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ID: POL-001663-P

Cemetery in Klodno

ID: POL-001663-P

Cemetery in Klodno

Kłodno is currently located within the borders of Ukraine, in the Kamionec region and Lviv oblast, but until the Second Polish Republic it belonged to the Polish lands of the Eastern Borderlands. It first appears in written sources in the 14th century, and during the reign of King Władysław II Jagiełło, it was the property of Piotr Wołczek Rokutowicz, a chamberlain of Lwów and starosta of Chełm, who belonged to the Lithuanian boyars of the Działosza coat of arms, a knight from the royal retinue from Grunwald. In his article 'On the Lithuanian boyar families united with the Polish nobility in Horodle in the year', Władysław Semkowicz writes:

"In 1436, Volczko Rokutowicz appears among the witnesses of the Peace of Brest in the capacity of Chamberlain of Lwów. This circumstance directs further research to Ruthenia, where we find him in 1437 as Volczko Rokutowicz de Kłodno. From then on, for several years, he appeared in the court records of Lwów. The Kłodno and Kłudzienko villages near Lvov that he owns probably come from a royal grant."

Over the following centuries, the village changed owners many times - still at the end of the 15th century it became the property of Jerzy Strumiłła of Dąbrowa coat of arms (d. 1485) -- chamberlain and castellan of Lwów. In 1515, it was destroyed by the Tatars, and in the following centuries it became the property of, among others, Piotr Branicki, an Ensign of Halicz and Castellan of Bracław; in the 19th century, it came into the possession of the Uruskis, and then the Sapiehs of Biłka Szlachecka. The Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and Other Slavic Countries, published in 1883, contains this description:

"Kłodno (Wielkie, in Russian Kolodno), a village in the district of Zhovkva, 26 kilm. southeast of Zhovkva, 16 kilm. east of the district court in Kulikow, just east of the post office in Zhovtaniec. [A stream flows through the middle of the area [...] and receives several small streams, one of which, flowing from the south, forms a small pond. [In the village there is a communal loan fund with capit. 510 zlotys, an Orthodox church, a brick manor house with a beautiful garden. The village was once the hereditary property of Piotr Korczak Branicki, castellan of Bracław. Within the limits of this village, in the fields and meadows called "Mogielnica", there are many barrows, which are said to date back to the battle fought here with the Swedes in 1704, to commemorate which a badly damaged brick statue was erected by the road to Kamionka in Pieczewosty".

At that time, according to the 1880 census, the municipality was inhabited by over 1,500 people, most of whom, over 1,000, were Roman Catholics. At that time, it belonged to the Roman Catholic parish in Żółtańce, but efforts were underway to obtain its own parish. In 1860, thanks to the efforts of Father Jan Kowalski and the financial support provided by Countess Wanda Julianna Caboga, it was possible to build a brick chapel and, in the years 1874-1875, also a bell tower with a rectory. It is worth mentioning here that the countess, descended from the Potocki and Sapieha families, whose second husband was Kajetan Uruski (coat-of-arms Sas) - Crown swordsman and prefect of the Lwów department - devoted herself to social and charitable activities. They are both buried in the crypts of the church in Biłka Szlachecka.

Efforts to establish the Kłodzko parish continued through the early years of the 20th century. It was not easy due to great resistance on the part of the parish priest of Zoltanec. In 1907, a parish exposition was established, and 6 years later Father Michal Kąkoliński became the Kodzień parish priest. Once again, invaluable help was provided by the then heiress of the village - Seweryna Maria née Uruska Sapieżyna, Duchess of Bilkow, granddaughter of Wanda Julianna, founder of the design and construction of the brick church erected in 1927-1934 on the site of the demolition of the previous, modest temple. The author of the project was the famous Lvov architect, Alfred Broniewski, author of designs for hospitals, seminaries, university and public buildings. Broniewski was already retired, but agreed to prepare the church project. Some money was also raised among the inhabitants of Klodno.

In the inter-war years, Klodno, under the nickname of Klimontowa, found its way into popular culture thanks to the anti-war novel by the Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek -- The Adventures of Good Soldier Svejk. The author did not mention the church because it had not yet been built, but in the detailed description we read about other buildings in Klodno and its wartime fate:

