Adam Lach for The New York Times  Poles watched as the coffin of President Lech Kaczynski passed by in Krakow, Poland, on Sunday. More Photos »  With the traditional 21-gun salute for a head of state, the two were interred at the crypt in the Wawel Cathedral, the resting place of Polish kings, saints and national heroes. The couple were among the 96 people, including dozens of members of the country’s military and political elite, killed in a plane crash in western Russia on April 10.  As the period of mourning and reflection came to a close, the political repercussions began to move to the foreground. Still unclear was whether Mr. Kaczynski’s twin brother and former prime minister, Jaroslaw, would declare his candidacy in the coming elections.  Early opinion surveys showed a daunting challenge for Mr. Kaczynski, should he decide to run. But the extraordinary outpouring of feeling since the plane crash has made for an unpredictable environment.  Some observers called the wellspring of sympathy, not seen here since the death of Pope John Paul II five years ago, Eastern Europe’s “J.F.K. moment.”  “On an emotional level, this catastrophe is for Poles a similar trauma to the J.F.K. assassination in the U.S.,” said Jaroslaw Flis, a leading political scientist in Krakow. “All those emotions, both positive and negative, accumulated from those five turbulent years of Mr. Kaczynski’s presidency, erupted at the moment that plane crashed to the ground.”  Mourners gathered outside St. Mary’s Basilica, the Gothic church where the services were held, and in squares around the city, wearing stickers with Mr. Kaczynski’s image and the words “My President.” His supporters, like Malgorzata Jalocho, a philosopher who traveled early Sunday from Kielce, said she believed that Mr. Kaczynski, often considered divisive in life, was finally receiving the appreciation that had sometimes eluded him.  “The truth today has finally been heard about President Kaczynski. When he was alive, there was a festival of aggression against him,” Ms. Jalocho said. “He was a great patriot. He was defending Poland.”  While political divisions began to emerge after a period of exceptional unity, a notable improvement in Russian-Polish relations brought on by the tragedy was still very much in evidence. The plane crash happened as Mr. Kaczynski and the others were on their way to Katyn forest, where more than 20,000 Polish officers were massacred by Stalin’s secret police during World War II, a deep wound in the Polish psyche and a source of tension and disagreement more than half a century later.  “The sympathy and aid we witnessed on the part of our Russian brothers give hope for the coming together of our two Slavic nations,” said Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, archbishop of Krakow, in his introductory remarks at the basilica, before family and friends, as well as Polish and foreign dignitaries. “I direct these words to the president of Russia.”  Although the cloud of volcanic ash that has disrupted travel throughout Europe forced President Obama and other foreign leaders to cancel their plans to attend, Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, flew to Krakow for the service. Germany’s president, Horst Köhler, arrived by helicopter.  The crowd outside the basilica alternated between solemn hymns and defiant clapping every time the massacre at Katyn was invoked. Bronislaw Komorowski, speaker of the lower house of Parliament and the acting president since Mr. Kaczynski’s death, called for “Polish unity and unity with the Russian nation, in the name of overcoming the Katyn tragedy.”  Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former president and longtime political rival of Mr. Kaczynski, said in an interview before the service: “The main contribution of Lech Kaczynski to Russian-Polish relations was in death. The very human response by Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev to the tragedy — and the symbolism of Katyn — creates a new chance for Polish-Russian relations. The problem is almost solved.”  During their joint time in power, the conservative duo of Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski challenged the post-1989 order, vowing to purge the residue of Communism from Polish public life. They railed against homosexuality, prostitution and abortion. They played upon historical grievances toward Russians and Germans. Mr. Kwasniewski said the decision to bury Mr. Kaczynski at Wawel was part of an attempt by his party to glorify him. The move revealed cracks in the national unity during the period of mourning as thousands protested against it.  “This decision has political sense, to use this catastrophe to create, in an artificial way, a new myth or hero,” he said. “But the Polish people are too clever not to see this intention. Putting him at Wawel is a step too far.”  Looking ahead toward elections, expected in June, Jolanta Szczypinska, a senior member of Mr. Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party, said its members were pinning their hopes on Jaroslaw Kaczynski. “The signals we have been getting from the Polish people are that they want Jaroslaw to run for president, that this is what is expected. I know him well, and I believe he will want to carry on his brother’s legacy.”  Jaroslaw, a domineering figure, is seen as more controversial than his brother. But polls after the crash showed that almost half of potential voters were undecided on who should become president. Analysts were taking that figure and the surge of sympathy for Mr. Kaczynski as signs that the vote could still swing toward him.  But politics were nowhere in evidence at the poignant ceremony on Sunday.  Mr. Komorowski, the acting president, who would have been Mr. Kaczynski’s rival in elections had he lived, ended his remarks simply by saying, “Farewell, Mr. President.”  Dan Bilefsky reported from Krakow, and Nicholas Kulish from Warsaw. Joanna Berendt and Michal Piotrowski contributed reporting.
Some 150,000 Poles bade farewell to their president in a funeral that capped more than a week of mourning.