Aristocratic collections after the fall of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1800–1830

Abstract This article is devoted to the historical aristocratic collections that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, were owned by descendants of the magnates of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and made accessible to the public. This phenomenon is interpreted as a manifestation of the adaptation of the post-magnate group to new political, social and cultural realities in centralized and bureaucratic states such as Austria, Prussia and the Russia-dominated Kingdom of Poland. This article argues that sharing private historical collections relating to the nation’s past was used as a justification for their owners’ elite position, and also contributed to the prestige of such families as custodians of national heritage. Some of the initiatives of this period directly served to secure the financial status of the heirs: their care of valuable mementos of the past accounted for (or was expected to account for) the privileged treatment of their fortunes (for example, by the establishment of entails).