"Ta ludność życzy mieć uniwersytet..." - walka o utworzenie Uniwersytetu Stefana Batorego

• Autorzy: Zamojska D.

Warianty tytułu

EN

"This nation wishes the university..." - strife for founding Stefan Batory University in Vilnius

• Języki publikacji: PL

Abstrakty

EN

A process ofa so -called rebuilding (in fact -creation) the university in Vilnius first ofall is described on the grounds ofthe reports compiled in Commemorative Book Dedicated to Celebration of CCCL Anniversary of Founding and X Revival the Vilnius University, which was published in 1929. In the foreground there appear the texts of professor Adam Wrzosek (who was a president of Science and Academies' Department in Ministry of the Religious Persuasions and Public Education in the period of birth of Stefan Batory University), and professor Michał Siedlecki (the first rector of Stefan Batory University). According to the canon of such commemorative publications, the texts idealize and present the described facts as heroic. A precise confrontation of the facts with a report ofExeciJtive Committee for Rebuilding the Vilnius University, which was formulated by professor Stanisław Władyczko, and is included in the same Commemorative Book ..., makes us aware of many tensions and conflicts that were passed over in silence or concealed in the previous accounts. Borrowing information from an archival source, one can get much more information about those problems, and even see some shades of political and ambitious contests on the bright vision of building the Vilnius academy. Analysis of the preserved records of the Organizational and Revindication Committee, and of the interlocutory Senate of the Vilnius University (that were established on January 1918 by the Educational Board ofthe Polish Committee in Vilnius), as well as the memories (that were not in scientific circulation) of Ludwik Kolankowski (who was appointed an organizer ofthe Vilnius University) by Józef Piłsudski on 7 May 1919, 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 that in majority descended from the Russian academies (an acting rector J. Ziemacki, professor S. Władyczko), and were backed up by L. Kolankowski (who was succoured by Commander -in -Chiet) and professor Adam Wrzosek that represented Ministry of the Religious Persuasions and Public Education. Wrzosek -pointing out the personnel and financial difficulties of the rising university - stipulated for founding a faculty ofphilosophy only (and even a faculty ofarts), and -perhaps- a faculty of law that were strictly conceived as utilitarian -as the school educating Polish teachers and clerks, and perhaps even as the institution deprived ofthe university dignity. The school like this was to fulfilI the polonizing tasks. Within the discussions Ministry of the Religious Persuasions and Public Education pointed out on this occasion the arguments for scientific and juridical incompetence of the academy's organizers - arguments that seemed to be feebly brightened up with considerations about an already prepared general reform of the Polish academies in the truly national spirit, which would include in its reckoning both educational and public spirit element (a favourite concepn of professor A. Wrzosek -a principal of the Science and Academies' Department in Ministry of the Religious Persuasions and Public Education). Delaying of launching the Vilnius University would have enabled to start its acting immediately, and by the new principles. A culminating point of the conflict had place during the meeting in the Warsaw abode of Ministry of the Religious Persuasions and Public Education on 14 June 1919. A speech delivered by A. Wrzosek brought about a heated reaction of the Vilnius society that with words enounced by professor S. Władyczko tried to remind of the fact that Polish Vilnius could not have enough time to see an appropriate organization of the University. Attending the conference, a representative of the Commander -in -Chief and an organizer of the University -dr L. Kolankowski used his fulI powers, and cut further considerations short with a folIowing statement: 'In behalf of Commander -in -Chief I am asking Mister Minister of accepting the fact that t his year -in autumn -in Vilnius there will be opened an entire university with alI the faculties, together with the Fine Arts' Faculty". So in this way, mainly to Kolankowski, and indirectly -to J. Piłsudski -who was represented by Kolankowski -one should owe the final decision of opening the university in Vilnius... . A. Wrzosek had also used alI his mininisterial powers at forming the lecturers' circle committee in the University of Stefan Batory. It is also striking that tilI then the most active organizers of the university -J. Ziemacki, S. Władyczko, S. Kościałkowski -were debarred to secondary positions (prorector, pro -dean), and were replaced by the persons, who till