The Jews in Lublin - Biblioteka Multimedialna Teatrnn.pl - Brama ...

Beata Skrzydlewska (Lublin)*
Jewish and Christian Religious Museums
The history of religious museums in Europe is not very long, they were first organized
in the first half of 19th Century and mainly objects drawn from religious culture
were collected there. The case is slightly different in the area of the old Polish lands
before the Partitions. Here, the museums - mainly Christian - came into being not
until the second half of the 19th Century. Not only objects which were drawn from
religious culture, but also artifacts of national culture were stored there.
The core of the collections of both the Christian and Jewish museums were constituted
by private collections, and for example in the diocese museum in Włocławek
it was the private collection of the Chodyńscy brothers, and in the Jewish museum in
Lviv from Maksymilian Goldstein.
The history of religious museums on the mentioned areas can be divided into four
periods. The first starts from the second half of the 19th Century and lasts until the end
of the First World War. This was a period of development, of setting the model for this
type of institution and establishing the collections. The following museums of the Roman
Catholic Church came into being during this time: Włocławek (1870), Tarnów
(1888), Poznań (1893), Wrocław (1898), Przemyśl (1902), Płock (1903), Sandomierz
(1905), Żytomierz (1909), Krakow (1909) and Warsaw (1910). The Orthodox Church
museums were created in this time, as well: in Lviv, the museum of the Stauropigial
Institute (1898) - founded by Rev. Antoni Petruszewicz and Rev. Izydor Szaraniewicz,
in Chełm, the Orthodox Eparchial museum (1892), in Żytomierz, Eparchial museum
(1893) - under the supervision of the Orthodox Church-Archeological Wołyń
Association, in Kamieniec Podolski, Uniate museum (1891) and founded by metropolitan
Andrzej Szeptycki the religious-historic Ukrainian State Museum (1913) 1 .
* Member of the Departament of the History of Museums and Protection of Monuments in the Institute
of Art History of the Catholic University of Lublin; her interests are concentrated mainly on the
issues connected with church museums (it concerns either the history of these museums, or exhibition
problems in the contemporary reality).
1 One can find a few different dates of the establishment of this museum in different sources, e.g. Edward
Chwalewik mentions about 1904, Marian Treter - 1908, Mieczysław Orłowicz - 1914. Cf. CHWALE-
WIK E.: Zbiory polskie: archiwa, bibljoteki, gabinety, galerje, muzea i inne zbiory pamiątek przeszłości w
ojczyźnie i na obczyźnie w zastawieniu alfabetycznym według miejscowości ułożone. Warszawa-Kraków 1926,
pp. 411-412; TRETER M.: Muzea współczesne. Studjum muzeologiczne. Początki, rodzaje, istota i organizacja
muzeów. Publiczne zbiory muzealne w Polsce i przyszły ich rozwój. Kijów 1917, p. 63; ORŁOWICZ M.:
Ilustrowany przewodnik po Galicyi, Bukowinie, Spiszu, Orawie i Śląsku Cieszyńskim. Lwów 1919, p. 68.
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