The Museum of the Eastern Territories of the Former Republic of Poland will be in Lublin

The Museum of the Eastern Territories of the Former Republic of Poland will be in Lublin

The Museum of the Eastern Territories of the Former Republic of Poland

In the Palace of Lubomirski in Lublin is being created the Museum of the Eastern Territories of the Former Republic of Poland.

A little more than in two years we will be able to invite you to the gorgeous, Great, worthy Museum of the Eastern territories of the Former Republic of Poland. Contrary to what they say, in Poland we have fewer museums per thousand inhabitants than in a lot of European countries, the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Professor Piotr Glinskyi said. He visited Lublin and during the press conference said that he had received actual permission to build the Museum of Eastern territories of the ex-Republic of Poland.

He also mentioned that over 300 museum investments are going on now in Poland, giving the Museum ‘Kresy’ in Lublin as an example. ‘This is a topic that, unfortunately, many years has not been covered by the institutionalization of memory in Poland, and four institutions are being built or kept now’, - the Vice Prime Minister said, pointing on the creation of such institutions in Brzeg, Seyny and Lyubachiv.

‘Contrary to what they say, in Poland we have fewer museums per thousand inhabitants than in many European countries. We have a lot of catching up to do, that is why we are building, for example, the museums of the Cursed Soldiers, the Piasnica museum, the large Museum of the History of Poland, which will be handed over to users in September’, - pr. Glynskyi said.

The Deputy Director of the National Museum in Lublin from the Museum of the Eastern Territories of the Former Republic of Poland, Marcin Gapski, presented details of the investment into Lublin. He pointed out that the historical palace of Lubomirski with over a 400-year history ‘is going to get new life’. ‘I hope the building process will get started this autumn. We will gain 5 thousand m2 from 3 thousand m2, which we have today. In terms of the reconstruction of the institution, two underground floors will be built under the walls of the palace’, - Gapski informed.

He also touched on the planned permanent exhibition ‘Journey Abroad’. As he added, there will be presented a thousand-year history. ‘We are going to get started with the 10th century, from the first contacts between the state of the Piast and Russia, we will learn about the following aspects related to how our country was developing to the East, how Lviv was attached to Poland’, - Gapski said. According to him, the main characters of the exhibition will be geographer Ludomyr Savytskyi and ethnographer Kazimierz Mushinskyi.

Nowadays, there are collected over 3 thousand things. For example, documents, family heirlooms, to the new collection of the Museum of the Eastern Territories of the Former Republic of Poland. It is mentioned that some of them were purchased by the money of the Ministry of Culture, such as Stanislaw Vyspianskyi’s picture ‘Joseph Sosnowski as Boleslaw the Brave’, Joseph Brandt’s picture ‘The Gatherer’, a portrait of Prince Czartoryski by Piotr Norblin, and weapons and fabrics as well.

The director of the National Museum in Lublin, Katarzyna Mieczkowska, added that some exhibits came from collections all over Poland. ‘During these gatherings, a lot of people who still remember the ‘Kresy’ come to us. The oldest woman was 104-year-old. She told us about her memories, when she was a student in Lviv. Oral history is an extremely important element of our collection’, - Mieczkowska pointed out.

The Museum of the Eastern Territories, which is a branch of the National Museum in Lublin, is located in the historical palace of Lubomyrski in the center of Lublin. The history of this building reaches the 16th century. Last years here was locating the faculty of political science of the University named after Mary Curie-Sklodowska. In order to create a new institution, the palace was bought from the University named after Mary Curie-Sklodowska (now the National Museum in Lublin) by a grant from the Ministry of Culture, which allocated almost 11 million zlotys for this goal.

Translated by Maksym Malisenko