EN
This article aims to characterize a segment of Polish student activity in the perspective of social movements theories. By analysing the contents (archives, memoirs, publishing of organizations), the history of scientific circles in the first half of the 20th century was reconstructed. The tool used for the analysis was idealization. Students' scientific movement is a potentially important field for inexperienced scholars. Without it, young people would have no means to find their own scientific interests and to continue higher education at postgraduate level. The scientific movement of students helps to improve the quality of education in higher education, although in the past, it held various positions, not just scientific. The text focuses on the scientific activity of Polish students during the Second Polish Republic and the People's Republic, but also has a theoretical dimension. The study provides empirical data to test the relevance of ideas from various strands of the theory of social movements - especially the concept of collective action and interpretive approaches. The issues discussed are: organizational structure, identity and subjectivity of the movement. The text discusses the key differences between the model of the student movement in 1918-1939 and 1948-1956 with the use of organizational field concept. The added value of this work is the interdisciplinarity, combining the workshop of a historian and a sociologist. The students' scientific movement is not a very popular subject, so far overlooked by sociologists.