The privatization of death: the emergence of private cemeteries in Romania’s postsocialist deathscape

Abstract

ABSTRACT Private cemeteries constitute a new development in the Romanian postsocialist death system that poses a challenge to the traditional burial culture. This paper charts the emergence of privately owned, profit-oriented cemeteries that have appeared across the country after the demise of state socialism. It argues that the development of these new, entrepreneurial burial grounds is to be understood at the intersection of several factors: (1) transformations in the country’s political economy after the overthrow of the socialist regime have facilitated the diffusion of an entrepreneurial ethos in the realm of death and body disposal. Against this background, (2) a burial crisis produced by overcrowded cemeteries was mounting, which (3) the local state authorities largely failed to address. Using empirical data collected from multiple sources, the paper examines statistically the private cemeteries opened in Romania’s postsocialist deathscape as well as the burial crisis affecting the public cemeteries, which stimulated the former’s development. Lastly, the paper takes stock of the Romanian Orthodox Church’s reaction to this trend and charts its shifting position from the initial vehement condemnation of private cemeteries to market accommodation after the adoption of the 2014 law regulating the burial grounds.