then were not connected with Vilnius, and were represented by Michał Siedlecki, Emil Godlewski, Józef KalIenbach -the professors of Cracow and Lviv that were furloughed by mother academy. These personnel strokes caused that managing an academy in the real issue of forming it was not only consigned to people coming from the outside, who till then were not connected with Vilnius region, but outright to people, who -according to plan -treated their work as a temporary job, and from the beginning planned a return to the earlier employment. A committal of the local society at organizing the Vilnius University found its relexion in -not conventional by any means -a planned structure of the academy. Among the records of the Organizational and Revindication Committee -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. A conferred in 1919 by the Commander- in -Chief 'temporary' and - as it turned out later -the one and only statutes of Stefan Batory University ensured an extraordinary organization for the academy, and especialIy as far as the Polish ground was concerned. First of alI, the statutes set up the Faculty of Fine Arts. The Vilnius academy was the only Polish university that included such department, and aside from Vilnius the artistic education was held in the technical schools (Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Art School in Warsaw) that were to overcome many difficulties in being accepted as academical by the scientific circle (among others, one of the main problems was an inability to apply the analogous to other academies' formal requirements towards the candidates for professors). Moreover, the Vilnius department -offering the architectonic studies -had partly come within the polytechnical schools' scopes. In general, analysis of the text of Interlocutory Statutes of Stefan Batory University that was conferred by J. Piłsudski in 1919, and of Statute for the Academical Schools from 13 July 1920 shows the great concurrences both in law, and organizational solutions and in styIistics -undoubtedly, we can perceive Interlocutory Statutes ...as the first version of Statute for the Academical Schools Naturally, some modifications were introduced to Interlocutory Statutes ...in consideration of the political realities, and to Statute for the Academical Schools ...considering its quality as the act including different types of the academies, and not only the universities. However, the concurrences seem to be huge, and stay beyond alI question. What interesting, the significance of Interlocutory Statutes ...as a reflexion ofthe current legislative conceptions presented by Minjstry of the Religious Persuasions and Public Education was noticed neither by the members of the committee that was established during the Warsaw congress ofthe academies' representatives, and was working out a project ofthe statute nor by the Vilnius Senate, which continued its works over statutes on the grounds ofthe congress resolutions. The works over the organization of Stefan Batory University in Vilnius were influenced by politics in much greater measure than in other new academical centres of Republic of Poland II. Both the doubts conceming the national status of ViInius (Poland, Lithuania, Bolshevik Russia), and also the nature of the possible dependence of the Polish state and the conflicts between unification and federative conceptions, and the groups of the sociaIistic and favouring independence, national and democratic, or conservative and national origin led to the ideological and dictated by ambition disputes. Significantly, there also appeared two academical tendencies: a Russian one (that also included possessions of the imperial and royal academies of Warsaw and Vilnius from the nineteenth century) -closer to the Vilnius surrounding, and a German and Austrian one -that was a kind of the embodiment of the academies of Cracow and Lviv, and was backed up by the Polish central education authorities, and finally the national authorities (represented by Józef Piłsudski). Supporting the idea of establishing the entire university in Vilnius, Józef Piłsudski had not only paid a tribute to the romantic, connected with a secret student society [at Vilnius University] legend and to his own emotional attitude towards Vilnius, but as a politician also appreciated of both the real political force of the Vilnius University myth and the possibility of converting its emotional dimension into an instrument of the political struggle.

Słowa kluczowe

PL

Uniwersytet Stefana Batorego w Wilnie

EN

Stefan Batory University in Vilnius

• Wydawca: Instytut Historii Nauki im. L. i A. Birkenmajerów Polskiej Akademii Nauk
• Czasopismo: Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki
• Rocznik: 2006
• Tom: R. 51, nr 2
• Strony: 7--46

Twórcy

autor

Zamojska D.

• Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii Nauki, Warszawa