Georg Trakl and the terrible enigma of the uncreated grave

[yellowish haze]

I’ve always enjoyed visiting long forgotten places which are somehow connected with my favourite writers. This has become a habit ever since I visited Golders Green Crematorium in London at the age of 13 after I discovered that Bram Stoker’s ashes are to be found there.
Last year I presented some pictures from Lviv and Brzuchowice, where Grabinski once lived.

This summer while on a trip to Tatra Mountains I was passing through Cracow and it occurred to me that I could use that one-day stay in Cracow to take some pictures of places connected with Georg Trakl’s life.

It is in Cracow where Trakl committed sucide in a garrison hospital. His body was later interred in Rakowicki Cemetery according to the indications given by Ludwig Wittgenstein on 6 November 1915. This grave remains utterly forgotten and partly due to the fact that 10 years later, in 1925, Trakl’s remains were exhumed and transferred to a cemetery in Mühlau (near Innsbruck).

On a discussion forum I found that the “coordinates” of the “uncreated grave” are: cemetery section nr XXIII (row 13, grave 45, nr 3570).

I spent a considerable amount of time walking around the cemetery and trying to find the approximate whereabouts of the grave. Even with the information I gathered, finding a grave which no longer exists is still quite challenging.

Finally, I've managed to find a row of graves in a subsection dedicated to those who perished in World War One with one single row of graves with no names but a cross and the date 1915. In fact this is the only such row is sector XXIII in which Trakl could have been interred. Unfortunately this is a far as I could go in my attempts at finding Trakl’s first grave. At least it gives us some ideas as to how the grave might have looked - I presume it must have been identical to those graves with crosses marked 1915:

Behind the row, in the very corner of the cemetery there is the commemorative plaque to the memory of those who perished in World War One.

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The second place on my itinerary was the military hospital, which once used to be the very garrison hospital in which Trakl spent the last few days of his life and where he committed suicide.

Commemorative plaque fixed to a wall surrounding the hospital with a quote from his poem “Song of a Captured Blackbird”.

Well, that's it. I hope you enjoyed this virtual visit. As far as I know there was no place on the internet with similar photos of these Trakl sites, so I'm glad TLO is now the first such place.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Jezetha]

Slawek, I am very grataful for your photo series. Although I have my difficulties with his poetry (not in understanding them, mind you, but their style), I recognize Trakl's utter individuality. Your pictures move me. Thank you very much!