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Haidar Pasha Cemetery (Haydarpaşa İngiliz Mezarlığı), also known as Haydarpaşa Cemetery, is a British cemetery in Istanbul, Turkey. It’s located in the Selimiye area of Üsküdar.
History
The cemetery was established in 1855 during the Crimean War. The land was once owned by Süleyman the Magnificent and was donated to the British government. Another plot was added in 1867. The cemetery also includes the graves of Commonwealth soldiers who took part in both world wars as well as over 700 British civilians.
Getting There
The entrance to the Haidar Pasha Cemetery is hidden and can be a little hard to find. Burhan Felek Avenue runs west from Tibbiye Avenue, the main road between Üsküdar and Kadıköy. At the roundabout past the Marmara University campus, there’s a quiet road that passes in front of a hospital. A marker points visitors in the direction of the well-kept cemetery.
Crimean War Section
Once through the gates, you’ll enter the oldest part of the cemetery. It contains the graves of Crimean War soldiers. Over 6,000 British soldiers died at the nearby Selimiye Barracks, mostly due to cholera, dysentery, typhus, or typhoid. Most of the Crimean War graves are not marked, but there are a handful of other graves, including some marked in Russian and Hungarian.
Grave of Count Richárd Guyon
One of the interesting graves belongs to Count Richárd Guyon. He was a British citizen and Hungarian general who fled to the Ottoman Empire after losing the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. He then became a general in the Ottoman army, serving in Damascus and in the Crimean War. In the Ottoman Empire, he was known as Hursid Pasha.
Crimean War Memorial
In the Crimean War section, there’s an obelisk erected by Queen Victoria in 1857 in honor of the British war dead. The Crimean War Memorial obelisk contains a plaque dedicated to Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), the founder of modern nursing. It was added by the British community in Turkey in 1954 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Nightingale’s service in the region. The inscription reads:
To Florence Nightingale, whose work near this Cemetery a century ago relieved much human suffering and laid the foundations for the nursing profession.
There’s also a symbolic broken column dedicated to German Jäger officers who died fighting alongside the British as well as an 1855 monument moved there from the Therapia Crimean Cemetery (now in Tarabya).
O’Conor Chapel
The cemetery continues down a long gravel path. Halfway down the path is a chapel dedicated to Sir Nicholas O’Conor (1843-1908), the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1898 to 1908. He died in his post following a stomach hemorrhage.
An open grass field behind the chapel leads to the World War I section of the Haidar Pasha Cemetery.
World War I Section
Graves of 400 soldiers and military personnel who perished during World War I and the Occupation of Constantinople from 1918 to 1923 make up the next section. Many died as prisoners of war.
One memorial commemorates Hindu and Sikh soldiers of the Indian Army who were cremated and buried in other cemeteries. In 1961, earth containing the remains of those soldiers was scattered near the memorial. Muslim soldiers who fought alongside them were reinterred at Haidar Pasha Cemetery.
Another memorial at the back of the World War I section lists the names of over 200 soldiers and military personnel buried in south Russia and the Transcaucasian Republics. The cemeteries in which they were buried could no longer be maintained by the British government.
In addition to the World War I burials, 38 soldiers from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force as well as one Australian pilot killed in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II are buried at Haidar Pasha Cemetery. They died near the borders of Turkey.
Civilian Section
The rest of the cemetery contains the graves of over 700 civilians. Civilian burials have taken place there since 1867. This is the most interesting section of the cemetery for me personally. I spent a good 40 minutes wandering around and reading the gravestones.
Victorian graves are always an interesting read. Some of them include the life story of the person buried in the grave, and others tell how they died. Other gravestones contain dedications from loved ones and friends.
A handful of the graves are quite sad. Some belong to infants and small children while others chronicle the devastation felt due to the early death of a spouse.
One notable burial in the civilian section is Marian Langiewicz (1827-1887). He was a Polish patriot best known as a military leader in the January Uprising of 1863. He’s buried next to his English wife, Suzanne (1837-1906).
