The article concerns the attitude of the self-government of three Lower Silesian voivodships to the local cultural heritage in the period between the establishment of this self-government in 1990 (after the fall of communism in 1989) and before the great self-government reform carried out in 1998. At that time, there were four voivodships in Lower Silesia : Jelenia Góra, Legnica, Wałbrzych and Wrocław, of which one was created in 1998: Lower Silesia voivodship. The local government representation at the voivodship level was the Local Government Sejmik. The author dealt with sejmiks of three smaller voivodships: Jelenia Góra, Legnica and Wałbrzych, indicating that “actions in the field of preserving the cultural heritage of Lower Silesia were most visible in the Wrocław voivodship, whose capital has always played the dominant political, economic and cultural role in the history of the region”.
The author discusses the meanders of the policy of these three regional sejmiks towards cultural heritage, paying special attention to the difficulties she faces, especially related to the threats posed by the transition period from the transition from the communist system to the system of democratic society and capitalist economy. At the end of his considerations he states:
“Despite the mounting difficulties, primarily financial, the sejmiks, dealing with historical heritage, significantly initiated and intensified the identification of local communities with the ‘small homeland’, which was so little noticeable and tame before. More and more frequent exhibitions, seminars and regional education in schools served to popularize the phenomenon. In connection with the renovation of monuments and the development of tourism, there was the possibility of foreign cooperation, primarily with Germany as well as with the Czech. These factors meant that both Lower Silesian local governments and the inhabitants of these areas perceived the region as a historical melting pot of three cultures and traditions: Polish, German and Czech”.