Bernardine Cemetery

Entrance to the cemetery

Chapel in the cemetery, built to commemorate the consecration of the cemetery

The Bernardine Cemetery (Lithuanian: Bernardinų kapinės, Polish: Cmentarz Bernardyński na Zarzeczu), is one of the three oldest cemeteries in Vilnius, Lithuania. It covers about 38,000 square metres and has an estimated 14,000 burial sites. It was established in 1810 by the Bernardine monks of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, just east of the city center in the Užupis district, and is situated on an embankment of the Vilnia river. Its development was a consequence of Tsarist authorities of the Russian Empire prohibiting burying the dead near churches. The residents of Vilnius moved the cemetery to what was then the outskirts of the city.

The Columbaria were built on the east and west sides of the cemetery. The cemetery was expanded in 1860. After the Second World War the cemetery was abandoned for the most part and began to deteriorate. It was closed in the 1970s and since then until recently it had remained almost unchanged. Many of the oldest graves had sunk into the ground and became covered in moss. The eastern columbarium had almost entirely disappeared. Restoration and reconstruction of its buildings and monuments, including the western columbarium, began in the late 1990s.

Restoration work

Beginning in 2005, on the initiative of the Adam Mickiewicz Polish-Lithuanian foundation together with the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites (one of the main initiators of the project was Andrzej Przewoźnik, a Polish historian who died in the airplane crash in Smolensk in 2010), conservation work on the cemetery commenced with the aim of restoring the necropolis for 2010, the two hundredth anniversary of the founding. The restoration work was funded by private donors as well as through a joint effort of both Polish and Lithuania governments. More than a hundred historic tombstones have been renovated, most of them those of Polish and Lithuanian participants of the January Uprising, Home Army soldiers and the past faculty of the Stefan Batory University. Further renovations are planned.

Famous graves

Numerous famous scientists, painters and Vilnius University, intellectuals, professors and other renowned people are buried there including:

• Helena Dzierżyńska (1849-1896), Felix Dzerzhinsky's mother.
• Stanisław Bonifacy Jundziłł (1761–1847), botanist and florist, professor of the Vilnius University and head of the Vilnius Botanical Garden
• Stanisław Fleury (1861-1915), artist and photographer.
• Vytautas Kairiūkštis (1890–1961), Lithuanian painter
• Kazimieras Kairiūkštis (1886–1918), engineer
• Valdas Herkus Neimantas (1963–2006), the main designer of Užupis Republic
• Antanas Ramonas (1946–1993), writer
• Stanisław Rosołowski (1797–1855), writer and doctor
• Ludwik Sobolewski (1791–1830), writer and historian, prefect of the Vilnius University Library
• Józef Szeliga-Bieliński (1848–1926), physician and historian, the first honorary professor of the Stefan Batory University
• Stanisław Bonifacy Jundziłł – Polish biologist
• Włodzimierz Mazurkiewicz – Polish pilot and engineer
• Franciszek Narwojsz – Polish matematician and engineer
• Kanuty Rusiecki – Polish painter
• Bolesław Rusiecki – Polish painter
• Zachariasz Niemczewski – Polish professor of mathematics

See also

• Rasos Cemetery
• Antakalnis Cemetery

References

• Template:Lt icon Kviklys, Bronius (1985). Lietuvos bažnyčios. V tomas: Vilniaus arkiviskupija, I dalis. Chicago, Illinois: Lithuanian Library Press. p. 414. ISBN 0-932042-54-6.
• Department of Cultural Heritage Protection under Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. "E-MEM project presentation" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-01-09.

External links

• Series of photos of the cemetery