OLENDER ETHNOGRAPHIC PARK IN WIELKA NIESZAWKA: ASSUMPTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

What has proven the most effective and durable form of the preservation of rural historic buildings in Poland is their translocation to open-air museums. A branch of the Maria Znamierowska-Prüffer Ethnographic Museum in Torun, the Olender Ethnographic Park in Wielka Nieszawka was opened to visitors in 2018, and it is the first open-air museum in Poland entirely dedicated to the colonization of the Olenders and Mennonites in the Lower Vistula Valley. Following the decision on the Park’s location in 2011, the construction works were conducted for several following years. They had been preceded by fieldwork allowing to identify six buildings for translocation: residential as well as farm and livestock structures. Constituting the most precious preserved examples of architecture related to the Olender settlement, they date back to the 18th and 19th centuries. Their deplorable technical condition found in the field was most commonly due to the lack of continuous care and to improper preservation of the buildings. Therefore the facilities’ translocation to the Park was the only chance of securing their effective preservation and survival. Owing to the varied structures, substantial alterations over the years and varied preservation state, the historic facilities transferred to the Park posed new conservation and ethnographic challenges. It goes without saying that any relocation of a building sets difficult conservation tasks, that it is a complex multi-stage process which requires contribution from representatives of various professions and trades, while its fulfillment goes well beyond any generally known ‘standards’, revealing new mysteries and problems which have to be solved in real time. What matters a lot in such projects is an appropriate attitude to a historic building, scientifically grounded, and supported with expertise, experience and reliable documentation. The methods and reconstruction means used in the translocation of the edifices to the Olender Ethnographic Park in Wielka Nieszawka described in the paper display the highest standards of open-air museology, owing to which the basic conservation rule, namely securing the historic monument’s authenticity, and thus its historical value, has been obeyed.