Wednesday, November 1, 2023

All Saints Day - ancient holiday of ancestors & lights for Poles

 Salvete Omnes,

Landau altarpiece by Durer 


today all Poles around the world celebrate the day of ancestors or our own version of All Saints Day, deriving in part form our ancient pagan Dziady feast . In Poland and in the lands formerly being Polish there are famous cemeteries - Powazki in Warszawa/Warsaw, Rakowicki w Krakow/Cracow, Łyczakowski in Lviva/Lwow (now Ukraine), Rossa in Vinlus/Wilno (now Lithuanian), a smaller ones like the one in Dyneburg/Davgaupils, Latvia (from where some of my ancestors come) etc. 



In America we even have our own version of the Holy Jasna Gora Monastery Czestochowa Shrine with...  a very special Polish-American cemetery , where many important Polish-Americans are buried (near Doylestown, Pa).



Including these monuments to Ignacy Paderewski, the father of Polish post 1918 independence and many others

genius of piano and Polish raison d'etre 

World War Two ace 

Polish-American painter Adam Styka 

tonight the cemetery will be alive with lights of the candles and reflections of flowery arrangements and wreaths  etc.

pre-World War II celebrations by Narcyz Witczak-Witaczynski, nota bene murdered at Katyn in 1940


Like this one from Poland proper




Polish goverment, the current one pretending being conservative and traditional, prohibited celebration of All Saints Days during the C19 first 'season ... to their eternal shame.  
infamous 'regulation' in violation of law and custom & tradition 

There will be celebration at the Polish military cemetery at Monte Casino, Italy, and Grainville-Langannerie Polish war cemetery , Polish Air Force Memorial in London, Polish cemetery at Polonzekoy in Istanbul, Turkye, Polish Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, Tobruk etc.  Even Katyn War cemetery will be alight, in spite of terrible relations between Poland and Rus. Federation. And many other cemeteries containing remains of us, Poles, like the most tragic Auschwitz Concentration Camp Museum site, the largest mass grave of Polish citizens in the world.
Too bad the poor Polish people tortured, abused and genocided  by UPA in Ukraine circa the period of 1944-45 will have no graves, no markers nor candles to illuminate their eternal resting places, as Ukraine prohibits finding their murdered and abused remains. Shame..
ps

I hope for peace and tranquility in the world, from Ukraine to the Holy Land, et al., as wars seem to be all over and growing..

again, Happy All Saints Day

valete

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