Rakowicki Cemetery
Kraków Cemeteries
The first municipal cemetery of Kraków (Stare Miasto district), in use since 1803. It was created when burials next to churches inside the city were banned. It covers about 35 hectares, with the Chapel of the Resurrection (1861-1862) at its centre. Ordinary residents of Kraków rest here alongside artists, scholars and independence activists, among them Jan Matejko. There are also plots of insurgents and Polish Legion soldiers, and many gravestones are works of well-known sculptors. The cemetery has been a listed monument since 1976. Walk the avenues slowly and quietly, as this is still a place of mourning.
History
Rakowicki Cemetery, formerly the Municipal Cemetery, was founded in 1803 as Kraków's first municipal cemetery. It came into being after burials beside churches within the city were banned by the Josephine edict of 1784. The land was bought by the Austrian authorities from the Discalced Carmelites of Czerna. It took its name from the road to the former village of Rakowice, today's Rakowicka Street. It has been in use since mid-January 1803, and the first person buried here was 18-year-old Apolonia Bursikowa. The cemetery was enlarged several times, and in 1839 the architect Karol Kremer designed its park layout. After an extension in the autumn of 1886, Jan Matejko was buried in the middle of the new avenue. At its central point stands the Chapel of the Resurrection from 1861-1862, funded by Anna and Ludwik Helcel. The cemetery covers about 35 ha, and it is the resting place of ordinary Cracovians as well as artists and writers, scholars, independence activists and veterans of uprisings and wars. There are separate sections for insurgents of the November, January and Kraków uprisings, for legionnaires, for First World War soldiers of the three partitioning armies, for those who took part in the charge at Rokitna, and for workers killed during the strikes of 1923 and 1936. Many of the gravestones are the work of well-known sculptors, among them Teofil Żebrawski, Jakub Szczepkowski and Wacław Szymanowski. In 1976 the cemetery was entered in the register of historic monuments.
Did you know?
The wall around the land bought from the Carmelites in 1836 was built from material salvaged from the demolition of All Saints' Church.