Українські комбатанти – організатори військово-історичних музеїв

Abstract

Розкрито роботу над відкриттям військово-історичних музеїв учасникам українських армій Української національної революції 1917–1921 рр. Звернено увагу на організацію збору пам’яток, формування фондів, а також на ті труднощі, з якими зіткнулись ініціатори збереження військової культурно-історичної спадщини. The new environment of the combatants of the Ukrainian Galician Army (UGA) was being formed which after defeat of the liberation war and occupation by Poland of the territory of Eastern Galicia and Volyn became the main bulwark of the Ukrainian liberation cause. It was exactly amongst the former UGA and the UPR Army warriors that the idea of founding in the independent Ukraine of the Museum of liberation struggle as an institution called upon to preserve and pass on to the new generations documentary evidence of the political and military past of the Ukrainian state was conceived and realized. Due to winding up the activities of the UPR government in exile in Poland in the end of 1922 it was resolved to transfer materials of the Central military-historical Museum-Archive of the UPR Army to Czechoslovakia. There was an agreement to establish the Ukrainian national Museum-archive in Prague under the auspices of the Ukrainian public committee. One of the first museums established abroad was the Museum of liberation struggle of Ukraine in Prague. The next museum established abroad by the Ukrainian combatants was a collection in the Royal military museum in Brussels. With the efforts of the society “Moloda Hromada” (“Young Community”) a section of historical-military exhibits was opened in 1936 in the cultural-historical museum of Shevchenko Scientific Society (SSS) in Lviv, whose director was Doctor Yaroslav Pasternak. A separate museum of historical-military memorabilia was established on May 29, 1937 under the auspices of the SSS and Dr. Ivan Karpynets, a combatant and a historian of the UGA, was appointed its director. The museum of the Ukrainian Army under the auspices of the Ukrainian Military-historical institute in Toronto existed under protection of the UPR State Center in exile. Administration of the institute in its declaration announced, that the museum of the Ukrainian Army is property of the Ukrainian Unitary State and would be preserved till the time when it will be possible to transfer it to the independent Ukraine. The museum of the Ukrainian Army in Toronto is the largest center with the collection of valuable historical relics. Carrying out its active work during twenty years aiming at the formation of the museum funds, today this Museum of liberation struggle of Ukraine (temporarily as a branch of Lviv museum of history) has gathered over 10,000 militaryhistorical exhibits, of which up to 20 % have been returned to Ukraine.