Cultural heritage of Opole Region villages – preservation issues

Celem tego artykułu jest omówienie problemów związanych z ochroną zabytkowych wsi z uwzględnieniem charakterystyki zasobów oraz działań instytucjonalnych podjętych na rzecz zachowania tegoż dziedzictwa na Opolszczyźnie. Osadnictwo wiejskie Opolszczyzny bardzo często sięga średniowiecza i co szczególnie cenne, do dnia dzisiejszego historyczne układy ruralistyczne zachowały się często w niezmienionej formie – tj. nie rozpadły się w ostatnim stuleciu w chaotyczną zabudowę. Opracowanie problematyki konserwatorskiej dotyczącej wsi opolskiej nastręcza sporo trudności, które wynikają przede wszystkim z braku aktualnego materiału badawczego dotyczącego układów przestrzennych jak i szczegółowej analizy budownictwa, który pozwoliłby określić zasoby tego dziedzictwa i je zwartościować. Dlatego, już od roku trwają prace zespołu, którego celem jest zweryfikowanie zasobów dziedzictwa kulturowego Opolszczyzny.The aim of this report is to discuss problems connected with the protection of historic villages considering their characteristics and all the activities taken to preserve the heritage of Opole Region. The village settlement of Opole Region dates back to the Middle Ages and what is especially valuable, the historic rural structures are preserved in an unchanged form to this day, i.e. they did not disintegrate into chaotic development during the last century. The issue study of monument preservation of Opole Region historic villages brings many problems due to the lack of current research material on spatial arrangement as well as detailed analysis of rural buildings (except wooden rural architecture, which reserves and the state of preservation are supervised by the Opole Open - Air Museum Of Rural Architecture in Opole - Bierkowice), consequently we cannot define either the reserves or their value. The only currently used tool of preservation for the monuments’ conservator is registration on the monuments’ list – either as an individual object, a complex of buildings or a rural structure. In Opole Region there are four villages registered on the list of monuments. These are the villages of Grobniki, Jemielnica, Pilszcz and Scinawa Nyska. The registrations are highly imprecise as they were carried out in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century. It should be emphasised that despite the registration on the monuments’ list there were no particular activities taken to preserve them. Characteristic is the fact that in the archives of the Department of Monuments Preservation in Opole there are no materials concerning the mentioned above areas, except for Scinawa where there is a study with conservator’s guidelines. In the case of the remaining villages there are no studies. Registration of the villages on the monuments’ list, except for Jemielnica, did not preserve them from progressive process of abandoning, altering and eliminating historic, extremely rich and valuable building structure. It especially concerns Pilszcz that at the moment of registration was considerably destroyed and currently it should be verified from the point of view of further monument protection of this area. None of the forms of monument preservation is effective without the understanding and acceptance of inhabitants and users of the monuments. It is impossible to preserve all of them, so verification and choice of the most valuable ones is necessary. That is why since more than a year a group of people is verifying the reserves of cultural heritage of Opole Region. The group includes representatives of provincial and local government administration as well as Regional Centre for Historical Monument Studies and Documentation in Opole, museums of Opole and representatives of the universities and collages of Wroclaw, Opole and Nysa dealing with the issues. The team has began its work from exchanging experiences and cooperation of various activities realised in the field of preservation of Opole Region rural heritage so far. Currently, the team under the guidance of Opole Provincional Monuments’ Conservator works on verifying and evaluation of the reserves. Due to a preliminary evaluation there were about one hundred villages with especially valuable elements chosen. For the needs of the verification there was a special collective table and questionnaire developed that both enable to collect necessary data. There have been questionnaires for five districts prepared so far. At the same time the above activities are being popularised among local communities (seminars, training courses, information on Internet). The team has a lot of work to do, but there is a chance that combined operation will enable us to evaluate the state of preservation of historic rural structures. The choice of the most valuable areas and objects will lead to formulate conservator’s guidelines aiming to preserve the specificity and character of landscape and local style of Opole Region architectural rural forms