The Polonica Institute is carrying out research and documentation work on a unique source resource containing significant materials for the study and preservation of the cultural heritage of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth now located in Ukraine.

The project, carried out by Dr Piotr Lasek and Piotr Sypczuk, affiliated with the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, is based on archival materials included in the 'Cartulary of Monuments of the Central Office for the Inventory of Art Monuments: Lviv Conservation District'.

The project will involve the identification and consolidation of written sources and visual materials currently held in Ukrainian and Polish collections. In addition, a critical edition of the source and its full publication in the form of a catalogue will be carried out, which - according to the researchers' assumptions - will introduce a hitherto unknown descriptive, drawing and photographic inventory of significant architectural monuments in their pre-1939 state into scientific and cultural discourse.

The Polonika Institute plans to collaborate with the V. Stefanyk National Scientific Library of Ukraine and the Ossoliński National Institute in Wrocław in the implementation of the project.

"Kartoteka zabytków" was created in 1930-1939 as part of the cooperation between the Lviv conservation district and the Central Office for the Inventory of Art Monuments in the Art Department of the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment. It constitutes a unique archival source, as it contains a vast amount of information on the history and state of preservation of architectural monuments, including their equipment, as it stood before 1939. The resource consists of catalogue cards and the associated measurement drawings, plates and photographic prints. After the Second World War, the materials were dispersed and forgotten and, as a result, have not yet been fully used in studies of the cultural heritage of the south-eastern areas of the Second Polish Republic.

"Thanks to the Lviv conservator's innovative approach to the problem of cultural heritage, both architectural masterpieces and more modest buildings with features typical of the regional tradition have been inventoried. All this makes it profoundly justified to publish a critical edition of a source of such significance to national culture. The unknown archival material sheds new light on the problem of the beginnings of the inventory of monuments in independent Poland," concludes Dr Piotr Lasek, head of the research team.

The research work is scheduled to be completed in 2023, when the results will be published in the form of a scientific study published by the Polonica Institute in the series 'Studies and Materials'.