Mieczysław Jan Gębarowicz (17 December 189318 February 1984) was a Polish

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

, soldier,

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...

, museum director and custodian of

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by socie ...

. He studied history and the

history of art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetics ...

Lwów University The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (named after Ivan Franko, ) is a state-sponsored university in Lviv, Ukraine. Since 1940 the university is named after Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko. The university is the oldest institution of highe ...

During the 1940s and 1950s he was responsible for saving many Polish cultural works in Lviv, including books and

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s, from being destroyed or dispersed. Gębarowicz's studies were interrupted by World War I, when he served in the

Austro-Hungarian Army The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army,; was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), ...

. In 1918, he fought for the Poles in the Defence of Lwów.After graduating from university, he lectured at the Jan Kazimierz University (now the

University of Lviv The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (named after Ivan Franko, ) is a state-sponsored university in Lviv, Ukraine. Since 1940 the university is named after Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko. The university is the oldest institution of highe ...

), where he was awarded a

doctoral degree A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in 1921. The following yerar he took up a post in the

Ossolineum Ossoliński National Institute (, ZNiO), or the Ossolineum is a Polish cultural Foundation (non-profit), foundation, publishing house, archival institute and a research centre of national significance founded in 1817 in Lwów (now Lviv). Located ...

in Lwów, where he became a

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

. Between 1923 and 1938 he lectured in art history at Lwów Polytechnic. After the outbreak of World War II, he became one of the directors of the Ossolineum. During and after the war, Gębarowicz secretly organised the dispatch of items from the collections of the Ossolineum to safety in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

and

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

. In February 1952 he was dismissed as a director by the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

authorities, but was allowed to work in Lviv as a research librarian. He was forced to retire in 1962, and died in Lviv in 1984. A published author, his research on the art of Ukraine and Lviv was published posthumously.

Early years

Gębarowicz was born in

Jarosław Jarosław (; , ; ; ) is a town in southeastern Poland, situated on the San (river), San River. The town had 35,475 inhabitants in 2023. It is the capital of Jarosław County in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship. History Jarosław is located in the ...

, one of three sons in a patriotic Polish family. His mother was Bronisława, née Smolek. His father, Teofil, was a railway engineer who served as assistant

station master The station master (or stationmaster) is the person in charge of a Train station, railway station, particularly in the United Kingdom and many other countries outside North America. In the United Kingdom, where the term originated, it is now lar ...

in Stanisławów and later as station master in

Buczacz Buchach (, ; ; or ; ; ; ) is a city located on the Strypa River (a tributary of the Dniester) in Chortkiv Raion of Ternopil Oblast (province) of Western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Buchach urban hromada, one of the hromadas of ...

. In 1912 Mieczysław completed his schooling at Buczacz Lyceum and was already a member of two clandestine Polish youth organizations, "Zet" and Zarzewie. He went on to study history and the

. His studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, when he served in the ranks of the

from 1915 until the end of the war in 1918. He fought alongside the Poles in the Defence of Lwów during the

Polish–Ukrainian War The Polish–Ukrainian War, from November 1918 to July 1919, was a conflict between the Second Polish Republic and Ukrainian forces (both the West Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic). The conflict had its roots in ...

, after which he was able to graduate. Between 1920 and 1922 Gębarowicz was a lecturer in the History faculty of

Jan Kazimierz University The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (named after Ivan Franko, ) is a state-sponsored university in Lviv, Ukraine. Since 1940 the university is named after Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko. The university is the oldest institution of higher ...

in a newly- independent Poland. In 1921 he was awarded a

at the university. In 1922 he took up a post in the National Ossoliński Institute, known as the in Lwów, where the following year he was promoted to

of the . He continued with academic duties and undertook research and lecturing assignments in Italy, France. Belgium, Spain, Germany, Austria and

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

. In 1928 he became an

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

in the History of Art the Department of

Humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

at the university. In 1936 he became an

honorary professor Honorary titles (professor, president, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as ...

at Jan Kazimierz University. Between 1923 and 1938 he also lectured in art history at Lwów Polytechnic.

