1840

approx. 21 ha (part with gravestones in Polish approx. 13 ha)

Tombstone of Jan Batteigner and Aleksei Brojakowski

The Mikuliniec cemetery was established quite late, around 1840 . Before that, the municipal necropolis was located on the town's border, next to the Basilian church. A church cemetery was supposed to have existed there from 1718 . We can assume that the cemetery next to the church, located in accordance with the provisions of the Josephine reform requiring cemeteries to be moved out of the city area, may have acquired the status of a municipal cemetery . This was especially so given that an imperial decree mandated the creation of common cemeteries for different Christian rites. In this respect, the regulations changed in the middle of the 19th century, but especially in smaller towns the tradition of a common cemetery became established. The chosen location may have been a compromise; after all, burial there did not mean burial on dog-eared ground away from the church.

The Mikuliniecki cemetery was marked on the first map of Ternopil made by Baron Anton von Posarelli in 1797 . It was a rather large establishment. Blicharski quotes Fr Gustav Filhauser, who described the cemetery in the early 20th century: "Overgrown with weeds and grave roots scattered all over the turf are fragments of crosses, stone pedestals, statues and even bones, all of which testify emphatically that this is an old cemetery where they no longer bury anyone. The fallen monuments bear the marks of vandal hands. Marble slabs chipped" . Blacharski continues the description, writing about numerous tombstones still dating from the 18th century. Among those buried, he mentions Father Dean Michal Bilinski, pastor of the Greek Catholic church, and Father Petr Bilinski, who was pastor at Dolzhanka. Special attention is given to the monument to Count Leonard Starzeński (died 29 August 1809). The monument, known from an engraving made by engineer Viktor Bauer in 1932-1933, had the form of a tall obelisk on a pedestal . It bore the inscription: "D.O.M. Here lies the Son of the Fatherland, for her he suffered wounds, for her wholeness, prosperity here he is buried, this earth bore him today his corpse hides, although he died, his memory is alive with the Poles". From Fr Filhauser's account of 1906, we also learn of 21 tombstones commemorating deceased Jesuits. In 1929, only 4 of these could be found, but the cemetery was not completely out of use. In 1916, the well-known folklorist Fr Petr Stepanovich Bilinskiy (Петро Степанович Білинський) was buried there. At that time, the Redemptorist Fathers, who were taking care of the church, started cleaning up the adjacent cemetery. They also tried to erect a fence, but it was gradually devastated and eventually abandoned repairing it. At that time, the church became an important local place of worship, thanks to missionary work and a copy of the miraculous painting of Our Lady of Ternopil. In 1932, a chapel was erected in the cemetery (despite the resistance of the local authorities), but it was not connected with the cemetery functions. It bore the inscription "Отці І. С. В. Ізбавителя збудували цю каплицю у 200-літню річницю основания чина (1732-1932)" . The cemetery and church survived until 1962 . In May of that year, demolition of the chapel and bell tower began, followed by an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the church. All this was done with the silent opposition of the faithful .

According to Czesław Blicharski, the town bought the land for the new cemetery in 1840, but he does not give a source for this information . He may have used an entry from the 1906 publication Our News, which states that 'in 1840, when the town was establishing a new cemetery, the Jesuits purchased a clearing and planted poplars around it' . The entry relates the year 1840 to the Jesuits' quarters, indicating only that this took place at the same time as the cemetery was being established. This one, however, may have been established earlier. This may be partly indicated by the date of death engraved on Michael Janisch's grave monument - February 1839. On the other hand, the date of the next burial known from the gravestone monument is 1841. The date 1839 may suggest that the cemetery was established even before 1840, for that year it may have been decided to close the old cemetery. On this basis, the date of the opening of the new necropolis could be postponed to 1838 or late 1838/early 1839, which seems less likely due to the winter period. However, it must be remembered that Janisch's gravestone is the only one with a date before 1840; moreover, the inscription on the monument mentions two more young children who died in 1841. It cannot be ruled out, therefore, that it was decided either to commemorate Michael Janisch with them, who was not buried in the Mikuliniec cemetery, or his corpse was moved to a new family tomb. The latter solution, however, was rare and seems far less likely. Both the old and the new Christian cemetery were adjacent to Jewish cemeteries . It seems natural that both were moved at the same time . We know of burials in them as late as 1839. At that time, three monks were buried in the Jesuit quarters and the prominent writer and social activist Charles Perl, who became famous for his fight against Hasidism, was laid to rest in the old Jewish cemetery. Nevertheless, these burials may have taken place regardless of the creation of new cemeteries. The Jesuits did not yet have their own cemetery, and Perl was such an important figure that it seems natural to bury him in the old cemetery.

