Cracow Art Museums and their Audiences in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century

What is it about?

Critically re-evaluating existing scholarship, the article traces divergent local agendas and aims to identify the role of the city and the broader urban public in the creation of museums in late nineteenth-century Cracow.

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Why is it important?

To trace the developments of museums in relation to nationalism is particularly difficult in smaller cities such as Cracow, whose cultural importance within the region went far beyond their administrative function but whose elite’s aspirations also firmly remained within the cultural orbit of the imperial center. The article revises the understanding of the Polish national project and the extent to which it may have been more of a local Cracovian or Galician affair than most historians have hitherto assumed.