Special character of cultural rights and its position in Polish Constitution – the attempt of characteristic and classification

The present paper is an analysis of the legal regulations on cultural rights in Polish Constitutional Legal system. The author claims that culture, as a unique value, has a special impact on personal development of every human being. As a consequence also cultural rights have a special importance for modern society and nation. Paper presents different meanings of culture, gives the definition of cultural rights and critically analyses constitutional provisions of article 5,6 and 73. Author also sug- gests the need for amendment of Chapter II of Polish Constitution which aim is to add provision guaranteeing the right to access to culture. The content of the article is a sum- mary of author’s Phd paper.

Constitutional regulation of the access to cultural goods  and the freedom of using cultural goods

The hereby paper is an attempt of an analysis of provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland that regard access to cultural goods and the freedom of using cultural goods. Decoding the meaning of elements of a legal norm, which norm results from these provisions, is significant for the evaluation of the materialization of the constitutional regulation in the contents of particular acts. Deliberations on the grounds of articles 6 and 73 of the Constitution have been presented in the article. The purpose of these deliberations were: a determination of the subjects entitled to use the cultural goods and obligated to provide access to such goods; the indication of the range of goods and the extent to which access to them should be guaranteed; as well as the decoding of the scope of the constitutional term „usage”. Regardless of these analyses, a few practical aspects related to the access to cultural goods and their usage have been indicated.

The purpose of this article is to use North Norwegian legends and show how these oral stories have been used in the education at the Institute for Teacher Education and Pedagogic, University of Tromsø - Norway’s arctic university since the time I started this project at the end of the 1990s period. Here, there will be given a definition and expansion for the types of legends that exists, what was stated about it in the lecture plan (L­97) at the time, and what created the basis for this research. An important part of this work was to collect legends in order to document this traditional material for later, as a contribution to North Norwegian cultural history and, thereby, as a gateway to establish knowledge structures.

Artykuł porusza kwestie rozwijania kompetencji międzykulturowych w procesie niezawodowej pracy teatralnej. Pierwsza część artykułu opisuje międzykulturowe poszukiwania twórców teatralnych XX wieku, które stanowią wprowadzenie do zagadnienia międzykulturowości w działaniach teatrów podejmujących w swej pracy temat wielokulturowego dziedzictwa północno-wschodniego pogranicza Polski. W drugiej części artykułu autorka analizuje praktykę teatralną jako metodę kształtowania kompetencji międzykulturowych aktorów, realizowaną poprzez formę artystycznej pracy nad dziedzictwem przeszłości.

Przeobrażenia w sferze ekonomicznej, społeczno-kulturowej i politycznej w wymiarze lokalnym i globalnym składają się na złożoność uwarunkowań procesu kształtowania (się) poczucia tożsamości współczesnego człowieka. Podjęte rozważania zawierają opis profili tożsamości kulturowej badanych uczniów ze szkół średnich oraz próbę interpretacji ich wyborów tożsamościowych w odniesieniu do zastanych układów społeczno-kulturowych w miejskim środowisku lokalnym.

The protection of cultural heritage does not only have social but political and economic consequences as well. While the contents of a national and personal identity are closely tied to inherited cultural heritage, this heritage, as far as material culture is concerned, requires political support often beyond the means of the countries concerned. International support is rendered by organizations such as UNESCO with its World Heritage List, which includes World Cultural treasures as well as Natural Monuments. Politically, cultural heritage can be either a cohesive force or a divisive one when exploited for political purposes directed towards political hegemony. Economically, the cost of preserving cultural heritage can be a lucrative source of income as a result of the global promotion of cultural tourism. By this research, we can come to the idea that the State should facilitate the community empowerment through preservation and development of the cultural heritage – its organic environment, because without protection of the cultural environment and misusing the opportunities offered by it we cannot achieve the proper – i.e., feasible, sustainable – social and economic development of a country.

