Rasos Cemetery Inventory

This summer a wide range inventory will be compiled at the Rasos Cemetery in Vilnius. The inventory will be made by over a hundred workers – students and PhD students of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw and Educological University of Lithuania in Vilnius.

“The necropolis was founded in the wave of the Enlightenment period and its reforms, as early as in the second half of the 18^th century. Surprising is that the cemetery hasn’t been fully inventoried so far. The process is necessary for showing the cemetery’s role in culture history of the region which we call Middle-Eastern Europe. The aim of a further research is to show artistic, historical, social, and literary aspects of Rasos Cemetery. First of all from the local perspective, as a former capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, at the same time, the place where Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Russian, Karaim, Jewish and German cultures met” – as the project is described at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University’s webpage.

“They are doing great job. They unearth old headstones and try to decipher names. It may occur that they will find names which haven’t been recorded in the cemetery books. It would be good if the whole material could be published and we had it here in Vilnius” – said to “Wilnoteka” Alicja Klimaszewska, chairman of the Social Committee for the Care of Old Rasos.

The works are possible thanks to the funding of Ministry of Science and Higher Education within the frameworks of the National Programme for the Development of Humanities and the project “The Rasos Cemetery in Vilnius. Inventory, historical, and linguistic research”. The work is led by PhD Anna Sylwia Czyż and PhD Bartłomiej Gutowski, workers of the Department of Art History at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University.

The research will be carried out till the end of August.

Based on: uksw.edu.pl

Source: http://www.wilnoteka.lt/pl/artykul/inwentaryzacja-cmentarza-na-rossie

Tłumaczenie by Elżbieta Szafarz w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Elżbieta Szafarz within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.