Already in the first months of the Great War, a drama of soldiers and civilians took place in the Lower San region. Ulanow, Rudnik, Nisko, Rozwadow and dozens of surrounding villages virtually disappeared from the face of the earth. For many years this history, being in the shadow of the 1939-1945 war catastrophe, was overlooked by researchers, museologists and collectors. The exhibition is a kind of “dusting off” of these somewhat forgotten events, all the more important because 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the war.
The history of World War I will be shown in a non-standard way. We will present, first of all, its participants hailing from the Lower San region, but also the intense military operations conducted on the San River line and their tragic consequences. The narrators of this story will be: soldiers, so-called ordinary people, journalists, painters and poets. The following will be presented: works of art (mainly the work of Alfons Karpinski), hundreds of unique photographs, documents, correspondence from the front, maps, trench art, poetry, patriotic songs, newsreels, ephemeral prints and testimonies of everyday life. There will be no shortage of historical artifacts in the form of elements of uniforms or armaments of legionaries, soldiers of the Austrian, German and Russian armies.
For the first time, we will present the photographic output of Ryszard Poisl, a forester in Groblach (Nizan district), who immortalized on hundreds of glass plates the wartime devastation and life of residents in the vicinity of Rudnik, Groblach, Lętownia and Jeżowy. Complementing this picture will be the rich correspondence of the residents of the forester’s lodge with family and friends regarding their wartime experiences.
Among the exhibits there will be such rarities as the legionary shield of the Land of Niska, or the original uniform of a legionary wounded in the charge at Rokitna, whose blood is still preserved on the lancer’s jacket.
We will also present an archaeological site with fragments of discoveries made in Zdziary and Raclawice (Nisko County) – at the burial site of soldiers killed in World War I.
A special role will be given to Alphonse Karpinski and his fellow painters, with whom he worked at the War Graves Unit. Karpinski, an artist born in Rozwadow, had to face the outbreak of war in his youth. His mission became to document material destruction and war graves, which he put into his sketches, drawings and paintings with the sensitivity typical of a painter. This small section of the artist’s work is little known – relatively few works have survived. Thus, the exhibition will be a unique opportunity to present this difficult and thankless painter’s output documenting the tragic toll of the First War.
The exhibition will show the wartime reality not only in a local context – the fate of the Nadsanie residents will lead us to the Carpathian Mountains, the Balkans and many other places.
The exhibition will also pay tribute to the many nameless soldiers who lost their lives on the First World War fronts.
The exhibits on display come from both museum collections and private collections from the region.
Place: 1 Sandomierska St.
Curator: Aneta Garanty, cooperation: Zofia Poisel-Łysiak
