Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv
The creation of out-of-town cemeteries coincided with the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The first legal regulations were issued during the partitions: a Prussian decree by Emperor Frederick II of 1773, a decree by Tsar Alexander I of 13 March 1817 and a court decree by Emperor Joseph II of 23 August 1784. The legislators required that necropolises be established away from human settlements, in areas that were dry and not prone to flooding. Burials in temples were kept to a minimum. However, the fact that cemeteries started to be established outside the cities was not only due to sanitary aspects. Church cemeteries lacked the space to permanently commemorate the burial sites and thus nurture the memory of those who had passed away.

As Philippe Ariès, in his book 'Reflections on the History of Death', noted: "The mourning cults of antiquity have completely disappeared, leaving only a faint trace in folk customs. The Christian world left the corpse to the Church, where it persisted in oblivion. It was only at the end of the 18th century that a transformation of sensibility took place: the former indifference became unacceptable and a new cult was created, so popular and widespread during the Romantic period that it was considered eternal."

Necropolises became a testimony to history, social life, cultural life and often a veritable gallery of sculptural art, architecture, blacksmithing and foundry work. This is also the case with Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv, which is one of the oldest European necropolises of exceptional artistic importance and historical significance.

Founded in 1786, it is located in the eastern part of the city, on the hills, among a specially designed stand of trees forming a series of avenues. It has become the burial place of many prominent people of culture, science and politics, military men, participants of national uprisings, clergy and also Lviv families, often connected to this city for many generations. The cemetery contains a significant number of historical tombstones and chapels of high artistic value. The graves of prominent people are located in the main avenue, the Avenue of the Deserving, which circles the entire cemetery in an elliptical fashion.

The oldest gravestones date back to the 18th century. Some of them bear sculptures of Anton, Jan and Leopold Schimser, Hartman Witwer, Pavel Eutele, Tomasz Dykas, Abel Perier, Leonard Marconi, Julian Zachariewicz, Parys Filippi, Cyprian Godebski, Tadeusz Barącz, Bronisław Wiktor, Stanisław Roman Lewandowski, Julian Markowski and others. From spring 1919, in the part of the cemetery facing Pohulanka, the Cemetery of Defenders of Lwów, known as the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów, was created for those who died in 1918-1920.

Conservation works
Since 25 November 1991 Lychakiv Cemetery has had the status of a museum. Its area is about 42 hectares divided into 86 plots. It is estimated that between 300,000 and 400,000 people are buried here, and that nearly two thousand tombs and 500 sculptures have been preserved.

Ongoing conservation work aimed at revitalising objects of shared Ukrainian and Polish cultural heritage in Lviv has been undertaken systematically since 2008 on the basis of memoranda of understanding signed by representatives of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (MKiDN) of the Republic of Poland with representatives of Lviv city authorities. The projects, funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, are coordinated by the Department of Cultural Heritage Abroad and War Losses of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in cooperation with the Board for the Protection of the Historic Environment of the Lviv City Council.

The beneficiary of the funds from the Programme of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage "Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad" and the organiser of the conservation work at the Lychakiv Cemetery in 2008-2012 was the Society for the Care of Monuments, and since 2013 it has been the Cultural Heritage Foundation, which together with the Society for Academic Tradition is also coordinating the inventory project. Its final result will be a complete database of graves in the Lychakiv Cemetery made available online.

For the restoration work in the Lychakiv Cemetery, which has been carried out in cooperation with the Ukrainian side since 2008, a team of experts has been appointed to supervise the restoration, under the direction of Dr. Janusz Smaza from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Associate Professor Yuri Ostrovsky from Lviv, who cooperate with the management of the "Museum - Lychakiv Cemetery".

The historical and artistic descriptions of the tombstones, preceded by an analysis of the sources, especially iconography, are prepared by art historians. The selection of tombstones for conservation takes into account the historical role of the person in question, the artistic value of the tombstone and the technique in which it was made. The selection also reflects the multicultural and multiethnic nature of historic Lviv.

