Prague, May 16 (CTK) – Hundreds of people will join a Czech national pilgrimage to the Zborov Battle scene in Ukraine that is to mark the centenary of the event where the Czechoslovak legions took action for the first time on the WWI eastern front on July 2, 1917, the Czechoslovak Legionaries’ Community (CsOL) has said.
Up to 1,500 pilgrims, including war veterans and leading politicians, will mark the anniversary at the Zborov battle scene on July 1-2, the CsOL said.
“We want to follow up the national pilgrimage held in 1927,” CsOL secretary Milan Mojzis told CTK.
The commemorative event will include the unveiling of a newly reconstructed cairn that was installed in the Zborov battlefield by the Czechoslovak pilgrims in 1927.
The tomb’s restoration has been financed by the Czech Defence Ministry, Jiri Charfreitag said on behalf of the organisers.
In Zborov, seven walking routes will be prepared for the visitors, the longest one measuring more than 20 kilometres and encircling the whole battlefield.
A system of guides and fixed balloons will facilitate the visitors’ orientation.
The legionaries, too, released similar, 1.5-metre tall balloons with Czechoslovak symbols in order to show Czech and Slovak soldiers of the enemy that they are faced by compatriots.
Within the centenary-marking ceremony, a case with contemporary documents will be placed inside the Zborov cairn on Saturday, July 1, and a commemorative meeting will be held at the local cemetery on Sunday, July 2.
In the Czech Republic, people can lit candles at the birthplaces of the Czechoslovak legionaries who fell in Zborov at 18:00 on July 2.
The CsOL has had special candles with the anniversary date made for this purpose, along with a complete list of the soldiers who came from what later became Czechoslovakia and who fell in the Zborov Battle on both sides to the conflict. Almost 400 soldiers died there.
On July 8, a reconstruction of the Zborov Battle will be staged in the former military training area near Milovice, central Bohemia, which hosted a camp for war prisoners during WWI.
