KRAKOW, Poland - Tens of thousands of Poles bade farewell to President Lech Kaczynski on Sunday at a state funeral filled with pomp, pride and an outpouring of patriotism that his divisive and unpopular leadership had never generated.
Mourners applauded and chanted "We thank you!" as the caskets bearing Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, were carried slowly past pale-toned Renaissance buildings for burial among kings and poets in the ancient Wawel Cathedral.
"Poles finally appreciate him," said Ryszard Stolarski, 56, one of many weeping mourners. "I never imagined that Poland would honor Kaczynski in this way."
Many world leaders, including President Obama, could not be there because their travel plans were wrecked by the enormous plume of volcanic ash that blanketed Europe.
The funeral came eight days after the Polish air force Tupolev 154 crashed on approach to Smolensk, Russia. The worst tragedy to strike Poland since World War II killed the first couple and 94 other people, including top civilian and military leaders.
People are also reading…
Kaczynski's fatal flight, which investigators have said was likely caused by pilot error, was meant to take him to a memorial for 22,000 Polish officers murdered by Josef Stalin's secret police in 1940, killings known as the Katyn massacres and intended to wipe out Poland's brightest and best.
The patriotic Kaczynski wanted to honor them and push Moscow to do more to acknowledge the Soviet crimes, which Moscow had blamed on Nazi Germany during the communist era, a cover-up often known as the "Katyn lie" and given little attention since.
After the plane crash, Kaczyn-ski's body was recovered by Russians. The normally stoic Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin set the tone with an outpouring of emotion. And during Sunday's Roman Catholic funeral Mass, a Russian Orthodox priest also prayed over the caskets.
And though many world leaders, including Nicolas Sarkozy of France, were kept away by the travel chaos caused by Iceland's volcano, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived on a jet to pay his respects at the state funeral in the 13th-century St. Mary's Basilica.
After the Mass, the bodies of the first couple were carried atop a pair of artillery caissons pulled by army Humvees in a funeral procession led by the archbishop, clergy in purple robes and soldiers across the picturesque old town and up Wawel Hill, where a fortress wall encircles a castle and a 1,000-year-old cathedral overlooks the Vistula River.
As they made their way down the nearly mile-long route, the crowds waved Polish flags, clapped and chanted: "Lech Kaczynski! We thank you!"
Twenty monks rang the massive Zygmunt Bell inside the Wawel Cathedral, its pealing echoing across Krakow.
The first couple were interred together in a honey-hued sarcophagus made from Turkish alabaster in a crypt under the cathedral's Silver Bells Tower. Afterward, a battery of cannons fired 21 volleys, smoke pouring from their barrels as mourners watched.
Faculty concerned about changes to U of A admissions policy
