Mieczysław Gębarowicz

Mieczysław Jan Gębarowicz (17 December 189318 February 1984) was a Polish art historian, soldier, dissident, museum director and custodian of cultural heritage. He studied history and the history of art at Lwów University. During the 1940s and 1950s he was responsible for saving many Polish cultural works in Lviv, including books and manuscripts, from being destroyed or dispersed.

Gębarowicz's studies were interrupted by World War I, when he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. In 1918, he fought for the Poles in the Defence of Lwów.After graduating from university, he lectured at the Jan Kazimierz University (now the University of Lviv), where he was awarded a doctoral degree in 1921. The following yerar he took up a post in the Ossolineum in Lwów, where he became a curator. Between 1923 and 1938 he lectured in art history at Lwów Polytechnic. After the outbreak of World War II, he became one of the directors of the Ossolineum.

During and after the war, Gębarowicz secretly organised the dispatch of items from the collections of the Ossolineum to safety in Kraków and Wrocław. In February 1952 he was dismissed as a director by the Soviet authorities, but was allowed to work in Lviv as a research librarian. He was forced to retire in 1962, and died in Lviv in 1984. A published author, his research on the art of Ukraine and Lviv was published posthumously.

Early years

Gębarowicz was born in Jarosław, one of three sons in a patriotic Polish family. His mother was Bronisława, née Smolek. His father, Teofil, was a railway engineer who served as assistant station master in Stanisławów and later as station master in Buczacz. In 1912 Mieczysław completed his schooling at Buczacz Lyceum and was already a member of two clandestine Polish youth organizations, "Zet" and Zarzewie. He went on to study history and the history of art at Lwów University. His studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, when he served in the ranks of the Austro-Hungarian Army from 1915 until the end of the war in 1918. He fought alongside the Poles in the Defence of Lwów during the Polish–Ukrainian War, after which he was able to graduate.

Between 1920 and 1922 Gębarowicz was a lecturer in the History faculty of Jan Kazimierz University in a newly-independent Poland. In 1921 he was awarded a doctoral degree at the university. In 1922 he took up a post in the National Ossoliński Institute, known as the in Lwów, where the following year he was promoted to curator of the . He continued with academic duties and undertook research and lecturing assignments in Italy, France. Belgium, Spain, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. In 1928 he became an assistant professor in the History of Art the Department of Humanities at the university. In 1936 he became an honorary professor at Jan Kazimierz University. Between 1923 and 1938 he also lectured in art history at Lwów Polytechnic.

World War II

Following the start of the invasion of Poland and the sudden death on 18 September 1939 of , the director of the Ossolineum, Gębarowicz found himself along with and , as a director of the Institute. In December 1939 the Soviet authorities had installed the Polish Communist activist Jerzy Borejsza as director.

Gębarowicz wrote research papers, despite his straitened circumstances and a lack of access to the Ossolineum sources. Largely owed to his initiative are:

The National Ossoliński Institute and its associated archival and publishing facilities The Lubomirski Museum The Pan Tadeusz Museum in Wrocław.