Ivan Stupnytskyi

Fr. Ivan Stupnytskyi is an example of an intellectual for whom, despite his religious rank, studies in numismatics and archeology did not have a clearly religious basis, being rather a pleasure at leisure, which his education and high social position allowed him. Chancellor of the Greek Catholic Church, bishop of Przemyśl and deputy marshal of the Galician Diet, he also was a correspondent of the Viennese Central Commission for the Protection of Monuments in 1866-1890.

This biogram is part of a publication about the beginnings of monument conservation in Eastern Galicia and focuses on Ivan Stupnytskyi's activity as a monument conservator, which was not central in his life. Above all, these texts consider the following questions: who were the first to join the official conservation of monuments in Lviv? How did they arrive at this decision and under what conditions? What was the ethnic and national, professional and institutional background of these persons and what impact did it have on their monument conservation activities?

Six correspondents of the Central Commission for Research and Protection of Architectural Monuments in the 1860s and 1870s — Ivan Stupnytskyi, Wincenty Pol, Józef Sermak, Leonard Horodyski, Kazimierz Stadnicki, Antoni Schneider — were appointed through Mieczysław Potocki, a conservator of monuments whom they assisted. The seventh biogram, that of Stanisław Kunasiewicz, concerns a person who, despite the efforts made for his official appointment, never received it.

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Fr. Ivan Saturnin Stupnytskyi (also, Jan Stupnicki, 1816-1890) studied at the Greek Catholic Seminary and the Franciscan University in Lviv. He began his church career as a village parish priest and moved to Lviv after being appointed a registrar in the metropolitan consistory office in 1843 (Stępień, 2007-2008). His passion was collecting ancient coins, so he undertook careful numismatic studies. Later, he became close to the milieu of the Ossoliński National Institute, which in the 1840s and 1850s was essentially the only platform for scholarly discussions in the city, as well as to the Scientific Society in Kraków. In 1861, he took part in the preparation of an exhibition of antiquities; in 1864, he was engaged in arranging a museum within the Ossolineum, where part of his numismatic collection, which he donated to the institution, was displayed. At the same time, he collaborated with the Ruthenian National House in Lviv, which was partially opened in 1861.

Although Stupnytskyi did not have a specialized education and was engaged in numismatics in his free time, he was perceived as a serious and professional scientist. Stupnytskyi's works were published by scientific periodicals: the Biblioteka Ossolińskich (Lviv), the Wiener numismatische Monatshefte (Vienna) and others; he was also widely quoted.

Stupnytskyi acquired the image of a pro-Western church figure and politician at a time when Russophile views dominated the environment of the Saint George's Hill; generally, he was a supporter of cooperation between the Poles and Ukrainians. Nominated bishop of Przemyśl, he became a deputy of the Galician Diet (Sejm) due to his position and performed the function of vice-marshal for many years. His close, apparently friendly contacts with the president of Lviv and, later, Minister Florian Ziemiałkowski, Governor Agenor Gołuchowski or Mikolaj Zyblikiewicz, Marshal of the Diet, caused a hostile attitude towards him on the part of Russophiles, who called him a tool in the hands of the Polish nobility (Студинський, 1908, 108- 110; Stępień, 2007-2008). In the Polish press, he was mostly characterized as a Ruthenian patriot who did not shy away from cooperation with the Poles; this position was welcomed. After Stupnytskyi's death, as noted by Kyrylo Studynskyi, the Ukrainian circles that had been hostile to him revised their attitude towards him, finding no confirmation of anything unacceptable. The obituary in the newspaper Dilo emphasized that Stupnytskyi was "scholarly, quiet and silent, he kept to his people and rites"; however, "he did not participate in the wider political life of the Ruthenians" (Dilo, 1890, No. 283, p. 2).

In 1864, the monument conservator Mieczysław Potocki proposed him as his correspondent for Lviv, and the following year his candidacy was approved by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to Potocki, Stupnytskyi was "...a man who knew almost all Slavic languages, but was especially experienced in numismatics... Cold as the coins he dealt with, he... organized the Numismatic Room at the Ossoliński National Institute... and to him belongs the primacy and the best knowledge of ancient coins and works of art." (CDIAL 616/1/2:90-91). Despite the fact that Stupnytskyi agreed to cooperate with the conservator, he was rarely able to find time for it. In 1866, he prepared an article about the ancient bell in the church of St. George in Lviv dating back to 1341, one of the oldest material monuments in Lviv; through the mediation of Potocki, the text was published in the Mittheilungen der k.k. Central-Commission für Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale, the periodical of the Central Commission (Stupnicki, 1866, LXXXIX-XCI). This was the first article in this periodical dedicated to a Ukrainian monument in Galicia.

In 1866-1867, Stupnytskyi together with Wincenty Pol worked on the organization of the first restoration projects in Lviv under the auspices of the conservator. However, as soon as 1867, he broke off this cooperation without explaining the reasons and stopped answering the conservator's letters. Along with the historian Kazimierz Stadnicki, Mieczyslaw Potocki pondered over the cause of the probable misunderstanding, and they deduced that the higher church leadership stood in the way. Therefore, they suggested Stupnytskyi to deal with purely Ruthenian and church monuments engaging in the restoration of the church of St. Paraskeva, as well as caring for the icon of the Mother of God in the Dominican church, but this did not change anything (CDIAL 616/1/6:34-37, 70-71).

Formally, Stupnytskyi remained a correspondent of the Central Commission all his life until 1890. As the bishop of Przemyśl, a long-time vice-marshal of Galicia and a member of many public organizations, he found time to participate in various archaeological searches — for example, during the construction of the Przemyśl fortress, — and in organizing the restoration of the Greek Catholic cathedral there. As far as we can assume from the preserved documents, he did not coordinate these cases either with Mieczysław Potocki or with his successor Wojciech Dzieduszycki (LNBBU 26/1/1, 26/1/2).

Nevertheless, in September 1888, when the Central Commission for the Protection of Monuments convened a conservators' congress to discuss the problems of Galicia, Bukovina and Silesia, he arrived in Krakow (Woźny, 2011). Thus, he partially participated in the reorganization of the protection of monuments in the province.