"With such gloomy thoughts, Szwejk reached the nearby village slowly and found his battalion without great difficulty, for although the village was very large, there was only one decent building in it, namely a school, erected by the Galician administration in this area, inhabited by a Ukrainian population, in order to polish this community. This school went through several transformations during the war. It housed several Russian and Austrian headquarters, and for a time the gymnasium was used as an operations room when major battles took place in the area that decided the fate of Lviv. This is where arms and legs were cut off and skulls were trepanated. Behind the school in the garden was a large funnel-shaped hole, the result of a large grenade explosion. In a corner of the garden stood an old pear tree with a dangling post on which, a few days ago, hung a Uniate pop, accused by a local Polish teacher of having been a member of the Starorusin group during the Russian occupation and of having held a service in the church for the victory of the Russian army and the Orthodox Tsar. [...] After the dead pop, the vicarage was left empty, as everyone took whatever souvenir they liked from it. One kind-hearted Polish peasant even took an old piano, the top of which he found very useful for repairing a pigsty. Some of the equipment was chopped up by the soldiers for the fire, as was customary, because fortunately there was an undamaged blast furnace and an excellent kitchen in the vicarage, as the pop liked to eat well, like all other pops, and had a great supply of saucepans, pots and pans. It was almost a tradition that all troops, passing through there, would set up a kitchen for the officers in this deserted rectory. And upstairs, in a large room, there was a sort of officers' casino. Tables were taken wherever they fell, around the houses of the villagers."

It is worth mentioning that General Jan Lachowicz was born in Kłodno Wielkie on 24 August 1896 - a legionnaire, infantry officer of the Polish Army of the Second Republic and the Polish Armed Forces, from 1969 to 1972 Minister of National Defence in the Polish Government in Exile. In the 1930s, Lachowicz, with the rank of captain, served in the Border Protection Corps, while two important events took place in his home town of Klodno. In 1934, by ministerial decree, Kłodno became the seat of a rural municipality, within the boundaries of which were Czestyně, Dalnicz, Kłodzienko, Pieczychwosty and Żółtańce, and two years later, the consecration of the completed church by the Metropolitan of Lwów, Archbishop Bolesław Twardowski, took place under the name of Elevation of the Holy Cross. The church was built in the neo-Baroque style, in the national trend popular between the wars. The interesting body of the church, with its flat pilasters and lisens and fancy gables, harmonises with the rich polychrome decoration of the interior illustrating the main truths of faith, probably by the renowned Lvov artist Jan Bukowski (1873-1943) - the most outstanding representative, next to Stanisław Wyspiański and Józef Mehoffer, of the Young Poland school of artistic decoration. He created, among other things, stained glass windows for the Jesuit and St. Stephen's Church in Krakow, polychromes in the sanctuary in Mogiła, the chapels of Krakow's St. Mary's Basilica and St. Joseph's Church, as well as a number of altars in various temples in Lesser Poland.

Unfortunately, the Kłodzko temple, built with such effort, functioned for barely ten years - at the end of the war it was closed and the parish liquidated with the forced expatriation of inhabitants and clergy from the former Borderlands. The Soviets turned the building into a grain warehouse, and it gradually deteriorated after the war. By the 1990s, the church was abandoned and falling into disrepair, although the interior paintings were quite well preserved despite the building's dire state. The church was taken over by a resurgent Greek-Catholic parish and work on its restoration began then. Thanks to the help of descendants of Polish expatriates from Klodno, the roof covering was successfully restored and in recent years the church has been slowly returning to its former glory.

Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Kłodno Wielkie was inhabited mainly by Poles - according to the 1931 census, the population numbered 1,995, most of whom were of Polish nationality, Ukrainians made up 30% of the population and 50 people were of Jewish origin. During the war, crimes against the Polish population committed by Ukrainian nationalists took place in Kłodno and neighbouring villages. In 1944, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) murdered forty Poles from Klodno, and several Ukrainians who tried to defend their relatives of Polish origin were also killed. Due to the multi-ethnic and multi-religious character of the former Klodno, there are several cemeteries here. There is a cemetery for residents of Eastern rites next to the former Greek Catholic church. The Roman Catholic cemetery, until recently completely devastated and neglected, is located a few hundred metres from the aforementioned church, on the road to Zoltaniec. The cemetery has been consumed by the nearby forest for years, the chapel near the cemetery has almost disintegrated. There is still a forgotten epidemic cemetery, where victims of epidemics from World War I and the post-war years of both rites were laid to rest. After 2010, the Roman Catholic cemetery lived to see some tidying up and restoration - trees and overgrowth were removed, existing monuments were placed, and the area was landscaped. On 1 May 2014, a commemorative plaque was placed in the cemetery to honour those buried here until 1945. Also two years later, cleaning and renovation work took place in the Kłodno cemetery. Perhaps, thanks to the work already carried out, further maintenance of the cemetery in a dignified condition will only be a matter of raising funds and regular efforts on the part of the present inhabitants of Kłodno and descendants of those who were deprived of their roots by the war.

Time of origin:
19th century.
Supplementary bibliography:

location- there are several cemeteries in Klodno, I chose the one closest to the church, on the photo in the maps there is a statue of Virgin Mary, so it is also rather Catholic; it is located by the road Zoltaniec (according to wikipedia it is Catholic there)

Author:
Agnieszka Bukowczan-Rzeszut
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