Old Brusno (Stare Brusno) - A former village in Poland and an unusual cemetery in the forest.

Old Brusno - A former Ukrainian village located in the Horyniec-Zdroj commune in Roztocze (Poland), after which a historic cemetery, chapels and roadside crosses have remained. The first mention of the village appeared in documents from 1444. From the 16th century, the inhabitants of Brusno were involved in stonemasonry, using sandstone and limestone deposits as raw material. At the beginning, mainly querns were made, later gravestones and roadside and votive crosses also appeared. Stoneware from Brusno has become famous throughout the area, some of them can be found more than 100 km away. In 1921, 1,083 people lived in Stary Brusno in 203 buildings and one mansion, including 990 Ukrainians, 52 Jews and 41 Poles. The most famous families of stonemasons from Brusno were the Kuźniewicz, Podgórecki and Lubycki families. After the tragic events of World War II in September 1945, some of the inhabitants were displaced to Soviet Ukraine. In 1947, the remaining inhabitants were resettled to the northern and western areas of Poland as part of the Vistula operation. Abandoned houses were gradually degraded and served as building material for the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. The area of the former village was overgrown with forest and to this day only the ruins of buildings and church, the recently restored parish cemetery and roadside crosses and shrines scattered within a radius of several kilometers have survived. Currently, the area of Old Brusno is covered with forests and farmland, and only information boards and numerous artifacts remind of the former inhabitants. Located among forests, the cemetery, where nearly 300 tombstones have been preserved, has a unique atmosphere, encouraging reflection on the difficult history of these areas. In 2014, the "Magurycz" Association published the book "Brusno - (non)existence in stone", which describes the history of stonemasons from Brusno in an interesting way and contains many unique archival materials. Noteworthy is also the initiative of a regionalist, Grzegorz Ciećka, who created a comprehensive database of roadside crosses in Brusno, available at www.kamiennekrzyze.pl This is, among others the above studies drew my attention to the history of Old Brusno. When I first went to visit the Brusno cemetery and the remains of the village, I was very impressed and soon decided to make this film. Since the publication of the film, I have received a lot of messages from the descendants of the former inhabitants of Brusno, who today live on different continents. The recordings come from the period: May - October, 2020. I would like to express my special thanks to Grzegorz Ciećka for substantive assistance. I invite all Roztocze enthusiasts to share the video.