-Catholics to contract marriage in Chile, and meant that any children they produced were illegitimate. Non-Catholics had also been barred from burial in Catholic cemeteries, which were virtually the only cemeteries in the country; instead, non-Catholics were buried in the beaches, and even on the Santa Lucia Hill in Santiago, which, in the 19th century, functioned as Santiago's dump.
Grandes Chilenos de Nuestra Historia was a Chilean TV program produced and broadcast by state channel Televisión Nacional de Chile during 2008. It was based on the style of BBC's 100 Greatest Britons. Former President Salvador Allende was elected the "Greatest Chilean", however, some controversial personalities such as Augusto Pinochet or Bernardo O'Higgins were preemptively excluded from the poll.
Chile–Spain relations are the current and historical relations between Chile and Spain. Both nations are members of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, Organization of Ibero-American States, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations.
Patio 29 is a common grave site in Santiago General Cemetery in Chile, where political prisoners, especially those who "disappeared" during the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, were buried anonymously. The mass grave, the largest of Augusto Pinochet's military government, was used for unannounced and unmarked burials in the 1970s until an anonymous tip alerted the public to its usage. With the return of democracy to Chile in 1990, an exhumation effort through 2006 recovered 126 bodies in 105 graves and identified three-quarters of the victims. A 2005 DNA test later reported widespread identification errors and a new identification database began in 2007. Exhumation authorities report that the site has been fully exhumed, a claim contested by which families of the victims.
Events in the year 1973 in Chile.
The following lists events that happened during 1970 in Chile.
ReMastered: Massacre at the Stadium is a 2019 documentary film about the death of singer Victor Jara in 1973, and how it turned him into a symbol of Chile's struggle.