Walking Tour Lychakiv Cemetery

Lychakiv Cemetery History.

Since its creation in 1787 as Łyczakowski Cemetery, Lychakiv Cemetery has been the main necropolis of Lviv‘s intelligentsia, middle and upper classes. Initially the cemetery was located on several hills in the borough of Lychakiv, following the imperial Austro-Hungarian edict ordering that all cemeteries be moved outside of the city limits.

After World War II Lviv was annexed by the Soviet Union, resulting in a period during which many of the historical monuments and sculptures located in the cemetery were destroyed. In 1975 the cemetery was finally declared a historical monument and the degradation ended. Since the late 1980s, the cemetery has seen constant rebuilding and refurbishment and continues to be one of the principal tourist attractions of Lviv.

In late 2006 the city administration announced plans to transfer the tombs of Stepan Bandera, Yevhen Konovalets, Andriy Melnyk and other key leaders of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) / Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to a new area of the cemetery dedicated to the Ukrainian national liberation struggle.

Lychakiv Cemetery Plan.

Plan legend :
1 — Field of Mars
2 — NKVD victims’ graves (1941 г.)
3 — Outstanding Poles Pantheon
4 — The eldest graves
5 — Main gates
6 — 1863 January Rebels’ Hill
7 — 1830−1831 November rebels’ quarter
8 — Ukrainian National Army Memorial
9 — Lviv Defenders’ Cemetery (Cemetery of Lwów Eaglets)

• On the North side of the Cemetery is situated Field of Mars (№ 1 on the plan), a war memorial built in 1974. This war memorial contains the graves of 3,800 Soviet soldiers who died in the battles against the Nazi occupiers in WW II.
• In the back part of the cemetery (№ 6 on the plan) on a separate field indicated by original steel crosses, is located the 1863 Rebels’ Hill. Buried here are members Polish January Uprising of 1863.
• Near the front gate is an area dedicated to the graves of soldiers participating in the November Uprising (1830–31) [Number 7 on the plan], also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31^[3] or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire.
• The Ukrainian National Army Memorial (Number 8 on the plan) is devoted to the Ukrainian National Army soldiers buried in the cemetery, including soldiers of the SS Division “Galicia”.
• The Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów (Cemetery of Eaglets, Polish: Cmentarz Orląt Lwowskich) [Number 9 in the plan) is a memorial and a burial place for the Poles and their allies who died in Lviv during the hostilities of the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918−1919) and Polish-Soviet War (1919−1921).

To learn more, please watch our short video “Walking Tour – Lychakiv Cemetery“.