On ethics. Poznań collections from Africa, Asia and the Pacific in the collections of the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw.

Abstract

Referring to the issue of returning objects confiscated in an ethically or legally questionable manner, the paper discusses the history of non-European ethnographic museum objects in Poznań.

The collections were created  in 1872 and significantly expanded in the years 1902-1918, when valuable objects from Australia, Oceania and Africa arrived in Poznań. Other significant acquisitions included the collection from West Papua from prof. Józef Zwierzycki (1922-1923) and the African collection from Fr. Edmund Majkowski (1939). However, these collections - pursuant to the  decisions of the communist authorities not preserved in the archives - were taken from  the National Museum in Poznań (NMP) in 1950 and entered into the inventory of the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw (NEMW). It was not accompanied by any contract or deed of donation, but only a superficially prepared transfer protocol. For 17 years, the NMP has been unsuccessfully applying for the return of the taken collections or at least their loan for organized exhibitions. Due to many years of rejection by NEMW of all attempts at of  negotiations, NMP was forced to go to court. Only recently has there been a chance to start a discussion on this matter between both institutions.