Looking for Polish traces: cemeteries in Kowszadol, Lubow and Wierszupa

A couple of very personal memories. Candles appeared at home. It was said that they are wax – small and yellow ones. Just in case, they rolled something resembling paper tubes. If it would have been windy, they would become shield for the candles. The 1st of November – on All Saints’ Day all the conversations concerned those that had to be visited. There was something mysterious in that counting of the deceased. Children were taken hold by fear. The following day was All Souls’ Day.

The darkness of autumn evening intensified the feeling of anxiety. Usually, it was drizzling or everything was covered with the blanket of first snow. For the beginning, Old Rossa. On the hill, right at the entrance, there was a figure of Our Lady. They said it was may. I was afraid. It seemed that she was looking right at me. Later, it disappeared. After many years, I have seen the figure in a garden corner of the house by Zamkowa 32 Street (Pilies). That house was called Victoria’s House, which name came from the name of café “Wiktorja” – the place often visited by Adam Mickiewicz, Onufry Pietraszkiewicz, Tomasz Zan, Kazimierz Piasecki and other Philodendron Society members.

The next stop – New Rossa with silent people clattering around the tombs and children looking for forgotten tombs on which they would light up a candle illuminating the autumn darkness. Afterwards, already behind the railway, I looked at the cemetery hill – an enormous glow of candles reaching up above the cemetery trees and touching the sky. We still had to visit relatives in Bernardine cemetery and St. Peter and Paul cemetery at Antokol, and only then – close to midnight – we would come back to our home next to the cathedral…

Travel around the neighbourhood

While looking for places rich with historical evidence for Polish presence, some day I arrived to Kowszadoła Pisanków. It is an old ruined court, which has been inhabited by kolkhozy from local farm – unbelievably neglected. My first association – this former court resembles a sinking ship. But I got even more distressed when I found a nearby cemetery belonging to the court. The tombs of the Pisanka family… and very difficult to decipher grave inscriptions…

After a quarter of a century, in this year spring, I came back to Kowszadoła. However, this time something starts happening at the court. One part has been renovated, the other is still in ruin. The land is very neglected – there is neither a flower nor a bed. At the old cemetery of the Pisanka only a few tombs still reminded. The rest has disappeared. Only the bones of the old owner remained in the soil they loved so much.

Lubowo court is located on the right bank of Wilia, on the border of niemenczycka and rzeszańska municipalities. It is a beautiful corner – hills, lakes and Żałosa river. And what a great names of the old owners: the Radziwiłł, the Golejewski, the Tyszkiewicz, the Kryszpin-Kirszensztejn, the Śliźnia. The last ones, in 1841, founded a new wooden chapel for the cemetery where many of Lubowo owners, nobility and peasants rested. In the 90s’of previous century, I visited Lubowo again and I discovered that the chapel is in ruin. After removing the bedding, I saw white marble blocks with the names of former owners of the court. Several requests to R.J. (then parson of church in Niemenczyn, who was responsible for the chapel and the cemetery) reminded unanswered. The parson was interested more in enlarging his private collection of paintings, which in fact did not do him well. The chapel fell down and the white marble were gone. The new owner of the flour mill in Lubwo made some efforts to protect at least a part of the cemetery which is a place of rest of many people from that land. Let us pray for them on All Souls’ Day.

A bailey in the country cemetery

With Eugeniusz Rymszewicz we went to the cemetery in Wierszupska, which is located in a halfway to Niemenczyna. Presently, it is a part of the town. However, it still resembles a hidden among the woods country cemetery which is a place of rest of the old backwaters citizens of homely sounding surnames: Rulikiszki, Pilikoni, Wołokumpie, Ożkińcy, Mackiniszki, Giełwaciszki, Trynapol. At the modest tombstones we can read the names: Rymszewicze (Mr. Eugeniusz’s grandfather – Hieronim and his grandmother – Konstancja), Kaszkiewicze, Runiewicze, Zdanowicze, Adamowicze, Makowscy, Krzywiccy, Gieczewscy. Their last way led them to this cemetery. Most probably, it existed a long time ago. Unfortunately, time covers up the traces of the old tombstones.

