Ukrainian Museum Institutions of Galicia in the Development of Inter-War Archaeology

The archaeological activity of Ukrainian museums of Galicia during the interwar period of the 20th century is considered. The emphasis is placed on their role as scientific institutions around which the development of archaeology took place. The author focuses on the museum legislation of interwar Poland and its, often negative, impact on the activity of Ukrainian institutions, in particular, in matters of approving statutes and legalizing their activities. The archaeological activity of museums in such voivodeship centers as Lviv, Ternopil, and Stanislaviv, as well as in powiat towns, is highlighted and analyzed. Communication between museum employees took place during congresses, which became considerably popular in the interwar period. The impact of congresses of Ukrainian museologists on the development of museum activity in general and museum archaeology in particular is shown. It is noted that museum employees on the periphery drew the attention of the local population to the cultural heritage, taught the villagers which finds to pay attention to, and thus preserved many artifacts and explored a significant number of sites that went down in the history of archaeological science of the west of Ukraine. Considerable attention is focused on field research, site conservation activities, and the formation of archaeological collections in the museums «Boykivshchyna» in Sambir, «Lemkivshchyna» in Sanok, «Stryvihor» in Przemysl, «Verkhovyna» in Stryi, «Hutsulshchyna» in Kolomyia, and the Prince Vasylko Museum in Terebovlia. It was found that these museum institutions not only collected, protected, and exhibited archaeological finds, but also acted as organizers of archaeological expeditions, often had a professional archaeologist on staff and established cooperation with archaeologists from the Shevchenko Scientific Society and Lviv University, published research results, which allows us to consider them as full-fledged archaeological centers of Galicia in the 1920s and 1930s

Historical archaeology · Interwar period · Legislation · Population · Post-medieval archaeology · Prehistoric archaeology · Ukrainian · World War II · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Archaeological Research and Protection · Polish-Jewish Holocaust Memory Studies

• Archaeology at the Prince Vasylko Museum in Terebovlia

  Open Access•Natalia Bulyk•Materials and Studies on…•2025

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