The conservation work in the cemetery is carried out by mixed Polish-Ukrainian teams, involving - on the Polish side - art conservators specialising in stone or metal conservation, and on the Ukrainian side - visual artists with many years of conservation experience.

In 2008-2012 the Society for the Care of Monuments coordinated the conservation of the following tombstones:
- Archbishop Samuel Kirill Stefanovich (1755-1858), Metropolitan of the Armenian rite (by Juliusz Wojciech Bełtowski)
- Omelyan Ohonovsky (1823-1894), Ukrainian philologist and literary historian (author: Henryk Perier
- Paulina (1803-1868) and Stanislav (1793-1860) Papars, meritorious Lviv bourgeoisie of Hungarian origin (author Antoni Kurzawa)
- Juliusz Makarewicz (1872-1955), Professor of Criminal Law at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv (restoration work financed by the Polish Senate and Polish legal advisors)
- Artur Grottger (1837-1867), painter (by Parys Filippi and Wanda Monné)
- Karol Szajnocha (1818-1868), historian and writer (by Parys Filippi and August Perier)
- Markiyan Shashkevych (1811-1843), Ukrainian poet and writer (by Henrik Perier)
- Archbishop Isaac Mikolay Isakovich (1842-1901), Metropolitan of the Armenian rite (by Juliusz Wojciech Bełtowski)
- The Wenzl family (after 1806), Lviv burghers of German origin (by Hartman Witwer)
- N. N. - This is one of the oldest gravestones in Lychakiv (probably by Hartman Witwer)
- Marceli Ciemirski (after 1885), botanist, secretary of the convent of SS. Benedictine convent (by Julian Markowski)
- Karol Mikuli (1819-1897), composer and pianist, pupil and publisher of Frédéric Chopin, founder of the Lvov Conservatory (author Anton Schimser)
- of the sisters Hermina and Dorota Obłoczyńska (author: Pavel Eutele)
- Oleksiy Paliuch, activist of the Lviv city self-government
- František Smolka (1810-1899), politician, social activist, president of the parliament of Austria-Hungary (author: Jan Nalborczyk)
- Hartman Witwer (died 1827), German sculptor active in Lviv at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries
- Denys Zubrytsy (1777-1862), Ukrainian historian, ethnographer and publicist.
- Iłarion Eliyasewycz (1848-1910), long-time deputy head of the Lviv fire brigade, philanthropist (author: Grzegorz Kuzniewicz
- The Kurylowicz family, a well-known family of Lviv bourgeoisie (author: Pavel Eutele)
- Izydor Polański (died 1861), cast-iron tombstone
- Anton Schimser (1790-1836), founder of the dynasty of Lviv sculptors (author Pavel Eutele)
- Eduard von Wallisch (1848-1887), rotary master of Emperor Franz Joseph's dragoon regiment (author Julian Markowski)
- Gabriela Zapolska (1857-1921), writer and publicist (by Józef Gałęzowski).
- Mieczysław Potocki (1810-1878), first conservator of monuments in Eastern Galicia
- a complex of three tombstones in the form of cast-iron crosses on pedestals, including that of Franz Weigle
- Ilarion Svetnitsky (1876-1956), ethnologist, founder of the Museum of Ukrainian Art in Lviv (by Ewhen Dzyndra)
- Antoni Jablonowski (1836-1874, landowner, (author: Viennese Hauser Company)
- Lanz family.

