Losy polskiego dziedzictwa kultury na radzieckiej Ukrainie (1922–1991) Część II: 1945–1991
The fate of the Polish cultural her it agein the Soviet Ukraine (1922–1991). Part II: 1945–1991

Summary/Abstract: The end of war in Europe on 8 May 1945 allowed to seek restitution of cultural property lost by Poland between 1939-1945. This task was undertaken by the Pro-visional Government of National Unity, which was created on 28 June 1945. The demarcation of new eastern borders of Poland along the so-called eastern Curzon line resulted in leaving outside the country two cultural centers important to na-tional interest of Poles – Vilnius and Lviv.In March 1945 The Committee of Experts for Restitution and Compensation in Culture and Arts was created within The Ministry of Culture and the Arts, and the Ministry of Education established the Commission for Reparations and Res-titution for Science and Schools. Their main task was to prevent looting by the so called “cultural battalions of the NKVD,” who treated the encountered cultural goods as “spoils of war”.On the basis of the resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR of 18 October 1945, 577 exhibits and 50 thousand books and manu-scripts were transferred to Poland (as a gift!). The Catholic clergy could carry their fortune from the eastern borderlands of Second Polish Republic to Poland on the basis of an additional protocol to the repatriation agreement of 20 September 1945.With the resolution of 5 July 1946, The Council of Ministers of The Provisional Government of National Unity appointed a committee for the recovery of Polish cul-tural property from the former eastern provinces of the Republic of Poland, which were included in the Ukrainian SSR after the change of borders. Despite the recovery of many Polonicas, the loss of the greater part of Lviv museum collections remained a fact. Changes in the USSR began on 11 March 1985. In May 1987, 2450 Polish books from the Ossolineum collections in Lviv were given to the Polish side. At the end of November 1989, although the Soviets agreed to return Poland the Ossolineum collections in Lviv, the promise was not fulfilled. The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and regaining the independence by the former republics made it necessary to conduct negotiations on the Polish cultural heritage with each of the successors of the USSR separately - including Ukraine

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