The inauguration of the new building of the Polish History Museum took place on 28 September. The ceremony was attended by the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda and the First Lady, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński, Minister of Culture and National Heritage Piotr Gliński, and the Director of the PHM Robert Kostro, as well as invited guests and media representatives.

In his speech, Polish President Andrzej Duda noted how symbolic the location of the museum was.

‘The Polish History Museum is located in a very important and symbolic place – at the Warsaw Citadel, which is a symbol of the enslavement of Poles. It was here that Poles who steadfastly wanted to regain their free, independent homeland were murdered. It was from here that they were sent to exile and Siberia. Ultimately, this was the place that saw the great victory of the patriots in 1918, when Poland regained its independence. It was also here that the victory over Soviet Russia at Warsaw in 1920, in the great Battle of Warsaw, could be seen. It is difficult to find a better place in Poland to document our history.’

Polish President Andrzej Duda

 

The Polish History Museum was established on 2 May 2006 and although it created exhibitions, performed educational activities and popularised history, for years it had no permanent home. It was not until late 2015 and early 2016 that things changed as the government approved the museum’s location of at the Warsaw Citadel and secured adequate funding for the project. In this way, the largest investment in culture in the history of the Third Polish Republic began to progress at a fast pace.

‘This Museum will serve all generations and all inhabitants of Poland. Every citizen from every location is invited here to look at the great work our ancestors have created over 1,000 years. It is only in the last 100 that the Poles have influenced the fate of Europe, perhaps even the world, by defeating the communists, the Bolsheviks here near Warsaw, by going to an unequal battle with the Germans, and by making a significant contribution to defeating that insane German ideology that was supposed to rule the world; and finally through the great Solidarity movement, together with John Paul II, contributing significantly to the overthrow of communism and the liberation of the peoples of Eastern Europe from that yoke of the empire of evil,’ stated Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. ‘We have nothing to be ashamed of as this is one of the most beautiful national histories in the world,’ he stressed.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki

On 29 September at 1pm, the Polish History Museum opens to all visitors. So long awaited, this moment was made possible, among other things, thanks to the great commitment of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Prof. Piotr Gliński.

‘Today, we are opening the seat of the Polish History Museum and this is the largest investment of the Polish state in the field of culture: the largest and certainly the most important of the 300 museum projects and almost 8,000 cultural investment projects in less than eight years. It is so not only because the building boasts a total of 45,000 sq. m, 800 rooms and almost 9,000 sq. m of exhibition space, and not only because this museum space is well thought out and refined in every detail, but above all because this is exactly what a place that will house 1,000 years of the history of Poland and Poles, the state and the nation, should look like. And it is the story, the narrative, that is within the walls of this edifice that makes this place so special and so important for all of us,’ Minister Gliński said. ‘Poland’s sovereignty means primarily the sovereignty of our identity, and this is also, or perhaps above all, built through independent, courageous decisions in the area of culture and national heritage, always taking into account the good of all – through the sovereignty of the historical narrative,’ the Minister added.

Minister of Culture and National Heritage Prof. Piotr Gliński

In addition to the impressive museum building itself, the invited guests had the opportunity to visit the temporary exhibition Big and Small Stories. How the Polish History Museum’s Collection Was Built. It presents several hundred of the nearly sixty thousand objects in the museum’s collections, providing a panorama of more than 1,000 years of state and national history, as well as telling the story of the acquisition of valuable museum objects.

Opening this building, we are opening a new chapter in the history of Polish museology – because of the scale of the project and its modern nature, because of the importance of the substantive mission and the boldness of the architectural vision, but also because of the competence and commitment of our team,’ Robert Kostro, Director of the Polish History Museum, pointed out. ‘I believe that the entire museum complex – with the Polish History Museum, the Polish Army Museum, the Katyn Museum and the Tenth Pavilion – will constitute one of the brightest points on the map of Polish museology and Polish culture. Our museum will engage in historical dialogue on a national and international scale. Particularly important for us is the dialogue with our neighbours, the heirs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. […] We will talk and listen to others, but also actively seek the presence of the Polish historical perspective in international debates in order to dispel erroneous, simplistic and sometimes deliberately hypocritical theories about Polish history,’ Director Kostro emphasised.

Director of the PHM Robert Kostro

Opening Festival at the Polish History Museum

The building of the Polish History Museum is a masterpiece in itself. Its marble façade refers to the successive layers of Polish history: from the earliest times to the present. Inside, in addition to exhibition spaces, there are an auditorium hall with nearly 580 seats, a cinema and theatre hall, workshop and conference rooms, as well as modern storage facilities and conservation studios. The impressive crowning glory of the building is its rooftop terrace, which offers an exceptional panorama of the Polish capital.

Detailed information available at www.muzhp.pl/en.