« 2023. # 4 (172)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2023. № 4 (172), 858—868

UDK 069.7(477.83-25)”191/193″:[39(=161.2):316.422]

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2023.04.858

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS OF THE UKRAINIAN COMMUNITY OF LVIV IN THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS

HORBAN Iryna

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2626-9521
  • Candidate of Philological Sciences (Ph. D.), Associate Professor,
  • Senior Researcher at the Museum of Ethnography
  • and Art Crafts of the Ethnology Institute
  • of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: iryna_lviv@ua.fm

Abstract. The establishment of the Ukrainian movement in Galicia and the desire to declare their national distinctiveness led to an increase in public interest in their own history and culture in the second half of the 19th century. In Lviv, among the public-cultural institutions of Galician Ukrainians, the «People’s House», the «Prosvita» society, the Stavropegian Institute, and the Shevchenko Scientific Society, museum collections of historical monuments — material carriers of Ukrainian cultural identity — were established. All of these mentioned museums played an important role in the development of Ukrainian museology in the Galician territories. However, they functioned only as separate branches within the structure of the organizations or societies where they were created and mostly lacked proper premises, professional personnel, defined activity programs, and necessary funding. All of the mentioned criteria were met by the museum founded by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, which operated from 1911 under the name «National Museum in Lviv». The last among the Ukrainian museums in Lviv, the Museum of the Greek Catholic Theological Academy, began its work in 1931.

The purpose of the proposed research is to present the history of museum collections of the Ukrainian community in Lviv and the peculiarities of their functioning during the interwar twenty years. For the first time the following state and activities of the two largest Ukrainian museum institutions in the city — the National Museum and the Museum of the Shevchenko Scientific Society during the 1920—1930s were considered in a comparative aspect; the process of accumulation of monuments and formation of collections were characterized, as well as research work, and also measures to popularise Ukrainian cultural heritage; the importance of these institutions in the cultural and artistic life of the Ukrainian community of the city was determined.

The relevance of the research is determined by the lack of comprehensive studies dedicated to this issue. The research is based on published works, archival documents and photographic materials from the collections of museums and archival institutions in Ukraine and Poland, in particular, unknown to Ukrainian researchers materials stored in the Archive of Modern Records in Warsaw and the Archives of the National Museum in Krakow, which are first introduced into scientific circulation.

Keywords: Museum of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, National Museum in Lviv, Museum of the People’s House, Museum of the Stavropegian Institute, museums of the Ukrainian community in Lviv.

Received 31.07.2023

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