Museums of a Stateless Nation, between History and Art
Authors: Kludkiewicz Kamila 
Published: May 2024

In this article, Kamila Kudkiewicz is dedicated to the question of Polish national museums in the nineteenth century. At the end of the eighteenth century, the historical territory of Poland was divided among Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Each of these countries had its own laws and policies towards Poles: take, for example, the policies of Russification and Germanization implemented by the Russian and German authorities in their respective territories and, contrastingly, the autonomy granted to Polish Galicia in Austria-Hungary after 1860. Despite the differences between the regions, in the second half of the nineteenth century, Poles founded museums that were perceived to be 'national', whether on a de facto basis - as attested by publications and written sources from the period - or because they had the word 'national' in their very name. Although early initiatives to create museums with the designation 'national' were undertaken in Poland as early as the eighteenth century, actual national museums (or institutions considered to be such) only emerged after 1870. The latter consisted of : the Musee National Polonais (Polish National Museum) in Rapperswil, Switzerland (opened 1870), the Muzeum im. Mielzynskich w Poznaniu (Mielzynski Museum in Poznan, 1881), the Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie (National Museum in Krakow, 1883), the Muzeum Narodowe im. Krola Jana III we Lwowie (King Jan III National Museum in Lviv, 1908), and the Muzeum Sztuk Pieknych w Warszawie (Museum of Fine Arts in Warsaw), which was called after 1916 the Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie (National Museum in Warsaw). The most important Polish national museums were established in large urban centres, namely in regional capitals (i.e. Poznan, the capital of Greater Poland in the nineteenth century within the borders of Prussia, and Krakow, the main city of Galicia in the nineteenth century within Austria and later Austria-Hungary), but also in other nations (i.e. Rapperswil in Switzerland). They were founded by city authorities, learned societies, or private collectors. The fact that the museums were established and managed by various entities made their activities very diverse. However, one can observe two main areas of interest for Polish national museums in the nineteenth century: national (Polish) history, on the one hand, and Polish art, primarily contemporary painting, on the other. In some cases, like that of Rapperswil, the dominating elements of the collection were connected with historical elements that, at least initially, were also sentimental, nostalgic, and emotional in character. This sentimentality bespeaks the institution's intended influence on viewers. Elsewhere, the wish to exhibit and promote Polish art prevailed over the interest in objects related to national history (i.e. the Mielzynski Museum in Poznan). And certain museums underwent an evolution in their declared status, from that of a national gallery of painting to that of an institution attempting to show various aspects of Polish culture (National Museum in Krakow). The present analysis of the activity of these museums will focus on the discourse accompanying their creation, the goals set by their founders, and the curation of their exhibitions.