All Saints’ Day in Poland: Powązki Cemetery, Warsaw, and Piłsudski’s heart | Pulse of Culture

All Saints’ Day in Poland: From Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery to Piłsudski’s heart in Vilnius.

Crowds fill Old Powązki with candles, and famous actors collect money at the gates to save its historic graves, a tradition that's spread to Rasos Cemetery in Vilnius, where the Poles of Lithuania now raise funds to save their own necropolis.

Old Powązki is Warsaw’s best-known cemetery and one of its most remarkable open-air museums. Its tree-lined avenues hold sculptures, chapels and the graves of film director Krzysztof Kieślowski, singer-songwriter Czesław Niemen, the parents of Fryderyk Chopin, and many other great Poles. The yearly fundraising drive began in 1975, with writer Jerzy Waldorff inspired by a charity collection scene in an iconic 19th-c. Polish novel, The Doll. About 200 people came to the first one. Today the committee has restored around 1,700 tombstones, the collection is recognized as part of Poland’s intangible cultural heritage, and 14 more monuments are being restored in 2026. In Vilnius, Rasos Cemetery, founded in 1801 and 225 years old this year, holds the heart of statesman Józef Piłsudski, interred next to his mother's remains, at his personal request. Great Poles and Lithuanians rest side by side here, including the painter and composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, the poet Władysław Syrokomla and Jonas Basanavičius, the father of Lithuanian independence. The first money to save its graves came from the Powązki collection, and 17 graves were renovated this year. We also visit a new exhibition in Konstancin, a spa town bordering Warsaw, organized with a Paris museum, which brings the work of the painter Mela Muter back to Poland. In Warsaw, a free exhibition at the History Meeting House celebrates six women who brought light and bold style to the gray Poland of the 1980s. It runs until February. We end with the late diva Violetta Villas, as Michał Szpak sings her hit “Do Ciebie, mamo” in a duet with Villas herself – using the legendary singer's voice recordings – for a new biopic, in cinemas starting November 27.

Pulse of Culture is a weekly English-language magazine for anyone with a connection to Poland, including tourists, the diaspora, and the simply curious. New episodes are released every Sunday.

Host: Agata Konarska

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