The oldest graves come from the beginning of previous century. Right at the entrance there was a massive cross at the tomb of the inheritor of that land – Antoni Aleksandrowicz. Mr. Eugeniusz says that the cross was old and he remembers that a woodpecker made a nest on it. One time, when I came to the cemetery the cross was gone.

The power of memory

From the mid of 19th century, Rulikiszki were managed by the Rymszewicz. Rulikiszki is a village located on the land of Wierszuba property and therefore it was sometimes called that name. Tomasz Rymszewicz either bought or inherited or maybe leased the land of the Aleksandrowicz. Probably at the fall of 18th century the authority gave Wieruszpa back to them. It remained in this family’s hands till the outbreak of the World War II.

Antoni Aleksandrowicz was born in 1870. He studied at Peterborough University where he graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and the Institute of Roads and Transport. Moreover, he was an extinguishable musician, a graduate of Vienna Conservatory. He also wrote theatrical reviews. As a landowner of Wierszupa he established a horse racetrack in Pośpieszka. He was the chairperson of Vilnius Association of Horse Races, the initiator of TWK Club which aim was to promote horse breeding and horse sport.

The inheritor of Wieruszpa died in 1930. Then “Word” wrote in his obituary “That rich and specifically borderlandish nature glowed with two more advantages. He was always brave and open in standing up for his believes. In Russian times, he was famous for his struggle with the authority about the forbidden Cracow carts… With proud, he pointed to his race stables where 10 years earlier he helped to create Dąbrowski’s partisans – later 13th regiment of Vilnius lancers…”

After Antoni Aleksandrowicz’s death Wieruszpa was managed by Jadwiga Aleksandrowiczowa.

All the material traces and effort of Antoni Aleksandrowicz’s work had gone forever. They live, however, in the memory of Vilnius citizens. Hanna Strużanowska-Balsienė: “The area of the old racetrack, which starts at the beginning of Niemenczyńska Road and runs up to Saulėtekio Street, is covered by forest.

One day, me and my father were going by a hackney to the house in Kolonia Magistracka. I remember that my father (from the author: Edmund Mieczysław Jastrzębiec-Strużanowski, the general officer of the brigade, legionnaire in First Cadre, was the adjutant of Józef Piłsudski) stopped the hackney, lifted me up and showed me the racetrack with horses behind a tall wall. All the trees were literary plastered with children who curiously looked at a horse race. A huge barn stand in the place were, until recently, Lithuanian Film Manufacture was and where now new housing estate is growing up. The stables were a little bit farther away…”

Jan Kaszkiewicz, the citizen of Wołokumpia: “My uncles: Józef and Piotr were buried at the cemetery in Wierszupska. Probably 5 years ago, when I went there, I discovered with astonishment that the cross from Antoni Aleksandrowicz tombstone had disappeared and at that place there is a new grave. Nobody could explain to me what and why it happened. The cross was made of oak and it had at least 3meters hight. I need to add that the inhabitants of nearby backwaters bought land from Aleksandrowicz. My family bought some as well. When the town forbidden selling the land, he built roads and streets on it and they serve us to these days.

Who will built a cross for Aleksandrowicz?

Horse sport and horse breeding are coming back into favour at Vilnius region. Stables in Rzesza, Czerwony Dwór, Kiernów, Bendary, Dubinki and other villages. Maybe some of the owners could memorise the name of a person who years ago established a modern, famous in many European countries horse racetrack in Pośpieszka.

…I asked Mr. Eugeniusz Rymszewicz, to light up my candle at the place where the cross memorising Aleksandrowicz’s name used to stand. I am sure he will do that.

Halina Jotkiałło