Lychakiv Cemetery

One of the places we visited when we were in L’viv (Lwów) was the historic Lychakiv Cemetery (Cmentarz Łyczakowski we Lwowie). The cemetery dates back to the late 16th century and was at one time the main cemetery for the city’s major figures, politicians, religious, and middle and upper class. In the 17th century it was expanded and eventually most others closed. It was used by all Christian sects in the city, Roman and Easter Rite Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox. Under Polish “rule” (and technically under Austrian rule of Galacia), all were welcome to be buried in this cemetery in one of the hearts and centers of Polish culture.

War and ethnic troubles eventually overtook the area and the cemetery, and it became the burial place of many war casualties, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and even some Americans, all who fought defending L’viv and Ukraine on one side or another. The politics of that time are beyond the scope of my writing this blog article.

After Ukraine became a separate nation, generally after World War II, most Poles were expelled from the country and the city. The Polish parts of the cemetery fell into disrepair, in some cases were vandalized, and in some cases deliberately obliterated. With the rise of  the “new” Ukraine and fall of the Soviet Union, that has thankfully changed. Some of the Polish parts of the cemetery have been rehabilitated (with the help and financial support of the Poles, of course), and today the cemetery serves as a reminder of the conflicts that have engulfed that region of the world in the past 100 years. In one area, you can see the tombs of the Ukrainians who died trying to set up a free Ukraine, In another, the tombs of the Poles who fought to defend and establish their own country here, a country that lasted until Soviet intervention following World War II.

One of the most amazing–and sad–pieces of history remembered here is that of the Lwów Eaglets, Polish teenagers who defended the city of L’viv in 1918-1919 during the Polish-Ukrainian War. The youngest of these “soldiers” buried there was 14 years old…. There is also the grave of a 6-year old who was executed, along with his father, by the Ukrainians. War is certainly hell, isn’t it?

In the 1970s, the area was turned into a dump, then a truck depot. But after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establish ment of a free Ukraine in 1991, though slowed by Ukrainian nationalists, restoration work began. The pictures you see here in my blog include that sections, thousands of white crosses, remembering all these fallen Polish Soldiers.

Link to my pictures: http://poland.leonkonieczny.com/Albums/Poland%202011/Lychakiv%20Cemetery/index.html.