“You’ve Completely Wrecked Our Entire Numismatic Collection…”. The Kharkiv University Coin Collection Between the Two World Wars

Abstract

The paper considers the little-studied interwar period in the history of the numismatic collection of Kharkiv University — one of the oldest such university collections in Ukraine, which played a notable role in the cultural life of the city. After a period of active enlargement during the 19th and early 20th centuries, in particular thanks to the acquisition of coins from the Nesvizh collection of the Radziwiłł family, the subsequent history of the university’s numismatic cabinet in the 1920s and 1930s was for the most part a story of progressive depletion. It is noted that the first losses may have occurred as early as the Civil War of 1918–1920, when the collection was likely looted during its evacuation from Kharkiv. Special attention is given to the aftermath of the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, under which Poland was able to reclaim some of its cultural heritage, including at least eight thousand coins from Kharkiv University’s Nesvizh assemblage. Based on archival sources and publications from the interwar period, the paper traces the process of restitution, identifies the institutions and individuals involved, and sums up the unresolved issues regarding the quantity and composition of the coins subject to repatriation. After being returned to Poland, the coins were deposited at the Numismatic Cabinet of the State Mint, and later were transferred to the National Museum in Warsaw. During World War II, the provenance records for the museum’s numismatic collection were lost, and so today coins originating from the Nesvizh assemblage cannot be identified with any confidence. The paper further considers the consequences of the reorganizations of the 1920s to 1930s, when new acquisitions did not compensate for the losses. The information that the university’s numismatic collection totaled up to forty thousand items on the eve of World War II is questioned; the actual numbers probably did not exceed eight to ten thousand. Finally, during the German occupation of Kharkiv the collection was destroyed completely — most of the coins were looted, lost, or perished in a fire.