Hi,
I have multiple, independent modules that holds reference to the same (persisted) entities. question is:
if I load them independently from each module, will Hibernate return the same references each time, or will it, for every call, generate new instances with the same data (that is, allocate NEW objects for each load)?

I don't know what you mean with modules. The things that matters is if you are using one or multiple Hibernate sessions.

Inside a single Hibernate session, object identity is guaranteed by Hibernate, meaning that you will only have one object representing the same pieces of data. Loading the same data from another session will create a new object for that session.

See http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/v3/re ... s-identity
for more information.