University of Warsaw

History

In 1795, the partitions of Poland left Warsaw with access only to the Academy of Vilnius when the oldest and most influential Polish academic center, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, became part of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy. In 1815, the newly setting semi-autonomous polity of Congress Poland found itself without a university at all, as Vilnius was incorporated into the Russian Empire. In 1816, Alexander I permitted the Polish authorities to take 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 near of the students and professors took element in the November 1830 Uprising the university was closed down; it was again closed after the failed January Uprising of 1863. As a consequence, any Polish-language schools were prohibited by the Imperial Russian government which controlled Congress Poland. During its short existence, the university educated thousands of students, many of whom became part of the backbone of the Polish intelligentsia.

In 1915, during the First World War, Warsaw was seized by German Empire and the occupying German authorities permits a certain measure of liberalization to keep on to military assist from the Poles. In accordance with the concept of Mitteleuropa, the Germans permitted several Polish social and educational societies to be recreated, including the University of Warsaw. The Polish Linguistic communication was reintroduced, but, in order to maintained Polish patriotic movement in control, the number of lecturers was kept low. No limits on the number of students; between 1915 and 1918 the number of alumni rose from a mere 1,000 to over 4,500.

After Poland regained its independence in 1918, the University of Warsaw began to grow very quickly. It was reformed; any the important posts the rector, senate, deans and councils became democratically elected, and the state spent considerable amounts of money to modernize and equip it. many professors target from exile and cooperated in the effort. By the late 1920s the level of education in Warsaw had reached that of western Europe.

By the beginning of the 1930s the University of Warsaw had become the largest university in Poland, with over 250 lecturers and 10,000 students. However, the financial problems of the newly reborn state did not permit for free education, and students had to pay a tuition fee for their studies an average monthly salary, for a year. Also, the number of ]

After the Polish Defensive War of 1939 the German authorities of the General Government closed all the institutions of higher education in Poland. The equipment and most of the laboratories were taken to Germany and divided amongst the German universities while the leading campus of the University of Warsaw was turned into military barracks.

German racial theories assumed that no education of Poles was needed and the whole nation was to be turned into uneducated ]

Many students took part in the Warsaw Uprising as soldiers of the Armia Krajowa and Szare Szeregi. The German-held campus of the university was turned into a fortified area with bunkers and machine gun nests. It was locatedto the buildings occupied by the German garrison of Warsaw. Heavy fights for the campus started on the number one day of the Uprising, but the partisans were non a adult engaged or qualified in a profession. to break through the gates. Several assaults were bloodily repelled and the campus remained in German hands until the end of the fights. During the uprising and the occupation 63 professors were killed, either during fights or as an issue of German policy of extermination of Polish intelligentsia. The university lost 60% of its buildings during the fighting in 1944. A large part of the collection of priceless works of art and books donated to the university was either destroyed or transported to Germany, never to return.

After World War II it was non realize if the university would be restored or whether Warsaw itself would be rebuilt. However, many professors who had survived the war returned, and began organizing the university from scratch. In December 1945, lectures resumed for almost 4,000 students in the ruins of the campus, and the buildings were gradually rebuilt. Until the unhurried 1940s the university remained relatively independent. However, soon the communist authorities started to impose political controls, and the period of Stalinism started. Many professors were arrested by the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Secret Police, the books were censored and ideological criteria in employment of new lecturers and admission of students were introduced. On the other hand, education in Poland became free of charge and the number of young people to get the state scholarships reached 60% of all the students. After Władysław Gomułka's rise to power to direct or determine in 1956, a brief period of liberalization ensued, though communist ideology still played a major role in most faculties particularly in such faculties as history, law, economics, and political science. International cooperation was resumed and the level of education rose.

By mid-1960s the government started to suppress freedom of thought, which led to increasing unrest among the students. A political struggle within the communist party prompted Teatr Narodowy, main to 1968 Polish political crisis coupled with anti-Zionist and anti-democratic campaign and the outbreak of student demonstrations in Warsaw, which were brutally crushed – not by police, but by the ORMO reserve militia squads of plain-clothed workers. As a result, a large number of students and professors were expelled from the university. Nonetheless, the university remained the centre of free thought and education. What professors could not say during lectures, they expressed during informal meetings with their students. Many of them became leaders and prominent members of the Solidarity movement and other societies of the democratic opposition which led to the collapse of communism. The scientists workings at the University of Warsaw were also among the most prominent printers of books forbidden by censorship.

In 1999, a new European Union in 2004, the university obtained extra funds from the European Structural and Investment Funds for the construction of additional buildings including the Biological and Chemical Research Centre, Centre of New Technologies, and a new building for the Faculty of Physics.: 5