Polish History Museum's replica of the Union of Lublin Act to be exhibited in Belarus

450th anniversary of the Union of Lublin

On 23 October, an exhibition titled “Free with the Free and Equal with the Equal” opened at the National Historical Museum in Minsk as part of the observance of the 450th anniversary of the signing of the Union of Lublin.

 

Viewing the exhibition, the visitors will be given an opportunity to see one of the key exhibits of the Polish History Museum, a replica of the Union of Lublin Act which ‘retraces the materials and technology of the original’s execution as much as possible.’ The works related to the creation of the document took almost two years.

How those works progressed and how major a challenge it was for specialists to develop a copy matching the original will be shown in a film produced by the PHM titled The Union of Lublin: A Copy and the Original, to be screened during the exhibition opening.

The original Union of Lublin Act is kept at the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw and is not available to the public due to specific requirements related to the conditions of its presentation.

In 2018, the Union of Lublin was entered into UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register on the request of five countries: Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and Latvia.

An important supplement of the exhibition is the showing of a large-format photograph of Jan Matejko’s painting The Union of Lublin, created in 1869 to mark the 300th anniversary of the Union of the Polish Crown with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The exhibition organisers are the Polish Institute in Minsk, marking its 25th jubilee season with the event, as well as the Polish History Museum in Warsaw and the National Historical Museum in Minsk.

Date and place: the exhibition runs daily until 13 November 2019,11:00–19:00 hrs, venue: Minsk, 12 Marx St., histmuseum.by