Wiktor Baworowski was born in Kołtów near Złoczów in 1825 or 1826, the son of Józef Baworowski and Felicja née Starzeńska. Under the pseudonym of Wiktor of Baworowo, he was the author of translations of many famous works into Polish, including Shiller, Goethe and Hugo. In addition to his literary work, he contributed to the development of Polish culture through the vast collections he amassed in the library bearing his family name, which included priceless historical sources, monuments to Polish writing, printed and manuscript works, and works of art.

Baworowski's passion for collecting emerged as a child, inspired by his sister's teacher, Mary Prestiot. She told the then ten-year-old Wiktor about her stay at the house of the collector Count Athanasius Raczyński and his brother Edward, a diplomat and patron of the arts, founder of the first public library in Wielkopolska (1829). Wiktor's future path was also influenced by his own teacher, Kazimierz Kunaszewski, the author of a translation of Mickiewicz's Parisian Prelections into German published in Leipzig in 1843. Baworowski recalled that the education he had received, typical of the state and the era, had unfortunately omitted the Polish language, as well as history and culture, which he greatly missed. In his memoirs, he complained that he had grown up "as if in a foreign country, as I heard all languages except Polish all around me. And so at home and in societies, French was spoken, and sometimes English. In schools and with the authorities, German was the language of choice. The people were spoken to in Ruthenian". He stressed that he himself had to make up for these deficiencies in later life, which was not easy in the Lvov of the 1840s, which Baworowski described as "the seat of mental stagnation, the dying out of all patriotic feeling".

He owed his patriotic upbringing to his father - "an old soldier, landowner, patriot", the aforementioned teacher, and in later years also to the Polish language lessons learnt from 1847 with Jan Nepomucen Kamiński - writer, editor of the "Gazeta Lwowska" and creator of the Polish theatre stage in Lwów. Thanks to the influence of both teachers, the young Count also began to write and translate literature, although these interests were not approved of by his uncle, Michał Starzeński, under whose care Baworowski found himself after the death of his parents.

Having become independent, and wishing to devote himself to organising the library, which he called "the pivot of his existence", he abandoned the government job he had taken up after graduating from university in accordance with his uncle's wishes. He received support for his life project, which was to become a library, from Adam Mickiewicz, whom Baworowski visited at the turn of 1852 and 1853. On his return from Paris, the Count set about drafting a statute that was to regulate the principles of a 'scientific institution on the model of the Ossolińskis in Tarnopol'. He set out the purpose of the institution in his will (the first version was written on 2 July 1857), writing about the collections which, "with a great deal of work and expense, as well as with particular fondness, not only fully existed for posterity, but also increased in size and brought benefits to the country".

The library was to be looked after by a specially created "Baworowska Ordinate", to which the Count donated his entire estate. After the Founder's death, the Ordinate became, in accordance with his will, his brother, Wacław, after whom these duties were to pass to his nephew, Michał (he took over in 1909). The income bequeathed by the will, amounting to 9,000 Prussian thalers, was to be transferred in quarterly instalments to the director of the library for the purpose of maintaining and expanding the collection, publishing publications on Polish history, or funding a prize for the best works on the subject. Baworowski defined the structure and tasks of the ordinance, set up a council to supervise and control it, as well as requirements for the appointment of the director and librarians, who were to be 'excellent Polish scholars' of irreproachable conduct and loyalty, no younger than 30 years of age. Library work was to be their only regular occupation. Baworowski's concern from the outset was that his collection should bring "significant scholarly benefit to the nation", as he himself put it, not being merely "a dead accumulation of prints, manuscripts", but a source of knowledge about Polish history and culture, awakening "a passion in them and an incentive to work in the national and literary fields".

