WORLD HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM: KRZYSZTOFPOMIAN’S STORY OF THE WORLD OF PEOPLEAND OBJECTS (1)

Abstract

In spring 2023, the Gdansk publishers: słowo/obraz terytoria released the first volume of Krzysztof Pomian’sstudy Muzeum. Historia światowa [World History of theMuseum]. It launches the Polish edition of the monumentalthree-volume work published by Éditions Gallimard in Pariswhich is the first study of the universal history of the museum.This is more than a book, it’s a monument! (Plus qu’un livre,un monument!) is what Fabien Simode wrote in the l’OEilmonthly (March 2021). At present rarely are such historicallybroad studies released, possibly because of authors’ fear ofbeing potentially accused of postmodernist meta-narrative.In this case, the work is a comprehensive synthesis in view ofthe entailed chronology, geography, and thematic range. Thediscussed volume Od skarbca do muzeum [From a TreasureChamber to the Museum] recently published for Polish readerstackles the process of European collectorship crystalizingand first museums being its consequence, mainly Italian andseveral northern ones, from the Capitoline Museum in Rome(1471) up to London’s British Museum (1753). Subsequentvolumes are already being prepared. Titled L’ancrage européen,1789–1850, the second one is dedicated to the historyof the museum consolidating into a permanent and significantelement of European culture, close to the institution weknow today: started by the revolutionary Louvre (1793), thishistory is created by the vast part of the major museums oftoday’s Western Europe. Finally, volume three A la conquêtedu monde, 1850–2020 is the most extensive of them all bothchronologically and territorially, as well as in view of the numberof museums and their activity discussed. Author’s considerationsencompass museums’ expansion to Eastern Europeincluding Russia, and then eventually to the rest of the world:Asia, Africa, both Americas, mainly the territories connectedwith the West through colonial bonds; the United States, beingthe area where today’s dominating world centres havebeen formed, is analysed separately. At that point the book’stitle: world history, gains its full relevance, and relates both tothe interwar period in the democratic and totalitarian world,WW II, and to the long contemporary era.