Museum of Kashubian-Pomeranian Literature and Music

The Museum of Kashubian-Pomeranian Literature and Music is located at ul. Zamkowa 2A in Wejherowo, a town in the Pomeranian Voivodeship of northern Poland, close to the Baltic coast and the Tricity of Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia. The museum is devoted to the written and musical heritage of the Kashubians, a West Slavic people with their own language, who live in the area between Gdańsk and the Pomeranian lake district. Wejherowo itself is closely tied to Kashubian culture and to the nearby Calvary of Wejherowo, a major regional pilgrimage site.

The collection documents the development of Kashubian literature from early religious and folk texts through the awakening of national and regional consciousness in the 19th century to the work of 20th-century authors and musicians. Displays typically include manuscripts, printed books, periodicals, letters, photographs and portraits of writers, along with musical instruments, scores and recordings associated with Kashubian folk and choral traditions. The approach is thematic and biographical, presenting key figures and the societies and publications that kept the language in use at times when it was under pressure. Several of the rooms present the history of Kashubian choirs, folk ensembles and the role of music in community life.

The museum is a modest regional institution rather than a large national one, which gives it an intimate scale. Exhibitions are updated from time to time, and the building has been maintained as a working cultural venue, with temporary exhibitions, talks and educational events for schools. Visitors interested in Kashubian identity, the history of the Pomeranian region and the fate of minority languages in Central Europe will find it a useful complement to the open-air Kashubian Ethnographic Park at Wdzydze and the regional museums of Kościerzyna.