WAWEL AND WARSAW – THE BIGGEST POSTWAR REPOSITORIES FOR RELOCATED CULTURAL GOODS IN POLAND. CONTRIBUTION TO BROADER ELABORATION

Abstract

The article continues the text Post-war repositories for relocated cultural goods in Poland, published in 2016 in the 57th issue of “Museology”. It is based on unpublished archival sources, as a result of basic research. It refers to the first two main repositories, i.e. at the Royal Castle State Art Collections at Wawel Castle and in the National Museum in Warsaw including its branches founded in 1945 in Wilanów, Nieborów and Łowicz. This is the first and preliminary description of the theme. It covers the results of the so-called requisition campaign, enumerates the transports and the directions from where they came, and the number of chests with cultural goods transported to Wawel and to the National Museum in Warsaw. It examines the complexity of problems then faced by museum professionals who salvaged cultural goods in opposition to the activities of the state administration, and it describes their consequences. It describes the registration activities in repositories. The issues treated still require further elaboration. The author does not tackle the legal aspects of moving cultural goods, such as the aspect of their ownership. The article may serve as an incentive to other researchers to investigate the problem in greater depth.