Activities of the Central Polish State Library in Kyiv (1925 – 1937)

The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the creation, development and functioning of the Central polish state library in Kyiv in the 1920s - 1930s; to distinguish the main directions of its cultural, educational, educational and library activities in the conditions of increasing ideologization and centralization of Soviet power. The methodology of the research is to apply both general scientific research methods (description, comparison, analogy, deduction, induction, analysis, etc.), as well as historical (historical-comparative, historical-typological, chronological, etc.) methods. The scientific novelty of the work is to expand ideas about the activities of the Central Polish State Library in Kyiv as an organizational, cultural, scientific and methodological center and to identify its importance in the development of a network of Polish library institutions in Ukraine during the period. Conclusions. It was established that the Central polish state library in Kyiv (CPSL) was one of the chains of intercultural interaction and one of the cultural and world forms of building new relations between the Ukrainian and Polish communities in the con ditions of the establishment of Soviet power. The creation of favorable conditions for the Soviet power to meet the national and cultural needs of the national minorities (1923 – 1932) had its corporate goals, after which the authorities began to curtail the development of national cultures. In the article it was proved that by 1932 – 1933 the authorities contributed to the sustainable development of the CPSL, which gradually began to play a significant role in the development of Polish library affairs in the territory of Soviet Ukraine. The CPSL actively carried out cultural-educational, cultural-mass, educational and scientific work, in particular in book collecting classes, organized postgraduate classes, held certain measures to improve the skills of library staff of Polish libraries, organized ex hibitions, lectures, creative evenings, and exchange of experience, etc. The CPSL carried out extensive organizational and methodological work, creating Polish mobile libraries serving the Polish population in remote areas. During the ten years of its work, the CPSL has become a kind of cultural and educational center for the Polish-speaking population not only in Kyiv but also far beyond its borders. The article shows that the CPSL was founded not only to store and accumulate printed materials in Polish, but also to provide organizational and methodological assistance to po lish library institutions, to manage an d coordinate their activities. However, the repression of the 1930s in relation to the leading Polish national figures, the CPSL workers in person, and the policy of curtailing «indi-genization» led to the closure of many national cultural institutions, including the Central Polish State Library. It is proved that the CPSL ceased to exist not earlier than the second half of 1937. At present, some of the books with the seal of the CPSL («Centralna Polska Biblioteka Państwowa na Ukraine») are stored in the library collections and historical collections department of the Institute of Book Research of VNLU.