As mentioned, according to the first plans, the library building was to be built in Ternopil. Eventually, the library was opened in 1861, after part of the Bavorovsky collection had been moved from Myszkowice near Ternopil to the building of the former arsenal at the junction of Bavorovsky (now Lipova) and Sykstuska (now Doroshenka) Streets. Dating back to the 17th century, the building was constructed by Mikolaj Sieniawski (d. 1636), a crown chamberlain, and Paweł Grodzicki (d. 1645), a general of the crown artillery, was to arrange an arsenal in it. The thick walls in the lower part of the building, which have survived to this day, testify to its defensive character. The arsenal was then moved to Starei Siol, and Sieniawski's building passed through many hands. From 1833 it belonged to Józef Baworowski, who bought it from Katarzyna Zimorowiczówna (daughter of Józef Bartłomiej Zimorowic, writer and poet, as well as chronicler and mayor of Lviv), and then in 1854 it was inherited by Wiktor when the estate was divided between Józef's sons. As the property of the Baworowskis, it was rebuilt in the neoclassical style in the 1830s and 1840s according to a design by Ignacy Chambrez (1758-1835), an architect of Czech origin and professor of construction at the universities of Krakow and Lviv. It is a two-storey building, built on a rectangular plan on a high stone base. The risalits and corner tower add variety to the mass, and the façade is decorated with pilasters, garlands, balustrades and a rafter cornice. A sculpture of a horse is placed on the side façade, while the interior is decorated with a frieze with mythological scenes. The sculptural decoration of the façade and interior was created by the Lvov artist Jan Schimser (1793-1856).

Initially, the collections were located in two halls on the first floor (old prints, archive, workshop and flat) and two on the second floor. On the second floor, the collection of Polish paintings was presented. The halls were furnished with Empire and Biedermeier style furniture, decorated with sculptures, plaster casts, mirrors and memorabilia. The library had its own seal, ex-libris and stationery. As the count himself wrote:

"[...] to one cupboard of French books, inherited and a collection of paintings of the Italian school and other foreign books, acquired together with this tenement by my parents from the Starzeńskis, came the library of the Stadnicki family from Żmigród, already mentioned in the books of Lelewel's bibliography [....], Strończyński's collection of manuscripts [...] Grabowski's Ambroży manuscripts, Leon Dembowski's castellan rare prints, Zubrzycki Rusin, the author of chronicles of the city of Lwów prints and manuscripts".

This is only a part of Baworowski's vast collection. According to an 1856 census, the collection contained some 6,000 volumes of Polish works, 3,000 foreign works and 500 manuscripts (this number rose to 1,000 in 1861). In March 1863, the Baworowski Library's holdings included 13,000 volumes of books and pamphlets, 1,200 manuscripts, 160 diplomas, 500 autographs, 394 numismatic prints, 180 maps and other 'antiquities', 160 paintings by Polish, Italian, German and Dutch masters, including Bruegel, Floris, Lanzani, de Ribera, Janneck or Kossak, and 10,000 engravings. Among his most valuable collections, Baworowski listed the Dlugosz Codex, the Kadlubek Chronicle, the chronicle of Marcin Bielski, the Wiślickie Statutes, herbaria, various editions of the Holy Scriptures, first editions of Rej, "a huge preaching collection by Grzegorz of Żarnowiec", various dictionaries, encyclopaedias and works by the eminent linguist Alojzy Osiński. It also possessed over a hundred manuscripts and prints of works by Ambroży Grabowski on the history of Krakow from the 15th to the 18th centuries, medieval missals and works from the library of Sigismund the Old and Sigismund Augustus (some of which had exquisite artistic bindings of forged silver or silver plate). The collection also included specimens of weapons, clocks, porcelain or numismatics. Famous writers, historians and collectors with whom Baworowski corresponded influenced his further plans for the library's development. He intended to entrust the care of the collection to Joachim Lelewel, who was in exile, but received a refusal from him expressed in the words: "I want to stay and die in exile, for I would be contradicting myself". So the first director became a well-known historian and librarian, the grandson of the famous writer - Józef Korzeniowski. During this period Baworowski settled in Myszkowice, 12 km from Ternopil, where he devoted himself to translation and editing work, managed the family estate, and occasionally travelled abroad (including visits to Victor Hugo in 1872 and 1878).

In a letter of 30 March 1881, the then Speaker, President and Honorary Citizen of Krakow - Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz - "with the highest appreciation" supported Baworowski's expressed plans to "allocate the entire [...] property of such considerable size and scientific collections for scientific, artistic and humanitarian purposes". Initially, the library was used mainly by recognised, trustworthy scholars for their own scientific research. As Dr Wojciech Kętrzyński wrote in a study on the history of the library, published in Lvov in 1892:

"As the owner usually resides in the countryside, the use of his library was allowed only to single personalities, [...] who all speak with adoration of the treasures contained in the collection of his manuscripts. In recent years, however, Count Baworowski, in order to enable wider circles to make use of the richness of his library, generously allowed the Directorate of the Ossolineum to act as an intermediary between it and local scholars, from which many have benefited and still benefit. Count Baworowski deserves gratitude and appreciation for such facilitation."

