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Fastov cemetery

ID: dok-000664-P

Fastov cemetery

The municipal cemetery in Fastow is located in the southern part of the town and covers an area of about 7 ha. There is still an active cemetery but the gravestones with Polish inscriptions are located near the main gate. One also comes across tombstones with Polish names in the further area of the cemetery, but the inscriptions on them are written in Cyrillic. Zbigniew Hauser refers to the memoirs of the caretaker of the Polish cemetery, Regina Stefańska (d. 1997), who claimed that the cemetery used to be entirely Polish, but that during the Soviet era Polish graves were liquidated and tombstones with inscriptions in Russian were placed in their place. The practice of reusing Polish old tombstones unfortunately also occurred in much later years https://slowopolskie.org/polski-cmentarz-w-fastowie/ . It is therefore difficult to indicate definitively how many Polish tombstones have survived.

Hauser found 29 tombstones with Polish inscriptions from the years 1886-1925 in the cemetery, most of which are impressive tombstones in the form of stone crosses (sometimes unpreserved) on pedestals, knotted crosses on knotted trunks, rocks, obelisks of black marble. Attention is drawn to the very well-kept tombstone of Father Stanislaw Szeptycki (d. 1912), founder of the Fastów church. It is a magnificent three-tier plinth on a base topped with a cast-iron cross. Several of the monuments bear bilingual inscriptions (in Cyrillic Russian and Polish), indicating mixed marriages and families. Three gravestones are marked with signatures. Two of them belong, according to Hauser, to P. Stecki of Dzika Street in Warsaw; perhaps the signature was unclear and the tombstones of Pelagia Becker, who died in 1897 (figure of the Mother of God on the rocks), and Józef Twardowski, who also died that year (figure of Christ on the rocks), were signed by P. Płecki of 55 Dzika Street in Warsaw, whose workshop was one of the most respected at the time http://warszawa-stolica.pl/zaginione-swiaty-warszawy-cmentarz-prawoslawny-na-woli/. The third tombstone is signed by Rizzolatti. He was the owner of a large stone workshop in Kiev "P. J. Rizzolatti and sons" https://www.interesniy.kiev.ua/ru/spivuchi-arhitektori/.

Cemetery with Polish gravestone monuments. Documentation has been made for the cemetery (12 tombstone cards) and a cemetery card (stored in the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage). Information on the cemetery published (see bibliography)

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..
  • „Nekropolis. Projekt inwentaryzacji polskich cmentarzy na Podolu„”, katalog on-line, www.nekropolis.in.ua.
Author:
Bartłomiej Gutowski
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