The Battle of Zadviry (now Zolochiv district), known as the “Polish Thermopylae”, took place on August 17, 1920.
A battalion of several hundred Polish volunteers, the so-called Lviv Eagles, under the command of Captain Bolesław Zayonchkowski, stopped the advance of the Bolshevik forces of Semyon Budyonny’s First Cavalry Army and prevented the Bolsheviks from advancing on Lviv. Out of 330 Polish volunteers, 318 died. Some of them are buried in a mass grave in Zadwirya, others in the Orlyat military cemetery in Lychakov.
The battle took place during the then Polish-Soviet war (1919-1920), in which the Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People’s Republic opposed Soviet Russia.
Today, representatives of Poland and Ukraine honored the memory of the fallen volunteers near the mound in the village of Zahirya, where the battle continued. The event was attended by Deputy Head of the Lviv OVA Yuriy Buchko, Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Lviv Eliza Dzvonkiewicz, President of the city of Lezhaisk Ireneusz Stefanski and city representatives, President of the Polish Society for the Protection of War Graves in Lviv Janusz Balytskyi, representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in Lviv Andriy Hrushko, director of the department of international technical assistance and cooperation of Lviv OVA Roman Shepelyak.
The participants of the event joined the Holy Mass and laid flowers at the monument to the Polish soldiers who died in the battle of 1920.
The event was organized by the Polish Society for the Protection of War Graves in Lviv in cooperation with the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Lviv.
“102 years ago, more than 300 young people died in this place from the Bolshevik invasion. It was a heroic battle for the independence of Poland and Ukraine. Both the Polish and Ukrainian people have suffered a lot in the past centuries. Today, Ukrainians continue to defend the Ukrainian state from the Russian aggressor. From the first days of the full-scale war with Russia, Poland is our truly good and faithful friend. On behalf of the distinguished guests who came here, I sincerely thank you for the support we feel and the shelter of our citizens on the territory of your state. With such geopolitical partners and strategic colleagues as Poland, Ukraine will definitely win. With such a reliable shield as Ukraine, Poland has protection against a common enemy. Eternal memory to all the innocents killed here!” – noted Yuriy Buchko.