However, regardless of when exactly the Mikuliniec cemetery was established, the first burials in it date back to the 1840s. The oldest, from the period up to 1845, are found in its now central part - they are located in the sector marked 4a and 4b. With one exception they do not cross this boundary. The remoteness of the oldest part of the cemetery from the Mikuliniec road - on its other side the Jewish cemetery was situated - allows us to assume that from the very beginning it was planned to develop the cemetery in the direction of the road. The immediate reason for the relocation of the cemetery was the fire that consumed Ternopil in 1832, when the former wooden Basilian church burned down. It was replaced a few years later by a new one. From the twentieth century, there is information that "a large part of the grave stones was used by Ruthenians for blows in the construction of the bell tower". The location of the cemetery in the developing suburbs was not entirely legal. The necropolis may also have been partly destroyed by construction work, and finally, it may have been too small. Probably also the location of the municipal cemetery next to the Greek-Catholic church might have been difficult to accept for some inhabitants.

In the 1860s, single monuments were erected in sectors 6c-6e, and from the mid-1970s most of the surviving monuments from sectors 5c and 6e date from this decade. Single burials from sectors 3 and 4 date from the second half of this decade, while new ones were placed mainly in sectors 5a, 5b, 5c and 6e. Burials further down the cemetery, i.e. in sectors 5d and 5e and 6d, also intensified during this period. On a military map of Galicia and Bukovina from 1861-1864, we can see the shape of the cemetery at that time. A second building is also marked next to the chapel, possibly the caretaker's building seen in later photographs . As the chapel is marked on it we can assume that the map reflects the layout of the cemetery in the 1860s. It is relatively small and seems to correspond to the present sectors 4-6, perhaps also 3.

In the early 1880s, apart from single burials in the earlier sectors, many more new graves appear in sectors 6b, 6c. Single burials can also be found in sectors 9a and 10a, an area which, presumably, had previously been outside the cemetery. As can be seen, the cemetery filled up and its boundaries had to be extended. In the second half of the 1980s and 1990s, memorials were mainly erected in sectors 9a, 9b and 10a, as well as in 10b and 10c. However, in the second half of the 1990s, sectors 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a and 7a also began to be used. One can also see an intensification of burials in the oldest part of the cemetery (four surviving monuments). This is probably related to the ageing of this part of the necropolis - it can be assumed that new graves started to appear in place of the previous ones, which were probably forgotten and had no permanent monuments.

At the beginning of the 20th century, sectors 1b-1e began to be used, with the first monuments appearing in sectors 1f and 1g and others in 2a and 2b. However, sectors 1f and 2b, 2c and 3c begin to be used more extensively between 1906 and 1910. A description by Rev Gustav Filhauser dates from that time: the cemetery was "situated on a nearby hill. The view from here was beautiful over the entire Ternopil panorama" . In 1910, the cemetery was devastated - wooden crosses were uprooted, photographs were fired from, among others, Kichner's grave, and a tombstone of insurgents was destroyed . On the other hand, the largest number of monuments from 1911-1915 survived in sectors 1g, 1h, they were also increasing in previously occupied sectors, e.g.: 2c, 2d, 2f, 2g, 3c, 3d, 3e, 4a, 4b, 4e, 5a, 6a, 6b, 11a. This was noted by a correspondent of the "Kurier Lwowski", who wrote in 1917 about the "almost several times enlargement of the cemetery" . The war quarters of Austrian soldiers established on the outskirts of the then necropolis date from this period. For the next 5 years, most burials took place in sectors 2e, 3d, 8a, 8b. After 1921-1925, sectors 5c and 9b were also used, with the first monuments appearing in sectors 12a-b, and in 1926-1930 in sectors 5d, 10c, 11a. However, a large number of gravestones were also erected in other already occupied regions. In 1929, the city council bought another plot of land, expanding the area already used for the cemetery. As Blicharski notes, in this way the council 'formalised the spontaneous "development" of the cemetery on Mikulin hill. The lack of an earlier decision by the city council resulted in the digging up of old graves after only 2-3 years" . In the same year, soldiers killed in 1918-1919 were moved to the war quarters, which were destroyed after World War II . The dispersion of the location of the memorials is also evident between 1930 and 1935, at which time it is difficult to discern a clear dominance of particular sectors. A relatively large number of monuments appeared in sector 5d, as well as in existing sectors. Both abandoned graves were probably used and the density of monuments increased. During this time, there were conflicts in the cemetery on the basis of nationality . In the last period, before the Second World War - the years 1936-1939 - the number of burials increased in sector 11a. The post-war period, on the other hand, brought further intensive development of the necropolis.