Polish museum workers help museums in Ukraine

     More than 40 Ukrainian museum institutions received financial support from the Polish Committee for Aid to Museums of Ukraine during the first months of the war unleashed by Russia. This public initiative interacts with the governmental institutions of Poland and many partners from different countries of the world. The war is still ongoing, but the Committee is already thinking about the war reconstruction and modernization of Ukrainian museums.

     The Committee for Aid to Museums of Ukraine was established at the beginning of March on the initiative of Polish museum workers, who have been cooperating with Ukrainian institutions for the preservation of cultural heritage for a long time. Currently, it unites 55 members. It is comprised of well-known museum workers and cultural figures: Wojciech Fałkowski, Director of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Piotr Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Adolf Yuzvenko, Director of the Ossolineum in Wrocław, Joanna Mytkowska, Director of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Zbigniew Wawer, Director of the Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw, Robert Zydel, Director of the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw, Karolina Grabowicz-Matyjas, Director of the Emigration Museum in Gdynia and others. This public initiative is led by Jan Ołdakowski, Director of the Warsaw Rising Museum, one of the most modern museums in Poland. It is in this institution that the Secretariat of the Committee operates.

     The Committee members published a statement explaining why the Poles are concerned about the fate of Ukrainian museums. In particular, they noted: "Theft and destruction of cultural values ​​in our country have reached exceptional proportions during World War II; culminating in the complete looting and destruction of Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising and immediately after its suppression. No nation and state should ever suffer such losses again. Unfortunately, today Ukraine is under such a threat". Among the goals that the Polish museum workers have set for themselves is not only helping Ukrainian colleagues in securing museum collections, digitizing and inventorying collections, but also in collecting information about the looting and destruction of Ukrainian cultural values ​​by the occupier.

     The Committee members say that their initiative arose spontaneously as a sincere response to the Russian aggression in Ukraine. Therefore, during the first weeks of the war, their activities were mostly spontaneous, because it was necessary to quickly respond to previously unheard challenges for the museum business. First of all, materials were sent from Poland to Ukraine to secure museum collections from possible damage during shelling and bombing. Already in March, a number of Ukrainian museums received Polish bundles and coffers, fire-fighting equipment, bubble wrap, moisture absorbers, dehumidifiers, construction and repair materials, as well as visualizers and scanners for digitizing museum collections.

     Providing the necessary aid to the Ukrainian museum workers would be impossible without the support of Polish sponsors and foreign partners of the Committee. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Swiss Foundation for Art, Culture and History, the National Library of Estonia, the European Parliament, the University Museum in Bergen and others joined the noble initiative. Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland provides logistical support for the Committee's activities.

     In Ukraine, Polish aid primarily goes to Lviv, where its distribution is coordinated by the Center to Rescue Cultural Heritage, which is located in the premises of the Scientific Library of Lviv Polytechnic National University. From there, the materials transferred from Poland were transferred to the Andrey Sheptytskyi National Museum in Lviv, the Nikanor Onatsky Regional Art Museumin Sumy, the Museum of Musical Instruments History "BarabanZA"​ (the city of Zaporizhia), the National Museum of Hutsulshchyna & Pokuttya Folk Art named after Yosaphat Kobrynsky, the National Historical and Cultura Reserve "Hetman's Capital" in Baturyn, the Vinnytsia Regional Museum of Local Lore and many others. In turn, the Dmytro Yavornytsky National Historical Museum of Dnipro (the city of Dnipro) became a kind of aid hub to the museum institutions in the east of Ukraine.

     The Committee for Aid to Museums of Ukraine will continue to help secure museum collections, especially in small museums, as requested by Ukrainian partners. Even now, the members of the Committee say that they will facilitate their Ukrainian colleagues to rethink and modernize museum exhibits. Both Polish and Ukrainian museum workers agree that the war is forcing them to think about the museum's mission and modern ways of its implementation.

     A new direction of the Committee's activity became the collection of funds for the post-war reconstruction of destroyed or damaged Ukrainian museums. As the Polish museum workers emphasized in their statement, the struggle to preserve the cultural and national heritage of Ukraine is a joint struggle of Ukrainians and Poles.

     Rostyslav Kramar, journalist and translator, lecturer at the University of Warsaw

     Photo: Komitet Pomocy Muzeom Ukrainy, 2022