Polish-Lithuanian restitutive negotiations in the period of the Third Republic of Poland (1911–2018)

Since regaining independence in 1991, Lithuanian historical documents have been kept in two archives: 1) the Lithuanian State Historical Archives (Lietuvos Valstybes Istorijos Archyvas); 2) the Lithuanian Central State Archives (Lietuvos Centrinis Valstybinis Archiv). Making them available for Polish scholars was a subject of negotiations between Polish and Lithuanian archivists. In June 11, 1993 in Białystok there was signed an agreement of cooperation between the Head Office of State Archives (Jerzy Skowronek) and the Office of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania (Stanislovas Gediminas Ilgunas). It concerned mainly information sharing about Lithuanian documents in Poland and Polish documents in Lithuania.
1994 Treaty Between the Republic of Poland and the Republic of Lithuania on Friendly Relations and Neighbourly Cooperation signed on April 26, 1994 has regulated the issues of cultural heritage protection in its Articles XVIII and XXIII. Based on the treaty and consistently with the principle of pertinence (territorial affiliation), on October 26, 1994 there was signed Polish- Lithuanian Initiating Protocol on Exchanging Record Documents. Further talks between Director Jerzy Skowronek (1937–1996) and Stanislovas Gediminas Ilgunas (1936–2010) held in the Lithuanian Archives Department and the Lithuanian State Historical Archives resulted in agreeing on the working schedules of Polish and Lithuanian archivists.
Moreover, queries were concluded by the Military Archival Commission which made more than 100 thousand copies of acts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania coming from 1918–1939, documents of Poles imprisoned between September 1939 and July 1940 (in Kalvarija and Birštonas), and acts of Lithuanian NKVD and KGB – kept in the Lithuanian Central State Archives and the Lithuanian Special Archives of the former KGB.
On January 6, 1995 – independently on the agreement between Polish and Lithuanian archives – the Ambassador of Lithuania to Poland, HE Antanas Valionis (born in 1950), conveyed the copies of documents concerning 52 Poles murdered in Vilnius in 1944–1947 by NKVD to the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation.
Polish-Lithuanian exchanging revindication that took place in 1995– –1998 led to the State Archive’s in Suwałki conveying to the Lithuanian State Historical Archives more than 70 thousand of microfilm frames with civil status books produced in 1808–1912 on the territory of middle and eastern part of the former Sejny County that was accessed to Lithuania after the I World War. Simultaneously, Lithuanians conveyed to the State Archive in Białystok also more than 70 thousand of microfilm frames made by XIX-th century record books of parish deaneries in Białystok, Knyszyn and Sokółka.
On December 16, 1999 the governments of the Republic of Poland and the Republic of Lithuania signed a bilateral agreement on the cooperation of government plenipotentiaries in terms of cultural heritage protection that has become the pillar of joint archive studies, library conservation, securing the monuments of sacral and residential architecture, and the joint discovering and studying the common past.
On November 28, 2006 in Warsaw there was held a summit of the Polish- Lithuanian Expert Group on the Preservation of Cultural Heritage during which both sides declared cooperation between the archives of Poland and Lithuania. Sides agreed to collect data concerning Polish documents in Lithuania and Lithuanian documents in Poland.
Despite Lithuania keeps Polish cultural heritage appropriated in 1939– 1940 and discriminates against Polish minority, it has become an important partner in Polish Eastern politics in recent ten years.
In Lithuania – independently on studies conducted in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Moscow – there are very advanced works on editing another volumes of Lithuanian Metrica which is a collection of copies of almost all documents leaving the grand-ducal office between 1440–1795. It has been published since the end of XIX-th century in the Romanov Empire in the series of the National Library of Russia. In 1993–2015 there were published 53 volumes of the Lithuanian Metrica and a series edited in Poland. Now there should be expected – despite financial problems – the edition of another 27 volumes, several of which are already ready to print. However, there are still 500 volumes of acts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that await publication. It would be a task equally magnificent to Polish Bibliography of Estreichers.
Still, the matter of returning archives concerning the current Polish state remains unresolved. The same applies to the prewar Wróblewski Library – nationalized in 1940 by the authorities of Soviet Lithuania and transformed into the Library of the Academy of Sciences of Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (currently the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences).

