ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author argues that at the time of the emergence of Poland as a state, cultural heritage was seen as an integral part of space and an important marker of the geopolitical territory. In 1921, in Warsaw, the Borderlands' Guard, a Polish civic organization constituted in the aftermath of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, organized a political and propaganda exhibition with the aim of supporting Polish interests in the former western provinces of the Russian Empire. Indeed, the 1921 exhibition should be considered as a logical consequence and capstone of the role played by cultural heritage and photography in the authoritative political mapping of this contested region of Europe. However, it should also be defined as an intrinsic element of the intellectual spiritual war, which involved pivotal geographers, anthropologists and art historians during the war on all sides of the conflict.
