The influence of legal regulations in the area of protection of cultural property on the cultural security of the second Polish Republic in the years 1918-1939

The article attempts to analyse the significance of the legal output in the area of protection of cultural property enacted in the period of development of the Second Polish Republic. The paper advances the thesis that the years 1918-1939 were characterised by the crucial legislative out-put regarding the protection of cultural property, which guaranteed the possibility of protecting the tangible cultural heritage of the Polish nation in the difficult period of restoring the foundations of its statehood. The defence of the above thesis relies on both the literature and source materials, including mainly the materials stored in the Central Archives of Modern Records (Archiwum Akt Nowych) in Warsaw and archival materials published in Wojskowe Teki Archiwalne. Taking account of the specific nature of the selected topic, the key material comprised legal acts concerning the protection of historic monuments in the period of the Second Polish Republic and the adopted research method was the analysis of such materials. On the basis of the presented information it can be stated that the Second Polish Republic was a period of particular significance for the development of the Polish legal system in the area of protection of cultural assets. In the years 1918-1939, the legal protection of cultural property represented the way of enhancing the cultural security, consisting in the systematic development of legal norms. The development of the cultural property protection law was based on a number of legal acts passed both in the 1920s and in the 1930s. In the Second Polish Republic the cultural property protection law made it possible to combine the social function of safeguarding historic monuments with the public function in the protection of historic monuments, which had a favourable impact on the protection of the national heritage.