Zabytki sakralne stanowią przeważającą część zasobu zabytkowego Polski oraz krajów cywilizacji europejskiej. Obok wartości artystycznej, historycznej i naukowej cechą wyróżniającą tę grupę jest wartość sakralna. Definiuje się ją jako cechę charakterystyczną zabytków i dzieł sztuki, odnoszącą się do kościołów oraz elementów ich wystroju i wyposażenia, wynikającą z faktu ofiarowania ich Bogu, otaczania kultem, przekazu za ich pośrednictwem treści biblijnych, teologicznych lub hagiograficznych oraz poddania obrzędowi poświęcenia w celu przeznaczenia na potrzeby liturgii. Z punktu widzenia jurydycznego zabytki sakralne podlegają trojakiego rodzaju ochronie prawnej: wynikającej z prawa kanonicznego, kościelnego prawa administracyjnego oraz prawa publicznego. W polskim prawie publicznym zabytki sakralne nie są wyszczególnione jako odrębny przedmiot ochrony prawnej. W okresie międzywojennym stworzono w Polsce modelowy system prawnej ochrony zabytków sakralnych. Polegał on na konkordancji przepisów państwowych i kościelnych. Jego istotą było wyodrębnienie zabytków sakralnych i poddanie ich szczególnej wyższej formie ochrony. Zastosowanie międzywojennych osiągnięć legislacyjnych do obecnego systemu w celu ujednolicenia przepisów kościelnych i państwowych zapewni skuteczniejszą ochronę tej znaczącej części dziedzictwa kulturalnego narodu. Reforma prawa ochrony zabytków powinna ewoluować nie tylko w kierunku nadania właściwego statusu zabytkom sakralnym, a w konsekwencji redefinicji systemu dotowania i dysponowania nimi, lecz także określać obowiązki edukacyjne podmiotów odpowiedzialnych za ochronę dziedzictwa kulturalnego.

Protection of the Rights of Ethnic Minorities in Finland. Sami Case

The cultural autonomy of the Indigenous Sami Region within Finland is an example of autonomous status, based on the criterion of ethnic, linguistic and cultural distinctiveness of the indigenous Sami people living in the Northern territories of the state. It aims to protect their fundamental rights and freedoms and their own cultural heritage, including the endangered Sami languages. The aim of this study is the legal analysis of the cultural autonomy status of the Indigenous Sami Region self-government. The subject of the study includes the exegesis of the provisions of the Finnish Basic Law of 1999 and the relevant statute, as well as the practice of the region functioning within the state.

Nowadays the issue of regional education is a very contemporary and necessary problem, seen as a future factor in cultural heritage, which can be treated as a contribution to preserving the continuity of traditional values. A look at how heritage can be protected using local perspectives in a globalized world through educational activities is also postulated by UNESCO’s global doctrines. In order to include this idea within the school education system, a certain transformation of the pedagogical reality must take place, which is a long-term process. That is why such projects are often carried out through non-formal education. Using the example of the project ‘Journey through Wooden Podlasie’, this study addresses the problem of protecting the cultural landscape and intangible heritage of Podlasie through education from an early age. Analysis of material collected, as well as the author’s own observations from the various projects carried out in the form of regional education, confirm the theory that there is a great need to implement programs of active heritage protection from scratch. Drawing inspiration from the past can be of great practical importance for future generations, and can serve to encourage children to be active participants in their environment.

In our research we are seeking for a Lower Silesian identity, we are especially interested in the Polish-German cultural heritage in social remembrance (or social oblivion). In the article our basic purpose is to provide the grounds for discussion about the presence of the sacred space in social memory (the old German Calvary as a part of contemporary Lubawka’s cultural heritage), using group interviews with visual presentations to stimulate a journey back into the past, to familiarize with the place and its images. We aim at the reconstruction of “social frames of memory”, the moments when the small sacral architecture began to lose its religious mad social power, and we also want to show young residents’ attitudes towards this process. The project also seems to have some social value because it may become an introduction to the debate on preserving the Calvary as an element of local identity.