Olšany Cemeteries: Ukrainian Prague in stone

Goal: To show that a cemetery is a source of history and to teach pupils to tell a place of memory from the place where a person is buried today.

Lesson plan

1. 3 min · Introduction. Ask: what can we learn about people and a country by walking through a cemetery? Show the Olšany Cemeteries in Prague on a map and say they have existed since the 17th century, beginning as a plague cemetery in 1680.
2. 4 min · Ukrainian emigration. Remind pupils that after the defeat of the 1917–1921 revolution many Ukrainians found refuge in Czechoslovakia and worked in schools, universities and scholarly institutions. Mention the Orthodox Church of the Dormition, consecrated in 1925, and Ihor Stambol's 2021 study of Olšany as a place of Ukrainian memory.
3. 5 min · Two stories. Read about Fedir Shcherbyna and Oleksandr Oles. Ask: where is each of them remembered today? How does Olšany differ as a burial place in the past and as a place of memory now? As a class, build a short timeline of three dates for each.
4. 3 min · Wrap-up. Stress that this is not a sad list of names but a way into living stories: schools, universities, books. Remind pupils to behave respectfully in a cemetery. Discuss the questions and set the task.

Facts

• The Olšany Cemeteries are a large Prague necropolis; according to the history of the municipal funeral service, they began with a plague cemetery in 1680. R0070
• Officially there are Olšany Cemeteries I and II, separated by Jana Želivského Street. R0070
• The Orthodox Church of the Dormition within the complex was consecrated in 1925. R0070
• In a 2021 scholarly article, Ihor Stambol examines Olšany as a place of Ukrainian memory and names, among others, Sofiia Rusova and Stepan Siropolko; the exact grave locations must be confirmed by the cemetery administration. R0070
• Fedir Shcherbyna (1849–1936), a scholar of statistics and Kuban history, taught at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague and died in Prague. His first burial was at Olšany; according to the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine, his remains were reburied in Krasnodar on 16 September 2008. R0006
• The poet Oleksandr Oles died in 1944 and was buried at Olšany. In January 2017 his remains and those of his wife were exhumed, and on 29 January 2017 they were buried in Lukianivka Cemetery in Kyiv. R0070

Questions to discuss

1. Why can a cemetery be called a history textbook?
2. How does a place where a person is remembered differ from the place where they are buried now?
3. Who should look after the graves of people who lived far from their homeland, and how?

Task

Find the Olšany Cemeteries on a map of Prague. Choose one person from the lesson (Rusova, Shcherbyna or Oles) and write three sentences: who they were, what links them to Prague and where they are remembered today.