'This Nation Wishes the University...' - Strife for Founding Stefan Batory University in Vilnius

• Authors: Zamojska D.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

A process of a rebuilding (in fact-creation) the university in Vilnius is described on the grounds of the reports compiled in Commemorative Book Dedicated to Celebration of CCCL Anniversary of Founding and Revival the Vilnius University, published in 1929. Besides, analysis of the preserved records of the Organizational and Revindication Committee, of the interlocutory Senate of the Vilnius University as well as the memories of Ludwik Kolankowski, appointed an organizer of the University by Józef Pilsudski in1919, and the diary of professor Józef Kallenbach, reveals that in the course of works over the organization of the Vilnius University there cropped up a stiff confrontation between the Vilnius circle's members, backed up by L. Kolankowski, and professor Adam Wrzosek that represented Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education. A. Wrzosek - pointing out the personnel and financial difficulties of the rising university - stipulated for founding a faculty of philosophy only (and even a faculty of arts), and perhaps a faculty of law that were strictly conceived as utilitarian ones. A culminating point of the conflict had place during the meeting in Warsaw on14 June 1919. After a heated discussion L. Kolankowski as a representative of the Commander-in-Chief and an organizer of the University declared that in the autumn 1919 a full university with all faculties will be opened in Vilnius. A committal of the local society at organizing the Vilnius University found its reflexion in its not conventional structure. Besides the traditional Faculty of Theology, Law, Medicine and Philosophy - there also appear the philological, fine arts', physical and mathematical, agronomical, veterinary, pharmaceutical, and even dental departments. It happened that the Vilnius academy was the only Polish university that included the fine arts department (aside from Vilnius the artistic education was held in the technical schools). Moreover, the Vilnius department -offering the architectonic studies - had partly come within the polytechnical schools' scopes. In general works over the organization of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius were influenced by politics in much greater measure an in other new academical centres of 2nd Republic of Poland. Both the doubts concerning the national status of Vilnius (Poland, Lithuania, Bolshevik Russia), and also the nature of the possible dependence of the Polish state and the conflicts between unification and federative conceptions led to the ideological and dictated by ambition disputes.

Keywords

EN

UNIVERSITY IN VILNIUS (FOUNDATION IN 1919)

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Instytut Historii Nauki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
• Journal: Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki
• Year: 2006
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 7-46
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Zamojska D.

• D. Zamojska, Instytut Historii Nauki PAN, ul. Nowy Swiat 72, 00-330 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

06PLAAAA01503309