Zloczów, a town in the former Ternopil Voivodship associated with the 16th-century seat of the royal Sobieski family, remains an important Polish habitat to this day. The POLONIKA Institute has included exceptionally attractive Polish graves from the Złoczów cemetery in its research work.

As part of extensive inventory and documentation work on the old cemetery in Złoczów, carried out on behalf of the POLONIKA Institute, Dr Magdalena Olszewska and Dr Paweł Drabarczyk vel Grabarczyk produced over 300 original gravestone cards, architectural cards for chapels and tombs and 'white cards' for movable monuments, accompanied by source photographic documentation. The inventory included tombstones created before 1945 bearing inscriptions written in the Latin alphabet. It must be acknowledged that artistic qualities can be seen in a large group of tombstones.

The researchers determined the exact location of each monument, time of creation, authorship or stone workshop, material of construction of the object (finials, pedestal base plates, inscription plaques), took detailed measurements, analysed the artistic form and signatures. The inventors transcribed the often barely legible but very telling inscriptions identifying the buried Pole:

1) YOU DISAPPEARED TO US DEAR SON / LIKE A FLOWER AMONG THE RO[...]I[...]I[...] / TEARS FLOWED ON THIS STONE / OF THE GIVERS OF YOUR LIFE / ALREADY THE GRAVE OF HAPPINESS ON / THE HISTORY OF THEIR CONSOLATION / TO YOU THE GRAVE ONLY SKON[....] / MANAGE [...] GRIEF AND SORROW / COME JES[...]O / COME BY YOUR P[...]CO / M NAT[...] LA[...]/ DEAR [...] TYNA[...] EKRZ / [...] SON [...] GIVE BIRTH [...] //.

2) Here rests / JAN BEREZOWSKI / C.K. NADSTRAŻNIK SKARBOWY / born on 24. May 1861 / died on 27. November 1900. / - / His grief-stricken wife to / eternal memory erected / this monument to her / most beloved husband. //.

3) HENRYK MITSCHA / railway engineer Karl Ludwig fell asleep in the Lord in the 40th year of his life / on 28 March 1890. / To the eternal memory of her dear husband / in heavy sorrow his wife was left with her little orphans. // WHO / SUFFERED FOR US / WOUNDS JESUS / HAVE MERCY FOR/ US //.

4) JAN / KOTELSKI / Dyrektor / Księgar[ni] / ⋆ 1845 † 1915 / PAMIĘCI / TADEUSZA / KOTELSKIEGO / [...] fallen / in defence of the Fatherland / near Justko / 30. VII. 1915 [//.]

5) JÓZEF SĄSIEDZKI / C.K. SCHOOL INSPECTOR / of Złoczów district / *12. April 1830 + 30. October 1890. //. honour to the memory of a man / of tireless work in the field / of folk education

6) TODAY //. GOD LIKED / THIS FLOWER / OF YOUTH AND THEREFORE / HAD TRANSFERRED IT FROM EARTH / TO HEAVEN'S GARDENS //. ADAM ROCH / BO[.]DAWA [...]UCHOWSKI / [...] ZYGMUNTA and MARJA / [...] HA[R]CERZOWI / [...] 18 VILLARS OF LIFE / [...] 1932. //. HONOUR TO HIS LUMINOUS MEMORY. //.

The research work on the Zlocczow cemetery is part of a larger project that has been underway for several years now to inventory cemeteries with Polish tombstones in the former Ternopil province of Ukraine. Every year, a group of students - under the direction of Anna Sylwia Czyż, PhD and Bartłomiej Gutowski, PhD (lecturers at the Institute of Art History, UKSW in Warsaw) - carry out documentation of Polish graves as part of their internship.

See all inventory cards as an electronic file .