12/05/2026
🇬🇧 The Center for Heritage and Provenance Research invites you to a seminar to be held on May 19 at 11:00 a.m. at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 28 Długa Street, Room 16
The seminar will be held in English.
🇵🇱 Centrum Dziedzictwa i Badań Proweniencyjnych Instytutu Sztuki PAN zaprasza na seminarium, które odbędzie się 19 maja o godz. 11:00 w Instytucie Sztuki PAN przy ul. Długiej 28, w sali nr 16.
Seminarium w języku angielskim.
Karolina Bukovskytė, IDEOLOGICAL, ARTISTIC, AND MUSEOLOGICAL VALUE OF THE ICONS (IN SOVIET LITHUANIA): THE CASE OF THE FORMER MUSEUM OF ATHEISM
This seminar will explore the icon collection of the former Museum of Atheism in Vilnius (1961–1989), a Soviet institution that presented religion as a thing of the past. Among other sources, the museum collected over 900 icons from churches and private individuals, with many items acquired on the black market. Their value was judged less by rarity or authorship than by their usefulness in promoting atheist ideology. Although most of the icons remained hidden from public view, some were used to shape official narratives about religion. After Lithuania regained independence, the collection was transferred in 1992 to the National Museum of Lithuania, where it remains today. The collection also shares many similarities with objects held in national museums in Warsaw, Kraków, and other collections in Poland.
Karolina Bukovskytė is a doctoral candidate at the Lithuanian Institute of Culture and a researcher in the Department of Sacred Art at the National Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius.