Poland’s Ministry of Culture is drawing up a plan to evacuate the nation’s most valuable artworks abroad in the event of a Russian invasion. In an interview with the Financial Times, Culture Minister Hanna Wróblewska said such planning is essential, as nearly 1,000 museums across the country can no longer rely on a “theoretical sense of security” while Russia’s war in Ukraine rages on.
The ministry is currently in talks with foreign institutions to host works from about 160 Polish state-run collections. Alongside paintings and sculptures, the evacuation plan also covers rare books and musical instruments. Privately owned museums and galleries are expected to take part in the effort as well. The initiative is being coordinated by Maciej Maciak, a former army colonel and ex-deputy chief of Poland’s military counterintelligence. He now heads the ministry’s newly created Department for Security and Crisis Management, which has a staff of 40. “We needed someone with military and defence experience, but also a background in crisis management,” Wróblewska said.
The plan draws in part on lessons learned from Poland’s role in helping Ukraine relocate cultural artefacts following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Some of those works remain stored in Poland. According to Wróblewska, working alongside Ukrainian art experts has given her team first-hand insight into “what it really means to work in such a crisis.” Beyond logistics, the initiative also involves updating records to ensure that any evacuated Polish artworks can be properly tracked and eventually returned. “You need to evacuate all the inventory books as well so that you can later prove the works are your property,” she explained.
Polish museums have now been instructed by the Ministry of Culture to identify which items should be designated as “priority for evacuation.” “It’s impossible to evacuate everything,” Wróblewska emphasised.
The question of protecting cultural assets during wartime was raised during an informal meeting of EU culture ministers held in Warsaw in April. According to Wróblewska, the Baltic states—also situated on NATO’s eastern flank—share Poland’s view on the need to relocate artworks. “They’re a bit smaller, so things are slightly easier for them—they don’t have to coordinate as many people or as many museums,” she noted.
Earlier, Lithuanian broadcaster LRT reported that since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, more than 1,500 cultural and artistic items have been transferred from Ukraine to Lithuania. Many of these works have since been studied, restored, and exhibited at the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. Among them are pieces by the renowned Ukrainian artist Mariia Prymachenko.
At the same time, Ukraine has encountered significant obstacles in evacuating its own cultural assets. In April, during a briefing at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, Deputy Minister Halyna Hryhorenko said there was simply no place to relocate heritage objects held in the State Museum Fund, as displaced collections require substantial storage capacity. This comes as, according to her, some six million items of movable cultural heritage are located in areas near the front line. Complicating matters further, evacuation efforts are also hindered by a shortage of trained restoration specialists.
At the time, Olha Sahaydak, chair of the Culture Actors Coalition, also accused the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of refusing to assume responsibility for coordinating evacuation efforts, instead shifting the burden onto regional authorities and museum administrators.
It is well documented that Russia has looted and destroyed more than one million museum items from Ukraine, with some exhibits transported to Russian-occupied territories and to Russia itself. According to estimates by UNESCO, it will take a decade and nearly $9 billion to restore the cultural assets destroyed as a result of the full-scale invasion.
