A Facebook post by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory marking the reburial of soldiers who fought for the Ukrainian People's Republic, Ternopil region. As I scroll down the Facebook page of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, I come across posts about vandalised graves of fighters in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. This is followed by posts from a regular rubric “The Fallen Heroes of the Russian-Ukrainian War” on the page, which, in turn, is followed by posts about rediscovered battle grounds and burial sites dating back to the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921.
But it’s not only my newsfeed where the bones of the historical dead are mixed with the dead of the ongoing war. In 2014, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory made recommendations to create sections reserved for military burials in cemeteries. By March 2017, there were 450 of these sections across Ukraine. The Institute stated that these sections should be “structured in such a way that, if necessary, they can become a space for holding appropriate commemorative events, such as commemorative worship, the laying of flowers, standing military guard or visits by official delegations.” It is not surprising that these sections are sometimes created as extensions to existing military burial grounds.
The Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv is a case in point. As well as containing one of the new military sectors, the military cemetery here houses the graves of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) fighters from the 1940s and 1950s, soldiers of the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR, 1917-1920), the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA, 1918-1920) and a memorial to an unknown soldier of the Waffen SS Galicia Division (active in 1943-1945). In addition, the military pantheon of those presented as fighters for Ukrainian statehood is located close to the burial site of the “Defenders of Lwów”, young Poles who fought for Polish control of Lviv/Lwów in 1918-1919. Turn around and you will see a field that once contained the graves of Russian prisoners captured during the First World War (the graves are no longer there). Another neighbouring field contains the remains of Polish insurgents who died in the “January Uprising” of 1863-1864. A short walk away is the so-called “Field of Mars”, which contains graves of Red Army soldiers killed in the Second World War.