World War II

Following the start of the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

and the sudden death on 18 September 1939 of , the director of the Ossolineum, Gębarowicz found himself along with and , as a director of the Institute. In December 1939 the Soviet authorities had installed the

Polish Communist Communism in Poland can trace its origins to the late 19th century: the Marxist First Proletariat party was founded in 1882. Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (''Socjaldemokracja Króle ...

activist

Jerzy Borejsza Jerzy Borejsza (; born Beniamin Goldberg; 14 July 1905 in Warsaw – 19 January 1952 in Warsaw) was a Polish communist activist and writer. During the Stalinist period of communist Poland, he was chief of a state press and publishing syndicate ...

as director. In 1941, the Germans occupied Lviv, and Wisłocki was murdered in unexplained circumstances. Gębarowski was secretly nominated as lead director of the institute. From this time until the return of the Soviet occupiers in July 1944, he strove to safeguard the priceless collections of the Ossolineum. In 1944, he arranged a covert consignment of 2,300 literary manuscripts by train to

. Included were works by the Polish poet, playwrights and authors

Juliusz Słowacki Juliusz Słowacki (; ; ; 4 September 1809 – 3 April 1849) was a Polish Romantic poet. He is considered one of the " Three Bards" of Polish literature — a major figure in the Polish Romantic period, and the father of modern Polish drama. Hi ...

Aleksander Fredro Aleksander Fredro (20 June 1793 – 15 July 1876) was a Polish poet, playwright and Polish authors, author active during Romanticism in Poland, Polish Romanticism in the Partitions of Poland, period of partitions by neighboring empires. His works ...

Władysław Reymont Władysław Stanisław Reymont (; born Rejment; 7 May 1867 – 5 December 1925) was a Polish novelist and the laureate of the 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known work is the award-winning four-volume novel '' Chłopi'' (''The Peasant ...

Henryk Sienkiewicz Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz ( , ; 5 May 1846 – 15 November 1916), also known by the pseudonym Litwos (), was a Polish epic writer. He is remembered for his historical novels, such as The Trilogy, the Trilogy series and especially ...

and

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He also largely influenced Ukra ...

. The original manuscript of Mickiewicz's ''

Pan Tadeusz ''Pan Tadeusz'' (full title: ''Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse'') is an epic poem by the Polish people, Polish poet, writer, translator and philosopher Adam Micki ...

'' was despatched from Lviv, as well as 2,400 Polish publications and prints, and several hundred

coins A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

. These would later become the core of the relocated Ossolineum in

. Gębarowicz decided to remain in Lviv when the renewed occupation began.

Post-war

1946 saw Gębarowicz become deputy manager of the Faculty of Theory and History of Art of the renamed Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. Thanks to his efforts, in July 1946 as "a gift of the Soviet People to the People of Poland" a further 7,083 manuscripts, 35,565 antiquarian books and 107,397 prints from the 19th and 20th centuries arrived in Wrocław. In March 1947 a further 67,000 books followed. His decision to stay in the city as custodian of the remaining Polish heritage in Lviv was conditional on his accepting Soviet citizenship and rejecting not only the offer to become director of the

National Museum in Kraków The National Museum in Kraków (), popularly abbreviated as MNK, is the largest museum in Poland, and the main branch of Poland's National Museum, which has several independent branches with permanent collections around the country. Established in ...

, but also the offers of professorships at the universities of

and

Toruń Toruń is a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland and a World Heritage Sites of Poland, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its population was 196,935 as of December 2021. Previously, it was the capital of the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–199 ...

. In February 1950, together with other long-term employees of the Library, Gębarowicz was dismissed, on the grounds of being an "undesirable element". He was able to find work as a librarian in different Lviv institutions that recognised his status as that of a "junior researcher". He travelled to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

in 1957, where he declined an offer to become director of the Ossolineum in Wrocław. In 1962, when aged 69, the Soviet authorities offered him advancement to a "senior researcher". Later that year he was forced into retirement, probably in response to the publication in Poland of his ''Study of the history of the arts in

Late Renaissance Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it. ...

