Tradycja i postęp : ochrona zabytków na wsi

• Authors: Pruszyński Jan

Title variants

EN

TRADITION AND PROGRESS (THE PROTECTION OF RURAL MONUMENTS)

• Languages of publication: PL EN

Abstracts

EN

After World War II the phenomenon described by ethnologists as nativeness i. e. a bond between the inhabitants of villages, small towns or a given region with the cultural past, customs and traditions has been subjected to an intentional obliteration. The war produced the greatest contemporary population migrations, especially in Poland, while the political premises of the land reform and the „liquidation of the economic basis of landowners" did not solve the problems of individual peasant farmsteads but caused an enormous wastage of buildings - historical monuments, palaces, manorhouses, farm buildings, parks, cemeteries and traditional village constructions. The resolution issued by the Minister of Agriculture and Land Reform, issued in connection with a decree of the PKWN (Polish Committee of National Liberation) (6 September 1944) „took over" lands which became state property, together with buildings, their facilities and objects which not only served the purposes of production but also possessed artistic, scientific or museum value. Both legal acts did not protect against devastation or plunder but outright accelerated and encouraged them. Of the almost 5 million wooden buildings listed in 1953 by the State Insurance Enterprise, at least 10 per cent possessed great historical value, but the majority were destroyed since they provided building material (e. g. windmills). A temporary list of historical manors made in 1947 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reform included over 20 000 buildings althought did not take into consideration manorhouses built after 1855. As many as 90 per cent of these objects were subsequently utilized as storehouses, temporary housing and offices of production cooperatives, and of a total of 10 203, 9 533 were liquidated by 1956, a fact which was connected with unpunished devastation, plunder and destruction of property. The next years witnessed losses numbering up to a thousand objects annually, usually buildings of high cultural and artistic rank. When speaking about tradition, we have in mind ail that which was handed down to us by previous generations, both the products of material culture such as buildings, spatial arrangements and roads, as well as technology of production which is not always correctly regarded as outdated. It is indispensable to determine the apparently obvious connection between tradition and contemporaneity, monuments and progress. A monument constitutes material testimony of past human activity. Regardless of the time of its origin, its type or frequency of occurence, and artistic character, it remains a document of our history. It is quite easy to falsify history but it is much worse to destroy documents and deprive us of the right to call ourselves a nation with a thousand year-old statehood and culture. The present-day ammendment to the law regarding the protection of cultural objects and museums, binding since 1962, defines monuments as „national wealth" and declares that: „State and selfgovernment bodies are obliged to guarantee legal, organizational and financial conditions" for their protection while it is the duty of owners and utilizers to „maintain the cultural objects belonging to them in a proper state". Inasmuch as a generally understood cultural object is every item, „mobile or immobile, old or contemporary, and of importance for cultural heritage and development, owing to its historical, scientific or artistic value", legal protection is due only to those objects which are listed in the register of monuments or are part of museum or library collections as well as all others as long as their historical merits are obvious. A certain danger is concealed in protecting objects „whose historical character is obvious". It is important to ascertain who is able to determine the historical nature of a given object in accordance with that criterion. At the moment, regulations make it possible for the selfgoverning bodies to nominate conservators of monuments at the level of a county or town; this opportunity must not be wasted especially considering that it is precisely in small towns and villages that social protection of monuments was effective. I would like to propose a rural/ urban conservator who remains in contact with the voivodship conservation services and museums; he would not enjoy any direct legal or decision-making privileges, but his conclusions, observations or reports would have to be taken into account by the local self-government. The „production-oriented" nature of the heretofore economic model has concealed from the authorities of a given terrain the perspective of other forms of profiting from an individual and unique landscape, climate and folklore, as well as the tourist, leisure and spa possibilities and the ensuing network of hotel, refreshment, entertainment and sport facilities. The governing bodies of villages or small towns should become aware of the original and distinct nature of their local tradition. It is not great projects of reconstructing monuments but daily concern for the property entrusted to them, often in the form of uncomplicated restoration work, which would enable their retention. The protection of rural monuments, apart from praiseworthy cultural undertakings for the future, is a chance for the development of those localities which were not given such an opportunity by poorly progressing agriculture, and were deprived of it by an uncontrolled growth of the local industry, often ecologically onerous. It is the local authorities which must notice this chance before it is too late.

Keywords

PL

zabudowa wsi; tradycja; ochrona zabytków; ochrona prawna; architektura drewniana; zabytki wiejskie

• Publisher: Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
• Journal: Ochrona Zabytków
• Year: 1992
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 31-36

Dates

published

1992

Contributors

author

Pruszyński Jan

References

• J. O r y n ż y n a , Swojszczyzna w odbudowie, Warszawa 1947, maszynopis w Archiwum MKiS, zespoł NDMiOZ;
• Wieś i miasteczko u progu zagłady, pod red. T. R u d k o w s k i e g o , Warszawa 1991.
• S. Rosmaryn, Polskie prawo państwowe, Warszawa 1949, s. 54.
• P. Tkaczyk, Państwowy Fundusz Ziemi, Warszawa 1979, s. 22,
• A. Alber t , Najnowsza historia Polski, Polonia 1989, s. 532-534.
• W. Kosterski - -S p а I s k i. Wyniki akcji zabezpieczania podworskich dobr kulturalnych w latach 1945-1946, Rocznik Muzeum Świętokrzyskiego 1964 t. II, s. 378-383.
• J. Pruszyński ; Ochrona zabytkow w Polsce, Warszawa 1989, s. 169-174.
• J. P al iwo da ; Zagadnienia prawne społdzielni produkcji rolnej. Warszawa 1987, s. 47.
• W. Kal icki , Panowie na zabytkach. Warszawa 1991.

Identifiers

ISSN

0029-8247