In the years 20013-2016 the Cultural Heritage Foundation managed the conservation works of the following tombstones:
- Jarosław Kułaczkowski (1863-1909), Ukrainian social activist, founder and director of the "Dnister" Society and honorary member of "Proswita" (medallion, by Piotr Tereszczuk)
- Leon Twarecki (1858-1931, lawyer and cooperative activist (author of the medallion Julia Smolkowna)
- Maria Anna née Kalinowska Ponińska, (d. 1797), governor of Poznań (author Hartman Witwer)
- Józef Junosza Żukowski, lieutenant of grenadiers of the Nugent Infantry Regiment
- Krówczyński family (by Tadeusz Barącz)
- Hołoniewski family (intervention works)
- Cross from the gravestone of the Krasucki family (intervention and preservation works)
- of Seweryn Goszczyński (1801-1876), insurgent of the November Uprising, writer and poet considered part of the "Ukrainian school" of Polish Romanticism (author: Julian Markowski)
- August Bielowski (1806-1876), director of the Ossolineum, author, founder and publisher of "Monumenta Poloniae Historica"
- Anna Krypjakewycz née Malchinska (1826-1907)
- Archbishop Grzegorz Romaszkan (1809-1881), Metropolitan of the Armenian rite
- Skrypci family (workshop of Ludwik Tyrowicz)
- Honorata Borzecka (1775-1858), philanthropist, co-founder of the educational institution for boys of St Anthony of Padua, founder of scholarships and benefactor of the Lviv Jesuit Church (workshop of Cyprian Godebski)
- Kobielski family (conservation of a metal lantern from a tomb)
- the Rendel family (conservation of a metal wreath from a grave)
- Józef Sas Czułowski (1776-1863), hero of the charge at Somosierra in Spain, participant in Napoleon I's campaigns in Prussia and Russia in the troops of Prince Józef Poniatowski
- Ivan Franko (1856-1916), Ukrainian poet and social activist (by Serhiy Lytvynenko)
- Franciszek Jaworski (1873-1914), historian of Lviv, publicist and collector (author Witold Rawski)
- Stanisław Kępiński (1876-1908), Professor and Rector of the Lviv Polytechnic
- Franciszek Zaremba (1751-1863), Kościuszko insurgent
- Antoni Piórecki (1764-1870), Kościuszko Uprising insurgent
- Aleksander Vogel (1860-1926), journalist, co-founder and editor of "Gazeta Narodowa" (works in cooperation with Press Club Poland)
- Urszula Puzynina, née Chrzanowska (author: Paweł Eutele)
- of Antoni Czuczawa, cast iron, in the form of a shrine
- Karol Brzozowski (1801-1904), engineer, translator, poet and January Uprising insurgent (author: Aleksander Zagórski)
- Urszula Głogowska (author: Hartman Witwer)
- Emanuel Ilski (1809-1833), (author: Jan Schimser)
- Kociub family (author Grzegorz Kuzniewicz)
- Matijewyc family,
- the Manugiewicz family (author Jan Schimser)
- the Józef Miączyński family (by Parys Filippi)
- Rozalia of Gross-Rypiński Mieleniewska family (1781-1819) (author Antoni Schimser)
- of the Ziętkiewicz family, famous Lvov pharmacists (author Jan Schimser)
- Artur Milikowski, landowner (metal, with tin plaques)
- Wojciech Kętrzyński (1838-1918), director of the Ossolineum (restoration and conservation of the original plaque)
- of Konstanty Julian Ordon (1810-1887), November insurgent (designed by Tadeusz Barącz, executed by Julian Markowski).

A separate project was the renovation and conservation work on the "Insurgent Hill". There are more than 230 graves of January insurgents, as well as a monument to Szymon Wizunas Szydłowski; in other places in the Lychakiv Cemetery, about 400 more insurgents who found refuge in Galicia before the persecution of Tsarist Russia are buried.

In 2013, the cemetery section was restored by the Council for the Protection of Remembrance of Struggle and Martyrdom under a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The contractor for the works was Polskie Pracownie Konserwacji Zabytków S.A.

. The works at the Lychakiv Cemetery, successfully carried out for several years, have a chance to be continued and expanded. They are an example of very good cooperation between Polish and Ukrainian public institutions and Polish NGOs. The aim of the cooperation is to save the common heritage - the legacy of a multicultural and multinational Lviv.

The Department of Cultural Heritage Abroad and War Losses of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage together with the Cultural Heritage Foundation plan to extend the scope of works at the Lychakiv Cemetery to include intervention, rescue and protective measures, as well as the monitoring of already carried out conservation works, as apart from the effects of time and the human factor, the condition of the memorials is affected by, among other things, environmental pollution.