The Stumbling Epitaph

The week before last, the mass media made public that all works on the construction of a memorial to the soldiers of the Ukrainian Halychyna Army and Polish military at the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv had allegedly been completed and that the memorial is ready for an unveiling ceremony. However, director of the Lychakiv Cemetery Museum-Preserve, Ihor Havryshkevych, refuted this statement. In his words, construction works haven’t been finished yet due to a lack of funds. He claims that, at present, only one of the memorial’s key parts, a sculpture of Archangel Michael, is close to being completed. To finish constructing the memorial complex, around 7 million hryvnias is required.

The construction of the Polish Pantheon in Lychakiv has been completed. However, the discussion regarding the epitaph for this monument is still in full swing. Recall that the stumbling block of this discussion is a single word, “heroically.” In the opinion of Ihor Havryshkevych, who is also people’s deputy of the Lviv City Council, his colleagues wouldn’t agree to change their decision on leaving out the word “heroically” in the epitaph. “At the Ukrainian-Polish negotiations on this memorial we offered compromise options to the Poles, but they haven’t given any response to our proposals yet,” he stated.

Incidentally, the sociology laboratory at the Lviv Ivan Franko National University conducted a poll regarding the ill-fated inscription. According to the poll’s data, only 26% of Lvivans agree that it should read, “To those heroically fallen for Poland.” Forty-five percent of those polled believe such an inscription inadmissible. Even a more moderate variant, proposed by Polish public figure and honorary citizen of Lviv, Jacek Kuron — “To those heroically fallen in a fratricidal war” — doesn’t satisfy almost as many pollees. Thirteen percent of those polled are positive that all parts of the Pantheon erected at Polish military’s graves in Lviv should be dismantled.