Cemeteries, as monuments to history and culture, shape social consciousness and build intergenerational bonds of historical coexistence. The Polonica Institute is restoring the memory of many Polish graves abroad in our country. We have begun inventory work on Kyiv's Baykova cemetery.

Kyiv's Baykova Cemetery (Байкове Кладовище) (area approx. 63.551 ha) is located on the eastern slope of the Baykova Mountain and has been in operation since 1834. It is surrounded by a characteristic 19th century red brick wall. The necropolis, divided into two parts - the old and the new - originally had four sections: Lutheran, Polish (Catholic), Orthodox and Jewish. In addition, deep inside the cemetery there is a section of Polish legionaries - soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division of the Legions, who died in the battle for Kyiv in 1920:

HERE LIE / 114 SOLDIERS OF THE POLISH ARMY / FALLEN IN THE AREA OF KYIV / IN THE SPRING 1920. IN BATTLES / FOUGHT WITH / UKRAINIAN FORMATIONS / AGAINST THE RED ARMY / IN HONOUR OF THEIR MEMORY //.

Today, in the Polish section there are about 600 tombstones from the period 1833-2020. The oldest of them, commemorating Joanna Czekanowska, dates back to about 1835. In the 19th century, about 200 tombstones were erected in the Bajkowa cemetery, in the first half of the 20th century about 300, and in the second half - about 80. These monuments are of particular value to Polish culture as a material cultural heritage with historical-artistic features. Among the most notable Poles buried here, who contributed to the cultural and economic life of Kyiv in the past, are the painter Wilhelm Kotarbiński (died 1921) - a representative of Polish academism, Romanticism and Art Nouveau; Antoni Wlodzimierz Wysokowicz (1854-1912) - an outstanding bacteriologist and pathologist; and Wlodzimierz Wysocki (died 1894) - a renowned Kyivan photographer and poet. In the 20th century, the Baykovo cemetery became a Ukrainian national necropolis, almost a pantheon of prominent personalities - politicians, writers, scientists and cultural figures.

In 2020, commissioned by the Polonika Institute, Dr Bartłomiej Gutowski undertook work on a catalogue of tombstones in preparation for an inventory documentation of the Bajkowa cemetery. He produced approximately 630 preliminary catalogue sheets and compiled an original study accompanied by archival and contemporary illustrative material. The researcher described the location and shape of the cemetery, provided an outline of the history of the necropolis and the Poles living in Kyiv between 1833 and 2020, as well as those buried in the Bajkov cemetery. He also addressed artistic and technical issues, demonstrating the dominant characteristics of local gravestone forms and the materials from which they were made. He also drew attention to cemetery chapels and tombs from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He presented the creators of gravestone monuments - stonemasons or sculptors signing their works, and inventoried many valuable Polish gravestone inscriptions, e.g:

Tu spoczywają zwłoki / Ś/ + P. / Jan and Elodya / WOJNO / lived 52 years / and she lived 45 years / d. 28 Pazd. d. 5 April / 1881. 1885 r. //. Ś. + P. / KAZIMIERZ SZYMAŃSKI / lived aged 58, / died 4 December 1910. / Eternal rest / grant him, O Lord. //. THE LATE + P. / Jania / SZYMAŃSKA / born d. 19 December 1891 / Our dear angel / pray for us.

Here rests / Zygmunt Borecki / born 12 September 1885 / died 13 March 1886 / Asks for the Angel of the Lord / He left a wife distressed / never healed of her sufferings / after the loss of an invaluable husband and / protector //.

Aleksander Berezowski / born 1824. † 1855 d. 17 March. / Eternal life in heaven grant / to him, Lord, as here on earth / you blessed him forever with his love for you and his fellow men / for whose moral welfare he devoted all / his possessions. //

The index cards will be supplemented in 2021 with the necessary data obtained in the subsequent field research which is the second and final stage of the inventory work at the Bajkowa cemetery. Ultimately, the complete documentation will be available in the digital resources of the Polonica Institute in the form of a card catalogue.

Anticipated completion date of the project: 2021 r.

Supervisor: Dr Bartłomiej Gutowski