Green history: polish experience of musealisation of landscape art heritage

Book Reivew: Kuśmierski, J. (2020) Hortuseum. Muzealizacja europejskich ogrodów w XXI wieku. [Musealisation of the European Gardens in the Twenty-First Century]. Ścinawka Górna: Zamek Sarny Sudety. 67 p. ISBN 978-83-959914-2-4 . The review presents the experience of musealisation of objects of landscape and park cultural heritage summarized in the books of Jacek Kuśmierski, who is a Polish specialist in the field of conservation and restoration of green spaces of historical value. The books were published in 2020 and 2021 by the Foundation for the Reconstruction of the “Dwór Sarny” Palace and Park Complex, located in the village of Ścinawka Górna in Lower Silesia (Republic of Poland). The time was chosen to coincide with the certification in 2020 by the Council of Europe of the European Route of Historical Gardens, in which Kuśmierski sees great international, tourist, nature conservationб and culture-preserving importance. Since specialized descriptions of historical gardens and parks as independent objects of musealisation, museum and tourist display are still rare not only in domestic but also in European literature, small works by Kuśmierski have indisputable novelty and practical value. Mapping of historical gardens of Europe and garden museums, classification of types of garden heritage and forms of their musealisation open up broad prospects for comparative research and understanding of the structure, levels, functions of “high” and “low” garden culture in Russia and abroad. The historiography of the scientific analysis of the problem of musealisation of green spaces and the periods of the formation of the institutional framework of this process in Europe that the author identified determine the theoretical significance of the work. The book is addressed to specialists in museum business. It can also be useful to persons who study the problems of forming a favorable urban environment, the potential of the socioeconomic development of territories, and determines the guidelines of urban development. The preservation of cultural heritage objects and the conditions that can ensure it are independent and extremely urgent problems for Russia. They indicate the value of familiarization with the European experience of protecting historically valuable green spaces for specialists in the field of jurisprudence, state and municipal management. Kuśmierski's works suggest the need to revise the priorities of the state cultural policy in the field of cultural heritage protection. This policy should shift towards the “musealisation of the world”. Kuśmierski characterizes “musealisation of the world” as a pan-European sociocultural trend of increasing the value of historical memory, as efforts to ensure the preservation of not only an isolated artifact, but its entire unique ecosystem as a complex of elements of natural, tangible and intangible cultural heritage.