The National Ossolinski Institute Foundation, or Ossolineum, is one of the most important and oldest cultural institutions in Poland. It was founded in 1817 (with the permission of Emperor Francis I) by the bibliophile and collector Count Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński (1748-1826). He chose Lviv as the location for the Ossolineum. In 1823 he signed another agreement with the collector and art patron Prince Henryk Lubomirski (1777-1850). The Lubomirski Museum was thus established in the Ossolineum, and Ossoliński not only enriched the Foundation's collections, but also provided it with funds from the estates of wealthier aristocrats. The Ossolineum has now been in existence for over 200 years and has been involved in library, museum, publishing, scientific and cultural activities.
The current departments of the Ossolineum are as follows.
The National Ossolineum Library is the oldest part of the National Ossolinski Institute. The Founding Act of 4 June 1817 precisely defined the nature and functioning of the institution, whose first and foremost task was to collect and disseminate Polish cultural heritage by running a library, publishing its own academic journal in its own printing house and making the collected works available to the public.
The Ossolineum Library is a library with a humanities profile. It collects mainly materials related to literature, history and culture of Poland and Slavic countries. This collection profile was already defined in the Founding Act of the Institution and is still maintained.
The Ossolineum Library has the status of an academic library and from 2021 it has been a part of the National Library Network.
The Ossolineum Library is the oldest part of the National Ossolinski Institute. Its operation was already determined by the Foundation Act - the Family Establishment, signed by Emperor Francis I on 4 June 1817.
The basis of the Library's collections were books, works of art and historical memorabilia collected by Count Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński in Vienna and Prince Henryk Lubomirski in Przeworsk. After Ossoliński's death, his collections were transferred to Lviv in 1827. The first reading room for the public was opened just five years later, after the necessary renovation of the buildings that became the Institute's headquarters.
The library's collection grew steadily, mainly thanks to private donations. Throughout its existence, the Library has received many valuable donations, including the legacies of important figures in Polish culture and history.
In free Poland, in 1927, the Ossolineum Library (the only one apart from the Ministry!) was granted the right to receive obligatory copies of periodicals published throughout the Second Republic. This meant that the publishers of all periodicals were obliged to send consecutive issues to the Ossolineum. As a result, before the Second World War, the Ossolineum Library had the most complete collection of periodicals in the country.
During the Second World War, during the two Soviet occupations of Lviv, the Institute was incorporated into the structure of the Library of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and the Germans, who occupied Lviv in 1941-1944, incorporated the Ossolineum into the Lviv City Library. The Institute's library collection suffered less during the war than the museum's. The Lubomirski Museum was liquidated and its collections were added to the collections of Ukrainian galleries and museums, mainly in Lvov; the occupiers also made numerous confiscations of works of art.
At the end of the war, the new communist authorities decided to move the Ossolineum to Wroclaw. In 1946-1947, two transports of collections from Lviv arrived in the capital of Lower Silesia, described as "a gift from the Ukrainian nation to the Polish nation". Just over 200,000 volumes, or about 30% of the entire pre-war Ossolineum collections, found their way to Wroclaw.
In July 1953, the Ossolineum Library was incorporated into the structures of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where it functioned as the National Ossolinski Institute - Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Despite being deprived of its legal status, the Library managed to successfully pursue its founder's aims of collecting and providing access to its collections.
After 1989 and the political changes in Poland, thanks to the efforts of the Director, Dr Adolf Juzwenko, the Foundation was re-established. After several years of efforts and endeavours, on 5 January 1995 the Sejm of the Republic of Poland passed the Act on the National Ossolinski Institute Foundation. At the same time, talks with the Ukrainians about the Ossolineum collections remaining in Lviv began. As a result of these efforts, since 2004 the Institute has been able to gain full access to the historical Lviv collections currently held in the Stefanyk Library in Lviv. Digitisation, which began in 2008, has made it possible to copy the manuscripts, archives of the Institute, old prints and periodicals that remain in Lviv.
On the website of the National Ossolinski Institute you can read more about the cooperation with institutions in Lviv and the history of the Institute as a whole. There is a timeline, a calendar and biographies of the directors of the Ossolineum.