Poland''. He was also punished by being barred from accessing any of the archives in his erstwhile national collection. In 1970, the Polish government awarded Gębarowicz a medal for developing the National Ossoliński Institute. In 1981, the Historical Institute of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences (, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of distinguished scholars a ...

commissioned him to write an autobiography as part of a compendium of biographies of leading Polish academics. When the Polish authorities balked at the completed manuscript, it was published a year later by a small Catholic publisher, ZNAK. Gębarowicz wrote research papers, despite his straitened circumstances and a lack of access to the Ossolineum sources. Two well-received studies on the art of Ukraine and of Lviv were published posthumously: ''The oldest

iconostasis In Eastern Christianity, an iconostasis () is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a Church (building), church. ''Iconostasis'' also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere withi ...

of the volosian orthodox church in Lwów'' (Wrocław, 2016) and ''Mater Misericordiae - Pokrow - Pokrowa in the art and legends of East-Central Europe'' (Wrocław, 1986). Gębarowicz died in Lviv in 1984 and was buried at Lyczakow cemetery in the city. He was remembered as the "Pope of the Polish diaspora" in Lwów. A lecture hall in the National Ossoliński Institute is named in his honour.

Works

In Polish

* . Znak 5. 1982 * . Mieczysław Gębarowicz i Kazimierz Tyszkowski. Lwów: Zakład Narodowy imienia Ossolińskich, 1926 * . Toruń: Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1962 * yd. 1.Toruń, 1966 * . Lwów: Zakład Norodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1939 * . Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Sztuki Wrocław : Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1981 * . yd. 1./ Wrocław: Zakład Norodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1965 * Lwów: .n. 1923 * . Ed. opracowali Stanisław Jan Gąsiorowski, Mieczysław Gębarowicz, Tadeusz Szydłowski, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Jan Zarnowski, Józef Zurowski... Lwów, Wydawnictwo zakładu narodowego imienia Ossolińskich 1934. 3 vol. in-4°, fig., pl., carte * . Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Sztuki. Wrocław

tc. TC, T.C., Tc, Tc, tc, tC, or .tc may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * Theodore "T.C." Calvin, a character on the TV series '' Magnum, P.I.'' and its reboot * Tom Caron, American television host for New England Sports Netw ...

Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich 1981 Wroc WDNSK * . Toruń Towarzystwo naukowe 1962 * . Towarzystwo miłośników historii i zabytków Krakowa. opracowali Mieczysław Ge̡barowicz i Tadeusz Mańkowski. Kraków Ossolineum 1937 * Toruń Towarzystwo naukowe 1966 * . Kraków: Znak 1980. * . Wrocław, Warszawa, Kraków: Zakład narodowy imienia Ossolińskich, wyd. Polskiej Akademii nauk 1969 * . Wrocław: Zakład narodowy im. Ossolińskich 1986

In German

* . Hrsg. von M. Gebarowicz und Hans Tietze. Wien: A. Schroll & co., 1929 * . (Aus: Das polnische Schlesien). Kattowitz: .n. 1935

Legacy

Aside from his scholarly work, it is probably due to his leadership, determination and guile in wartime, the

Occupation of Poland (1939–1945) During World War II, Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union following the invasion in September 1939, and it was formally concluded with the defeat of Germany by the Allies in May 1945. Throughout the entire course of the ...

, during the

Fourth Partition The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign ...

and after, that a major part of Polish cultural heritage survived and was made available to succeeding generations. Largely owed to his initiative are: * The National Ossoliński Institute and its associated archival and publishing facilities * The Lubomirski Museum * The

Museum in Wrocław. "not only books. The Ossolineum's collections and their custodians".

References

Bibliography

External links

from the Society of Lovers of Lviv and the Southeast Borderlands (in Polish)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gębarowicz, Mieczysław 1893 births 1984 deaths Polish male writers 20th-century Polish historians Polish male non-fiction writers Polish art historians Polish bibliographers People from Ternopil Oblast People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I Polish Military Organisation members Polish people of World War I Polish people of the Polish–Ukrainian War University of Lviv alumni Academic staff of the University of Lviv Polish librarians 20th-century Polish male writers Cultural historians European art curators Polish art critics Directors of museums in Poland Polish publicists Ukrainian archivists Burials at Lychakiv Cemetery Polish curators