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

Wielkopolska aka Greater Poland fights for Poland in 1918

 Salvete Omnes,

the year is ending - and one happy anniversary in Polish history to go - so to speak

Ignacy Paderewski arriving in Poznan

 

in turquoise Greater Poland province of the German Empire

 

Today we have this rather unusual anniversary, namely  Polish patriots from the Prussian partition of Poland(achieved by the Prussian Kingdom through the 1st, end and 3rd Partition of Poland) rebelled against their German overlords on this day 27th of December 1918, and were unusually successful, and their liberated Greater Poland province that was added to the reborn Polish Republic by their bravery, cunning, diligence, sweat, blood and also by the most effective persuasion by Ignacy Jan Paderewski & Roman Dmowski or the Polish delegates & advocates at the treaty of Versailles 1919 - so in history it is called the Greater Poland Uprising 1918-19.

1st Uhlan Regiment standard

During the Uprising three cavalry regiments were organized during the winter of 1919 - 1st, 2nd & 3rd  Greater Poland Uhlan Regiments - later on renamed 15th, 16th and 17th uhlan regiments of the Second Republic.

3rd Uhlan Regiment commander Edward Grabski

colorized photo of 2nd Uhlan Regiment parading in Poznan in November 1919 (more photos at the site)

finally,  

General Dowbor-Musnicki uniform

 

the other important patriotic leader actively involved in this grand endeavor General Jozef Dowbor-Musnicki , in the photo below going through the Theater Square in Bydgoszcz.

in green the front-lines achieved through fighting, in red Greater Poland borders achieved through negotiations at Versailles

the monument to the Uprising in Poznan

This was one successful insurrection and yet in Polish tradition nowadays this amazing umprising is almost  forgotten and even forsaken, but for the folks of the old province.  We should never forget their sucess.

Valete