A museum or a sanctuary of memory? The impact of a non-existent city museum in Russian Warsaw (1905–1915)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Severely repressed after the anti-Russian uprising, Warsaw entered a period of forced centralisation in the Empire after 1881, with all elements of Polish history and traditions erased form school textbooks and public life. This article describes the urban revival at the end of the nineteenth century, which also included the rehabilitation of Warsaw's central historic space. The revolution of 1905 led to the possibility of establishing institutions which could be in charge of monuments and of disseminating knowledge about the urban past. The Old Town became quite fashionable among the Polish intelligentsia, whose wealthier representatives bought homes, including one that was turned into the city museum. In 1912 a large exhibition of Warsaw's past displayed pieces from the final decades of the eighteenth century. The museum, its locality and the historic exhibits were proof of the historic consciousness of the groups involved in its establishment, their national ideal, as well as the mission of propagating knowledge among the less conscious urban population. This process was part of the cultural and political modernisation of the urban society, which developed alongside other important issues, including discussions about the re-establishment of self-government in the city and abandoning its fortress status.