The role of a controversy about the Polish Library in Paris in Polish-French relations in the years 1945-1980

Abstract

The Polish Library in Paris after the World War II became a subject of significant controversy in cultural relations between Poland and France. The library was established in 1838 by Polish emigrants, and in 1891 its ownership was transferred to the Polish Academy of Learning. Its legal status complicated after 1945, when the contemporary director Franciszek Pułaski together with the Parish representative of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America on June 13^th signed the mortgage act of leasing the Library to this organisation for 18 years. The communists in Poland in that time established the Provisional Government of National Unity, honoured by France, thanks to which diplomatic relations with People’s Republic of Poland were established. It complicated the Library’s situation, and the matter has become controversial between Warsaw and Paris.