LVIV STATE ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUM DURING THE SOVIET OCCUPATION (1939–1941)

Abstract

Based on the analysis of previous research and archival sources, the position of key Ukrainian museum institutions in Lviv on the eve of the occupation of Western Ukraine by the Soviet Union in September 1939, is analyzed. In the region, there were many museum institutions, which preserved and popularized the historical and cultural heritage of the peoples who have inhabited the territory of Halychyna. It was investigated that among the Ukrainian museums the most powerful were the National Museum in Lviv which had been founded in 1905 by the initiative of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky and the Museum of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv (NTSh Museum). For more than three decades, both institutions have replenished their repositories with respectable ethnographic collections and artifacts. A drastic change in the situation after September 17, 1939, is demonstrated. Soviet occupation authorities conducted a detailed audit of all museums in Lviv and carried out their large-scale reorganization, in particular, of the entire ethnographic collections of the NTSh Museum in Lviv, the Dzieduszycki Museum, the City Ethnographic and Arts and Crafts Museums, and the Lubomyrski Museum. The Lviv State Ethnographic Museum was established based on their ethnographic collections. From now on, all museum institutions in Halychyna had to serve the ideological needs of the totalitarian machine of Soviet propaganda. Due to the analysis of archival material from the State Archives of Lviv Region (DALO), the main directions of the Ethnographic Museum's activity and its gradual ideologizing, which manifested itself in the priority of Bolshevik propaganda, are analyzed. For instance, exhibitions, lectures, and exposition ensembles forming, organized by the Museum during the end of 1939 and the first half of 1941 strictly corresponded to the so-called «Marxist-Leninist» ideology and a «class» approach. All his public activities were controlled by the relevant party-ideological institutions and party officials. After the Nazi occupation of 1941–1944, the Lviv State Ethnographic Museum returned to the Soviet Bolshevik propaganda reality. Thus, it was stated that the events of the autumn of 1939, related to the occupation of Western Ukraine by the Soviet Union and the implementation of Bolshevism, radically changed the museum landscape of Lviv. Most of the museum collections were disbanded by the new Soviet government and new museums were created on their basis – the main task of which from now on was to promote the so-called «Marxist-Leninist» approach. Keywords museum, occupation, propaganda, Lviv State Ethnographic Museum