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Entrance to the cemetery

Rasos Cemetery (Lithuanian: Rasų kapinės, Polish: Cmentarz na Rossie) is an old cemetery in the city of Vilnius, Lithuania.

Founded in 1769 by Bazyli Miller, the mayor of Vilnius, in the place of an ancient pagan temple. He was also the first person to be buried there. It received the name after the surrounding borough of Rasos. In 1801 a chapel and a belltower were built. After 1844 the cemetery received a new, neo-gothic shrine. It was built by Józef Bohdanowicz, a local priest, and Jan Waszkiewicz, professor at Vilnius University. In 1920 a small military cemetery was built near the entrance for the soldiers who died in the city during the Polish-Bolshevik War and Polish-Lithuanian War. It was rebuilt in 1935-1936 by Wojciech Jastrzębowski, who also designed the tombstone where the heart of Piłsudski is enshrined.

Until September 18, 1939, when the Red Army entered the city, a honorary guard of three soldiers stood there at all times. Three unknown soldiers who refused to give up their arms to the Soviets in 1939 were shot on the spot and are now buried next to Marshal Piłsudski's heart. Part of the cemetery contains graves of Polish Home Army soldiers, who fell during the Second World War. Their graves, demolished after World War II, were rebuilt by the funds of Republic of Poland in 1993.

Graves of Polish soldiers who fell in 1939

After the war the cemetery's name reverted to its original Lithuanian name of Rasų cemetery, also spelt as Rasos cemetery. The whole necropoly was to be destroyed in the 1980s as the Soviet authorities planned a major motorway to be built directly through the cemetery. Due to a press campaign led by Polish-language "Czerwony Sztandar" (Red Banner) newspaper and economical difficulties the destruction was halted.

Tomb of Antoni Wiwulski in Rasos Cemetery

Tomb of Jonas Basanavičius

There are many famous Poles, Lithuanians, and Belarusians buried there. Among them are:

• Joachim Lelewel (1786-1861), historian, professor at Vilnius University
• Count Eustachy Tyszkiewicz (1814-1873), historian, archaeologist
• Czesław Jankowski (1857-1929), poet
• Euzebiusz Słowacki, father of Polish poet Juliusz Słowacki
• Janina Burchardówna (1883-1924), journalist, teacher and freedom-fighter
• Wacław Dziewulski (1882-1938), physician, professor at Vilnius University
• Antonina Fiszer (1824-1840), actress
• Laurynas Gucevičius (1753 - 1798), architect^[1]
• Jan O'Connor (1760-1802), medic, professor at Vilnius University
• Adam Piłsudski (1869-1935), a long-time vicepresident of Vilnius
• Karol Podczaszyński (1790-1860), architect, professor at Vilnius University
• Władysław Horodyjski (d. 1920), philosopher, professor at Vilnius University
• Franciszek Smuglewicz (1745-1807), painter, professor at Vilnius University
• Władysław Syrokomla (1823-1862), writer
• Józef Montwiłł (1850-1911), humanist and sponsor of countless hospitals, orphanages and museums
• Adam Jocher (1791-1860), founder of the first public library in Vilnius
• Juliusz Kłos (1881-1933), architect, author of the guidebook to Vilnius.
• Józef Łukaszewicz (1863-1928), professor at Vilnius University, revolutionist and long-time prisoner of czarist prison in Shlisselburg
• The heart of Józef Piłsudski (1867-1935), Polish statesman. In addition to his heart, the bodies of his mother and two of his brothers are buried at Rasos cemetery.
• Maria Piłsudska (1865-1921), first wife of Józef Piłsudski
• Antoni Wiwulski (1877-1919), architect and sculptor
• Bronisław Wróblewski (1888-1941), lawyer
• Jędrzej Śniadecki, (1768-1838), writer, medic, chemist and biologist
• Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, painter and composer
• Andriey Levicki, writer
• Jonas Basanavičius, doctor, scientist, patriot, activist, signer of the Act of Independence of Lithuania

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Rasos Cemetery

• Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas, writer
• Kazys Boruta, writer
• Petras Cvirka, writer
• Povilas Višinskis, book spreader, writer
• Antanas Vileišis, doctor, activist
• Petras Vileišis engineur, Lithuanian activist
• Jonas Vileišis Lithuanian politician, burmister of Kaunas 1921-1931, signer of Act of Independence of Lithuania
• Balys Sruoga Lithuanian writer and concentration camps survivor.

There is also a mass grave of Poles kidnapped in Vilnius by the Bolsheviks in 1919 and shot in Daugavpils.

• Antakalnis Cemetery
• Bernardine Cemetery (Vilnius)

• Series of photos of the cemetery

Coordinates: 54°40′06″N, 25°18′16″E