University of Warsaw - History

History

In 1795 the partitions of Poland left Warsaw with access to only Academy of Vilnius, but the oldest and most influential Polish academic center, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, became part of Habsburg Austria. In 1815, the newly established autonomous Congress Poland found itself without an university at all, as Vilnius was incorporated into Russia. The first to be established in Congress Poland were the Law School and the Medical School. In 1816 Tsar Alexander I permitted the Polish authorities to create a university, comprising five departments: Law and Administration, Medicine, Philosophy, Theology, and Art and Humanities. The university soon grew to 800 students and 50 professors. After most of the students and professors took part in the November 1830 Uprising the university was closed down. After the Crimean War, Russia entered a brief period of liberalization, and the permission was given to create a Polish medical and surgical academy (Akademia Medyko-Chirurgiczna) in Warsaw. In 1862 departments of Law and Administration, Philology and History, and Mathematics and Physics were opened. The newly established academy gained importance and was soon renamed the "Main School" (Szkoła Główna). However, after the January 1863 Uprising the liberal period ended and all Polish-language schools were closed down again. During its short existence, the Main School educated over 3,000 students, many of whom became part of the backbone of Polish intelligentsia.

The Main School was replaced with a Russian-language "Imperial University of Warsaw". Its purpose was to provide education for the Russian military garrison of Warsaw, the majority of students (up to 70% out of an average of 1,500 to 2,000 students) were Poles. The tsarist authorities believed that the Russian university would become a perfect way to Russify Polish society and spent a significant sum on building a new university campus. However, various underground organizations soon started to grow and the students became their leaders in Warsaw. Most notable of these groups (the supporters of Polish revival and the socialists) joined the ranks of the 1905 Revolution. Afterwards a boycott of Russian educational facilities was proclaimed and the number of Polish students dropped to below 10%. Most of the students who wanted to continue their education left for Galicia and Western Europe.

After the fall of the January Uprising (1863–1864), the Tsarist authorities' decided to convert the Main School into a Russian-language university, which functioned under the name of Imperial University for 46 years. There were two times when the question of moving the university into Russia was considered. During the 1905–1907 revolution, such a proposal was made by some of the professors, in the face of a boycott of the university by Polish students. Talks on that subject were conducted with a number of Russian cities, including Voronezh and Saratov. The Russian government finally decided to keep a university in Warsaw, but as a result of the boycott, the university was Russian not only in the sense of the language used, but also of the nationality of its professors and students.

For the second time the question emerged during the First World War, when the military and political situation forced the Russian authorities to evacuate. Beginning from the autumn of 1915, there were two Universities of Warsaw: one Polish, in Warsaw, and another Russian, in Rostov-on-Don which functioned until 1917. On 5 May 1917 the Russian Provisional Government decided to close the University of Warsaw. The decision took effect on 1 July 1917; on the same day, the University of the Don, now called Rostov State University (Southern Federal University since 2006), was inaugurated.

During World War I Warsaw was seized by Germany in 1915. In order to win the Poles for their case and secure the Polish area behind the front lines the governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary allowed for a certain liberalization of life in Poland. In accordance with the concept of Mitteleuropa, German military authorities permitted several Polish social and educational societies to be recreated. One of these was Warsaw University. The Polish language was reintroduced, and the professors were allowed to return to work. In order not to let the Polish patriotic movement out of control the number of lecturers was kept low (usually not more than 50), but there were no limits on the number of students. Until 1918 their number rose from a mere 1,000 to over 4,500.