The text describes the gravestones of Poles located in Dresden. The gravestone of Maciej Wodziński, Gustaw Olizar, Adam Bojanowicz, Mieczysław Chodkiewicz and others are mentioned (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1910, Półrocze II, pp. 892-893, after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

Polish graves in Dresden

Groby polskie, tułacze ...
How many are there, where are they not? From the boundless snow plains of Siberia, marked by Anhelli's feet, to the equatorial virgin forests of San Domingo, from the frigid, inhospitable shores of the White Sea to the sweltering sands of Egypt, how many are there, abandoned and nameless, pitiful signs of Polish wandering!
Great and small, known and unknown, from Pulaski at Savannah, Kosciuszko in Solura, Fr. Joseph at Leipzig, right down to the last privateer, from the masters of Polish song, Mickiewicz, Slowacki, Chopin, who slept or are still sleeping a peaceful sleep under the plane trees of the Parisian cemeteries, right down to the humblest of their admirers, all those whose hearts were still beating for their distant homeland, with a lump of their homeland on their chests, buried in a foreign land, are they not an eloquent testimony to our history of the last century? Do not their lonely and sad graves call to heaven with a great, though silent voice, about what none of the Poles can forget?

In the grave, a lute and a laurel wreath recall the merits of the deceased.
These Polish graves in the Saxon capital bring to mind those unforgettable moments when Dresden was, at least for a time, the capital of Polish emigration. In the spring of 1831, Juliusz Słowacki stayed here before embarking on a diplomatic mission to London, soothing, in peace and quiet, in contemplation of the works of art that he had accumulated here, the spiritual dilemma that tormented him after his premature departure from Warsaw, before the final resolution of the national question.

Soon more and more groups of exiles began to arrive in the "Saxon Athens". It is probable that the old August tradition, crowned by Napoleon's recent appointment to the throne of the Duchy of Warsaw, in accordance with a resolution of the Great Sejm, was still alive in the Saxon ruling family. For in Dresden, Frederick Augustus gave Polish exiles a particularly friendly reception. Here, Klaudyna Potocka took truly angelic care of the unfortunate exiles; here, Klementyna Hofmanowa gathered in her home all the more eminent Poles; here, Mickiewicz felt 'as if the bubble of poetry had not burst over him'; here, besides the pearls of his patriotic inspirations: The pearls of his patriotic inspirations: "Reduta Ordona", "Śmierć pułkownika" ("Death of a Colonel"), "Noclegu" ("Nightfall"), "Pieśni żołnierza" ("Song of a Soldier"), he created the most sublime tragedy of exile, the third part of "Dziady", and the most noble catechism of Polish morality, "Księgi narodu i pielgrzymstwa"....

It is here that the young Pole reads to Mickiewicz his 'Songs of Janusz', at first not admitting, out of modesty, to their authorship; it is here that old and new friends gather around the bard: A. E. Odyniec, Stefan Garczyński, Ignacy Domejko, Antoni Górecki, before they had to leave for various parts of the world. This was a great moment in the history of our emigration and of our poetry in exile... For already in mid-1832, the author of the Reduta Ordona ["Reduta Ordona"], recently published in Dresden, was on his way to Paris.

Three years passed. And that same Dresden witnessed the premature death of the author of the Farmers' Songs. On 10 October 1835, Kazimierz Brodziński, who had come here to nurse his health, died here. A rapidly developing chest illness wreaked such terrible havoc on his frail body that it was impossible to ward off the fire of life from the frosty breeze of death. Eighty years still passed - and then, with a new wave of Polish exiles, the survivors of 1863, Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski, the father of our novel writing, arrived in Dresden and settled here for a long time. It was here that he published Przegląd Powszechny, Omnibus and Tydzien, here that he wrote his beautiful Letters from Dresden.It was here that he wrote his beautiful "Letters from Dresden", from which he sent home numerous articles and correspondences, including to the "Tygodnik Ilustrowany". Bolesławita, based on recent memories. Dresden has many a page in our literature of exile.

When the day comes that the ashes of all our great exiles are reverently deposited under the dome of a single Polish pantheon, how will we unite them in a single feeling, in a single heartbeat, a dispersed flock of Polish cranes, lost on their way to follow the sun?

From Wanderer Songs

Poem by J. U. Niemcewicz poem
Exiles, who have wandered so long in the world,
Some day will you find rest for your weary feet?
The wild boar has a nest, the worm of the earth a lump,
Every man a homeland, and a Pole a grave.

Paris, 1837.
From the album of Rev. K. Oginski.

Polish graves.
There are many Polish graves all over the world. They mark all the paths along which the nation's fortunes have travelled throughout the century, from the Bar Confederation to the present day.

From the first paths trodden in the snow by exiled soldiers, to the broad roads where thousands fell, shackles ringing; From the heroes who, enraptured by the illusory stars of the great Emperor, laid their bones on the scorching sands of Egypt, died under the walls of fortresses and in the ravines of Spain, languished in the cold and hunger of the Moscow War, to the same graves that can be found in the cemetery of every town in Europe, the graves of exiles looking longingly towards their homeland, faded from human memory, yet alive and holy...

And there is the whole Polish tragedy in these graves, scattered around the world - the tragedy of dispersion. And if a cry could ever burst from beneath those snows that covered the ashes of the dead, from beneath those stones that overwhelmed their breasts, it would be a tremendous cry that would disturb the peace of the happy nations, crying out for justice....

It does not burst, so no one knows about these graves and no one remembers them. To strangers they are indifferent. A solitary Polish wanderer will probably find them, if they are to be found, and throw them a flower, or bow to them as he departs. But most of them are not even to be found. They have been blown away by the winds, buried under the snows, and torn away by storms from the small wooden crosses that mark their places; they have been cluttered by time, sowing new life on the ruins of the old one. But it is to these unknown, nameless graves, scattered all over the world, that our thoughts go, first and foremost, on the day that says to the dead: we remember you!

We, the living, remember you. We are no strangers to your sufferings, your longings, your hopes. Blessed be the sacrifice of your lives!

On the graves of those who have passed away, it is an ancient, Aryan custom, a beautiful custom, to symbolically burn lights. They are lit by those who remember the loss of loved ones.

Let the soul of the nation shine the light of remembrance on those who are far away, a light that shines through time and space towards the lonely graves of those who had to lay their bones in a foreign land, who were not lulled to eternal sleep by the whispers of Polish trees or the rustle of Polish grasses.

May they rest in peace! But over their graves on the day of the feast of the dead, may words flutter, coming from Poland, words which the immortal "King Spirit" of Polish poetry spoke through the mouth of the Shaman:

"After all, your graves will be sacred, and even God will turn away the worms from your bodies, dress you dead in proud solemnity - you will be beautiful!"

Sacred are these graves to our memory, and sacred they will remain: the graves of exiles, exiles and heroes who, with the flash of a sabre and the blade of an uhlan lance, wrote the Polish name on the world, who carried its glory, sanctified by suffering, to the Siberian taiga, to the Nerchin mines, to the snow desert - and, dying, had on their lips the greatest word in our speech: Fatherland.

Z. D.