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ID: dok-000056-P

Cemetery in Kowel

Kowel | Ukraine
ukr. Kowelʹ (Ковель)
ID: dok-000056-P

Cemetery in Kowel

Kowel | Ukraine
ukr. Kowelʹ (Ковель)

Cemetery with Polish gravestone monuments. Documentation has been made for the cemetery (794 cards) stored in the ICDNS. Information about the cemetery published (see bibliography).

The communal cemetery in Kowel, located in the southern part of the city, is large and divided into two parts - on the left is the Catholic part, on the right the Orthodox part. The temple, which was on the Catholic side, has been converted into an Orthodox church. According to Zbigniew Hauser, according to local tradition, the cemetery was established in 1877, but today the oldest tombstones preserved in the cemetery date from the early 20th century, the older ones having most likely been destroyed. The second old cemetery, which still existed before 1945, has also been destroyed.

Originally, the Catholic part of the cemetery was divided into districts - there are still traces of this today in the form of stone pillars with the names of the patron saints of each district. Both in the Orthodox part you can find tombstones with Polish inscriptions and vice versa, because after the war, due to lack of space, Orthodox people were buried in the Catholic part. The cemetery was closed in 1985.

In addition to the tombstones of civilians, the cemetery contains the quarters of the policemen of the Second Republic, the quarters of the Polish soldiers killed during World War I, as well as a cross erected in 2000 in memory of the victims of the NKVD murdered in the Kowel prison in 1941. Attention is also drawn to the gravestones of scouts, as well as children's quarters https://polonika.pl/programy/programy-grantowe/programy-grantowe-instytutu/322021029 .

In the cemetery one may come across tombstones signed by the names of Kowel stonemasons: Lisak, Barwikowski, Bąk. There are numerous rock tombstones, as well as those with a cross in the form of a knotted tree trunk, tombstones and monuments in the shape of cannelled columns and tombstones topped with a simple cross but very impressive. Hauser mentions two tombstones in the shape of aediculae. The monuments often bear elaborate, rhymed inscriptions. Here is one of them, engraved on the grave of Justyna of Wejrych Kazimierska, who died in 1931: "(...)You do not feel the cold grave / neither our tears nor our suffering / we have deposited a Mother in you / the goal of our adoration / the Mother of life, the happiness of children / the dearest beloved treasure / God let her star shine / until the moment of resurrection/(...) "Sometimes both the forms of gravestones and the rhymed inscriptions are repeated.

The cemetery was last cleaned in 2022 by members of the Polish Cultural Society in Kowel https://monitorwolynski.com/pl/news/4409-porzadkowanie-polskich-grobow-w-kowlu .

Bibliography:
  • „Cmentarze polskie poza granicami kraju” , raport, oprac. B. Gutowski, Warszawa 2022 (maszynopis).
  • Karta dokumentacyjna obiektu zabytkowego poza granicami kraju, powiat nadwórniański, zbiór przechowywany w Ministerstwie Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego, Warszawa..
  • Hauser Zbigniew, „Podróże po cmentarzach Ukrainy”, t. IV, „Województwa: wołyńskie, podolskie, bracławskie i kijowskie”, Kraków 2009, s. 59-75.
  • Anatol Sulik, „Cmentarz polski w Kowlu”, Warszawa 2006.
Author:
Bartłomiej Gutowski, Alicja Czuber-Filonik
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