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Visiting the Deceased: Poland's All Saints' Celebration
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19538 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1991 |
2,414 Words |
| Author
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Frank Fox
Frank Fox is a professor of east European history who
specializes in the history and art of Poland in the twentieth
century.
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Dzien Zaduszny, or Zaduszki (All Saints' Day), ushers in November, a month of commemoration in Poland. It is a time for visits to cemeteries, a day when the souls of the departed are honored and propitiated, when life is celebrated in an atmosphere of sorrow, when the living realize, however dimly, that they are alive because others have gone before. Indeed, there are few lands where the need to fight death's meaninglessness and anonymity is more compelling, for in Poland, in this century, dying became terrifyingly commonplace.
Zaduszki is a quintessentially Polish ritual. In Warsaw, hundreds of Boy Scouts are mobilized to help guide the increased traffic as more than a million people use public transportation to travel to the cemeteries of Powazki, Brodno, and countless other burial sites. The city's mud-covered streets (a by-product of the November rains and an antiquated drainage system) are filled with crowds. Families make their way to familiar spots. In this land of limited material wealth, flowers are purchased without stint. Most people carry generous bouquets of flowers (chrysanthemums are popular) and colorful wreaths. They also bring the thousands of small dishes of orange-colored wax whose flickering flames will transform Warsaw's cemeteries into illuminated gardens.
On recent trips to Poland I have visited some of the most important cemeteries in Warsaw. My camera and notebook were practically ignored by the people around me, as if they sensed the need to record history in a country whose many dead lacked a witness to their tormented lives.
Visits not easily forgotten
Warsaw is running out of space for both the living and the dead. I began my visit at the Stare Powazki (Old Powazki), one of the oldest and most respected resting places. The cemetery is well maintained, its upkeep partially funded from annual collections taken on All Saints' Day when filmmakers, writers, and other public figures approach visitors to solicit funds. The cemetery features an Avenue of Meritorious People that includes designed resting places for bishops, priests, and nuns; heroes of the struggle for independence; engineers; and writers, artists, musicians, and actors of stage and film. The numbers for each profession are noted on a chart at the entrance. (There is only one educator.)
Some graves may be read as a family history. One, the "grave" of a Piotr Woydyno, has a sign that indicates it contains only "symbolic ashes." The tablet
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