Szanowni Państwo!

• Authors: Paulina Florjanowicz

Title variants

EN

Dear Readers!

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The National Board of Poland, the publisher of the Ochrona Zabytków magazine, was established in 2011, but is already celebrating the 50th anniversary of its activity. How is that possible? The National Board of Poland, formerly the National Centre for Research and Documentation of Monuments, is the legal successor of the Centre for Documentation of Monuments (CDM) – an institution to which the Polish conservation owes very much. CDM has been established by the then Minister of Culture and Art in 1962 and accomplished its tasks successfully for four successive decades. In 2002 the former CDM and the Centre for the Protection of Historic Landscape were merged to establish the National Centre for Research and Documentation of Monuments (NCRDM), into which the Centre for the Protection of Archaeological Heritage was incorporated in 2007. In 2011, by the decision of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, NCRDM changed its name to the National Heritage Board of Poland. We decided to celebrate this magnificent anniversary with a special issue of our magazine. It will contain information about achievements of the Centre for Documentation of Monuments during 40 years of its existence and about the activities of the Centre for the Protection of Historic Landscape and the Centre for the Protection of Archaeological Heritage, i.e., the institutions on the basis of which NCRDM and later the National Heritage Board of Poland was established. The last jubilee issue of Ochrona Zabytków was published on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of CDM exactly 10 years ago, at the beginning of 2002 (Ochrona Zabytków no. 1, 2002). A few months later, CDM ceased to exist in its then-current structure. Its ideas were continued by the National Centre for Research and Documentation of Monuments and later the National Heritage Board of Poland. However, the current jubilee issue is different from the one published 10 years ago. Successive articles were arranged in a manner showing the continuity of the mission of our institution; articles on historical topics are accompanied by texts of current employees of the National Heritage Board of Poland (NHB), who continue the presented projects, at the same time adapting them to contemporary expectations of recipients and making use of the latest methodology. Anyway, innovation was the trademark feature of CDM – after all, it was one of the first conservation institutions in the world that collected documentation about historic object resources of the entire country in a standardised manner. It is something worth remembering. In the changing reality, we have to adapt the methodology of our activities to challenges of contemporary times, but the mission of CDM that was defined in its statutes 50 years ago remains valid: „to improve the stock-taking of monuments for the rational planning of their reconstruction and conservation”. Obviously, monuments are no longer reconstructed today, but the mission of NHB is still to create the basis for the sustainable preservation of heritage by gathering and disseminating knowledge about historical monuments, by setting standards for their protection and conservation, and by raising the social awareness of Polish cultural heritage in order to preserve it for posterity. The National Heritage Board of Poland acts at the intersection of many different fields of activity of the state and society and, therefore, runs a multitude of projects addressed to diverse target groups. Consequently, it is extremely difficult to pass information about the full scope of our activity to all interested persons. This volume does not contain all articles concerning the entire activity of NHB, either. For instance, the entire area of international co-operation was not covered, including important issues such as the implementation of part of the provisions of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, or expert co-operation with the Council of Europe and the European Commission that has been carried out successfully for a few years. There is also no mention of our activity concerning the support of conservation initiatives in the Ukraine and Belarus or the long-term program of revitalisation of the Muskau Park, which is managed directly by NHB. The role of NHB in the recognition of the most valuable objects as Monuments of History and our intense efforts to create their strong brand are not mentioned, either. Many other areas of NHB’s activity were not covered as well – not because they are less important, but because there was not enough space to write about everything. However, the primary idea of this special issue of Ochrona Zabytków was to present the original tasks of CDM and the manner in which their implementation is continued by NHB today. And the number of these tasks is continuously increasing and there will be many opportunities to write about them, also in this magazine. According to the promise made in the previous issue, Ochrona Zabytków is being transformed into a more interesting magazine that reflects more closely real and current conservation issues. When preparing this special issue, we assumed that each of us had the right to include his own memories and we treat the published texts as authors’ works. This applies particularly to the authors who participated in activities of CDM and other predecessors of NHB and look back on 50 years of achievements from a slightly different perspective. Some of them contain critical remarks about our current activities, which we humbly accept and for which I would like to thank very much here. Articles by current employees of NHB were written according to a completely different principle – they contain no criticism of the past. This is not our role, because we feel that we continue the idea of CDM formulated 50 years ago and, in spite of various twists and turns of history, our task is to pursue this mission and try to fulfil it as best as possible. We do not want to criticise things from the past, but to evolve and adapt our current activities to requirements of contemporary times. I believe that we succeed in doing this and I hope that you have this feeling, too. Finally, let me wish all of you, including former and current employees and collaborators of CDM, CPHL, the Centre for Archaeological Rescue Research, CPAH, NCRDM and NHB, in particular all former directors of those renowned institutions, all the best on the occasion of the jubilee of the 50th anniversary. I would like to thank you for your work, knowledge and passion, because it is the passion, commitment and personal attitude to the tasks being undertaken that connects authors of past successes of CDM with today’s creators of the image of the National Heritage Board of Poland.

Keywords

PL

Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa; Krajowy Ośrodek Badań i Dokumentacji Zabytków; Ośrodek Dokumentacji Zabytków; Ośrodek Ochrony Zabytkowego Krajobrazu; Ośrodek Ochrony Dziedzictwa Archeologicznego

• Publisher: Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
• Journal: Ochrona Zabytków
• Year: 2012
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 3-6

Dates

published

2012

Contributors

author

Paulina Florjanowicz

• Dyrektor Narodowego Instytutu Dziedzictwa

Identifiers

ISSN

0029-8247