This year’s annual Conference of the Polish Museums, Archives and Libraries in the West (MABP) was hosted by the Museum and Archive of the Polish Diaspora in Budapest from September 11th thru 13th. MABP is an organization uniting twenty-one institutions that take care of Polish historical and cultural heritage abroad. This year marked their 35th consecutive meeting. The first conference took place in 1979 at the Polish Museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland. Since 1984 The John Paul II Pontificate Center for Documentation and Research in Rome has been an active participant in the conferences.
Representatives of the twelve member institutions participated in the meeting as well as guests from Poland including representatives of the Senate of the Republic of Poland, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, National Library, Ossoliński National Institute, Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Institute of National Remembrance, Central Archives of Modern Records.
The first day of the meetings took place on the evening of September 11th. The opening remarks were made by Latorcai János, Deputy Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly and by Maria Pańczyk-Pozdziej, Deputy Speaker of the Polish Senate.
The second day’s session included information given by representatives of Polish institutions, including Jacek Czaputowicz from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Jacek Miler from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Information was also exchanged on procedures relating to subsidies and grants which can be distributed to polish emigrant institutions outside Poland.
During the second part of the session there were several lectures concerning the January Uprising in 1863. Professor Wiesław Caban from Jan Kochanowski University spoke on the subject “The January Uprising in the Kingdom of Poland and in the Annexed Lands”, Konrad Saturski (Budapest) on “The January Uprising and Hungary”, Witold Zahorski (Paris) on “The Western Emigration and the January Uprising”, Teofil Lachowicz (New York) on “A Policy of the United States of America Towards the January Uprising”, Anna Stefanicka (London) on “Józef Piłsudski and the January Uprising” and Stefan Władysiuk (Montreal) on “A Prototype of Polish Tolerance: The Statute of Kalisz in an Artistic Interpretation of Arthur Szyk”.
On the third day of the conference participants travelled to the town of Esztergom on the Danube bank in Hungary. This small town played an important role in the establishment of the Hungarian state. Travelling by ship, dinner was served in the evening offering everyone the opportunity to enjoy Budapest on the Danube River. Bringing this session to a closing, the announcement was made regarding the next meeting being held September 2014 in Rome.
There are available copies of publications from the MABP meetings held in 1994 and 1999 containing interesting articles on the heritage of Polish culture. Please contact the John Paul II Pontificate Center for Documentation and Research in Rome: info@jp2doc.org
For more information regarding MAB Institutions please visit the following website: http://mabpz.org/