Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu Wydział Pedagogiczno-Artystyczny Samanta Kowalska Cultural Heritage in Poland – the Background, Opportunities and Dangers Poznań – Kalisz 2012 1 Reviewer: Prof. zw. dr hab. Marian Walczak Prof. nadzw. dr hab. Mirosław Pawlak Cover design, technical editing: Lidia Łyszczak © by UAM – Wydział Pedagogiczno-Artystyczny Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu [Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań] Wydział Pedagogiczno-Artystyczny [Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts] ISBN 978-83-62135-55-4 Print: Zakład Graficzny Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu 61-712 Poznań, ul. Wieniawskiego 1 2 Contents Introduction ....................................................... 5 The understanding of cultural heritage in various disciplines ................... 10 World cultural and natural heritage ...................................... 34 The protection of non-material cultural heritage within the Memory of the World Programme .............................................. 54 The system of cultural heritage protection in Poland after 1989 ................. 70 Jewish cultural heritage in Poland or no man’s property ....................... 90 Cultural heritage of national minorities and ethnic groups in cultural borderlands ................................................ 109 Written valuables of Polish national heritage ............................... 128 Education for cultural heritage ......................................... 145 Elements of Polish cultural heritage receding into the past . 159 Conclusion ........................................................ 171 Bibliography ....................................................... 175 3 4 Introduction The issue of legal and physical protection of cultural heritage in a global, national, regional as well as local sense is slowly becoming an important field of knowledge and different legislative regulations and studies, both for profes- sional researchers and for hobbyists striving to grasp the matters important for local communities. A countless number of publications have been created on cultural heritage touching upon its different aspects, with differing chronologi- cal and territorial presentation – some of them cohesive, others continuous and synthesising or contributory. However, they do not present the issue of cultural heritage in all the complexity of its global, continental, regional and local as- pects, with the local one always proving to be the hardest due to the highly time- consuming research of archives and libraries and to a limited number of local researchers. It might seem that the complexity of issues relating to cultural herit- age has been covered almost completely since 1989. In reality, this assumption is far from true as it turns out that new areas worthy of scientific description along with new fixed properties and movables that require both legal and physical protection are still discovered. Thus, every new publication on various aspects of cultural heritage not only enriches the humanities; it also serves as yet another means for broadening humanistic knowledge on cultural heritage – regardless of its territorial range – from a many-sided and multi-dimensional perspective. The task is not easy as thoughts on cultural heritage do not fit unambiguously into a single field of knowledge; rather they transgress boundaries and draw on the methodology and terminology of many fields of humanistic knowledge. 5 In the Republic of Poland there is hardly a community that would not have a local programme for the protection of its cultural heritage. A pro- gramme known as “regional education” has been introduced into all levels of public education. This is a symptom of the slow objectivisation of knowledge about the significance of the protection of different ingredients of national and local cultural heritage. It is not only within intellectual elites now that the awareness of the importance of knowledge about cultural heritage is considered to be a ma- jor factor of socio-economic development and a method for finding ways of communication in regions stricken with conflicts revolving around ethnic or religious matters; it is also thought to be an expression of the cultural diver- sity of countries and regions. The globalisation of lifestyle, the Americanisa- tion of everyday life and mass culture, the disappearance of cultural activity within local communities, the dominant influence of mass media, especially the television – they all draw attention to the uniqueness of cultural phenom- ena from the past. The evaporation of traditional state borders and censor- ship and unlimited travel possibilities for masses generate new and dangerous phenomena of diffusion and deculturation. Every nation, region and various cultural communities attempt – with great care, consciously and according to an agenda – to preserve their own cultural identity by means of protecting material and non-material cultural goods of the past. The task is complex and difficult to implement in everyday life. There are many dilemmas connected with the cultural, legal and physical protec- tion of cultural heritage in a national, regional and local dimension; there are a number of open questions here too. The author of the present book has decided to point out, rank and char- acterise various dilemmas relating to the protection of Polish cultural herit- age. Therefore, the aim of the book is not a characterisation of fixed prop- erties and movables classified as cultural heritage or of historical artefacts constituting the ingredients of the Polish or regional structure – or the local structure, which is often the case too – of cultural identity. The reasoning ap- plied by the author relates to unsettled and ambiguous issues in the protec- tion of Polish cultural heritage. The awareness of the lack of many legislative regulations, economic so- lutions and even chemical technologies with respect to the preservation for 6 the sake of the future of many cultural goods, both movable and durable, can become inspiration for research and a reason for decision-makers to look for optimal solutions or to create smart programmes for universal regional education. Such was in fact the principal objective of the author as she un- dertook her attempt to name and define in hierarchical significance a range of dilemmas connected with the cultural, legal and physical protection of Polish cultural heritage in its national and regional dimension, as well as the diverse, colourful local uniqueness. To satisfy this convention for her book, the author has decided to start off with an analysis of the understanding of cultural heritage in different fields of humanistic knowledge, especially historical sciences, archaeology, literary studies, linguistics, cultural goods protection, sociology, ethnology, psychology, pedagogy, culture studies, and even economy, in particular its new sub-discipline of culture tourism. The vagueness of the notion of cul- tural heritage, coupled with the emphasis falling on various methods of de- fining the notion encourage the search for differences and similarities in the systemic understanding of cultural heritage as a phenomenon of temporal, spatial and at the same time social and unique nature. The fuzzy definition of the notion of cultural heritage, which – understood broadly – incorporates diverse material and non-material relics as well as a range of phenomena re- lated with contemporary culture, virtually requires the creation of a thesau- rus of cultural heritage. The following question arises here: according to what formula and what methodology of which field of the humanities should such a thesaurus be compiled? The author is also trying to answer another question: how is cultural heritage created and according to what criteria do the Memory of the World Programme and the World Heritage Programme function? The question is legitimate as Polish complexes and social phenomena are also classified as world heritage. This problem is linked with the issue of UNESCO conven- tions and recommendations within the programme of relics preservation. Yet another question might be posed here: to what extent is Polish cultural herit- age subject to regulations and recommendations in the area of the protection of Polish cultural goods of the past? The cultural diversity and uniqueness of many regional cultural goods in Poland demands consideration with respect to legal, economic and physical 7 possibility to protect Polish castles and palaces, folk culture phenomena fad- ing away along with dialects and slangs, relics of technology, as well as land- scape parks and exceptional natural phenomena, not yet wasted by tourism. It is also worthwhile to consider the relics of Jewish cultural heritage built in Poland for over a millennium, as well as the future of remaining cemeter- ies, tenements and post-Jewish factories in spite of the fact that their own- ers abandoned their properties and works of art as a result of the war-time Holocaust and the Nazi occupation of the country between 1939 and 1945. A separate but equally thought-provoking topic is the specificity of cul- ture in cultural borderlands, where cultural diffusion has created over the centuries a unique social, religious, architectonic and linguistic climate. Questions arise as to the possibilities of protection and preservation of this climate. Another issue are relics of Polish cultural heritage which have remained abroad since 1945. This particularly applies to Polish cultural sites