The library was opened to the public as early as October 1900, and regular visitors at that time included Lvov University professors Ludwik Finkel, Szymon Askenazy, Rev. Jan Fijałek, Cyryl Studziński, Jagiellonian University professor Franciszek Piekosiński, and scholars from abroad, including Paris and Vienna. In 1913, the number of readers reached 766, and in the inter-war period it reached almost a thousand. In 1937, the collection consisted of some 1,700 manuscripts, some 60,000 prints, including 8,000 Polish works from the 16th to 18th centuries, and 10,000 engravings.

Collections relating to both modern history and the distant history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were continually growing through donations and purchases. In 1858, the chronicler of the city of Lviv, Dionizy Zubrzycki, donated his entire collection to Bavorovskyi's library, which in turn acquired a section on Slavic literature and the history of Rus, which, according to one study, "is composed of works that are often quite rare". Of particular importance was the acquisition of the book collection of Zygmunt Czarnecki - this transaction was described by Dr Rudolf Kotula, then director of the library, in a study published in 1926:

"[...] the Bibljoteka found the means to carry out a transaction that was archaic for its future development. In 1914, it acquired the book collection of the late Count Zygmunt Czarnecki of Rusk and Gogolewo in Greater Poland. This created an epoch in the history of the Library, as it united with Baworowski's collection one of the most valuable book collections in Poland, in the field of our ancient literature of first-rate and simply exceptional material value. The purchase, originally sponsored by the Conservators' Circle of the former Eastern Galicia, and finally by the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Krakow, was made by the then National Department under the presidency of the late Adam Count Gołuchowski, who, thanks to the generosity of Count Czarnecki's heirs, paid a very reduced price, of only 180,000 German marks in gold."

The end of the activities of the Wiktor hr. Baworowski Foundation came with the outbreak of the Second World War. During the Soviet occupation, as a result of the so-called concentration of collections, the Baworowski collection was incorporated into the book collection of the Ossoliński National Institute, and in 1940 it became a branch of the Library Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Kiev. The director of the library, Rudolf Kotula, was deported to Kazakhstan on 13 April that year. During the German occupation (until July 1944), the branch of the single central State Library (Staatsbibliotek Lemberg), created in November 1941 from all the scientific libraries of Lviv and subordinated to the Main Library Board of the General Government, was headed by Professor Mieczysław Gębarowicz. In the spring of 1944, he led the evacuation of the most valuable part of the collection to Krakow - it was taken by train in 67 boxes in two transports: 18 March and 2 April, and then deposited in the basement-warehouses of the Jagiellonian Library, where they were to wait safely until the end of the war. However, the Germans transported them in July 1944 to Lower Silesia, to Adelin (Zagrodno) near Złotoryja. After the war, part of the collection went to the National Library and the Ossolineum in Wrocław.

Baworowski himself did not live to see these turbulent times - threatened with blindness, he committed suicide. The "Kurier Lwowski" of 5 December 1894 reported:

"the well-known translator of Byron, took his own life yesterday at 5 o'clock in the afternoon [...]. He was 88 years old and the cause was probably suffering from eye pain. He was a millionaire. He held no office, lived in seclusion and had broken up with his family for many years. He was an old bachelor and a freak. To society he had a perpetual grudge that it did not properly appreciate his literary merits."

The Count's merits were mentioned in obituaries published in Lvov, Krakow, Warsaw and St Petersburg, among other places.

At the turn of the 20th century, the fate of the former Bavorovianum edifice was not going well. The palace was in a terrible technical condition - the walls were cracking and the ceilings were in danger of collapsing. In 2003, it was closed to the public for safety reasons. Restoration was completed in 2006 with funds from the Antonovych Foundation and donated by the Ossolineum. The building now houses the Art Department of the V. Stefanyk National Scientific Library of Ukraine.

Location: Bavorovskyi Palace, Bibliotechna St, 2, Lviv, Ukraine