THE ROLE OF MUSEUMS IN PRESERVATION OF THE SACRED HERITAGE OF THE WESTERN REGIONS OF THE UKRAINIAN SSR (THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1940S – THE FIRST HALF OF THE 1960S)

Abstract

In the article, the author analyzes the role of museums in preservation of the moving sacred heritage of the Western region of the Ukrainian SSR during the second half of the 1940s – the first half of the 1960s, when the Soviet government continued the process of Sovietization in these areas, an integral part of which was the struggle against religion and church. A huge number of churches, monasteries, Polish Roman Catholic churches, synagogues and other religious buildings were closed and often destroyed, as a result of party and state policy. The religious property of temples was withdrawn and disappeared without a trace. Only a small number of these relics could be saved thanks to the efforts of museum workers, cultural and educational workers, artists, the public, parishioners and individuals from among the indifferent to the fate of the Ukrainian historical and cultural heritage. It is characterized a number of moving sacred monuments, which enriched the museum collections in the Western regions of the Ukrainian SSR. Separate actions and expeditions of workers of the Kiev Art Museum, the Transcarpathian State Museum, the Volyn Museum of Regional Studies, the Rivne Museum of Regional Studies, the Ostroh Museum of Regional Studies, the Ukrainian State Museum of Ethnography and Crafts in Lviv, the Lviv Museum of Ukrainian Art, the Museum of Folk Art of Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttia in Kolomyia, etc. were described, as a result of which the valuable relics and items keeping in religious buildings were saved. The efforts, concerning the saving of the sacred objects, made by the associates of the Ukrainian memorial and museum affairs, such as B. Voznytskyi, P. Zholtovskyi and R. Kashevska, are especially accentuated.