In August, students from the Institute of Art History of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University together with Agnieszka Tymińska from the Polonika Institute, Dr. Magdalena Olszewska and photographer Norbert Piwowarczyk took part in the project of documentation of the Bajkowa cemetery in Kiev led by Dr. Bartłomiej Gutowski (IHS UKSW).
During the two-week fieldwork, about 600 tombstones from before World War II were found. Some of them with interesting and informative inscriptions, such as the one on one of the monuments: „A warning to parents: For the rest of your life / Do not give your children your property. / In the grave I will not be troubled anymore, / I will sleep in my grave until God calls me. There are also more lofty and moving inscriptions. Among the many Polish tombstones, several tombs stand out in particular. Today, unfortunately, covered with garbage and very damaged, they still give a good testimony to the local communities of sculptors, stonemasons and architects. Probably the most pity is the tomb of the Bajkowski family, which is in a terrible condition and has very rare Art Nouveau forms.
The works carried out by representatives of IHS UKSW were financed by the Polnika Institute, and their implementation was possible thanks to the support of the Embassy and Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Kiev, the Polish Institute in Kiev, as well as local organizations: the Kiev association of Poles „Zgoda” and the invaluable vice-president Ms. Wanda Pawłowa which has the documentation of the cemetery or the International Association of Polish Entrepreneurs in Ukraine, which has been collected since the 1980s. The students of IHS UKSW took part in the project: Michalina Chudzińska, Julia Mrozowska, Daria Przybylińska, Zuzanna Rejewska.
23 sierpnia 2021
