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Zakopane, Poland

The Polish mountain resort of Zakopane has a grave of Jonas Biliūnas (1879-1907), a famous Lithuanian writer, located within its National Cemetery among various local luminaries. Biliūnas died of tuberculosis. With that disease being largely incurable at the time, tuberculosis patients were advised to “heal” in mountainous climates, one of the closest of which to Lithuania was in Zakopane.

The cemetery where Biliūnas rested in Zakopane

Biliūnas’s grave near the cemetery’s entrance is now empty, however. In 1953, his remains were relocated to Lithuania and buried in Liudiškės hill of Anykščiai, under a memorial inspired by his story “Laimės žiburys” (Beacon of Light). Often, when Lithuanians are reburied to Lithuania, the old gravestone is either destroyed or left intact. In Zakopane, a third way was chosen, altering the grave inscription to “Čia ilsėjosi Jonas Biliūnas. Mirė 1907 XII 8, grįžo į gimtąją žemę 1953 VII I” (“Here Jonas Biliūnas used to rest. He died on 1907 12 08 and returned to his native land on 1953 07 01”).

The sign at the former grave of Biliūnas in Zakopane

Zakopane town itself was transformed by another person born in Lithuania, Stanisław Witkiewicz (Stanislovas Vitkevičius). Searching for a uniquely Polish (yet modern) architectural style, he created the Zakopane style with various gables, according to which the majority of Zakopane buildings are still built. Unlike Jonas Biliūnas, who wrote in Lithuanian and selected the Lithuanian National Revival as his one, Witkiewicz was critical of the idea of a separate Lithuanian nation and instead joined the Polish revival.

Modern building in Zakopane style