Uniwersytet Stefana Batorego w Wilnie ośrodkiem kształcenia inteligencji na północno-wschodnich obszarach II Rzeczypospolitej

ENFrom the end of the sixteenth century, Wilno was an academic centre. In the nineteenth century, as a result of a policy of repression carried out by the Tsarist authorities, the university was closed and then liquidated, along with other institutions teaching at a higher level. In the years 1918-1919, the Polish community of Wilno, supported by the reborn Polish state, began to organize the reactivation of the university. Throughout the interwar period, the university, which was named after Stefan Batory, was the principal centre for higher education in the north-eastern areas of the Polish state. Its students were made up of young people coming mainly from the north-eastern parts of the Republic, and were diverse in terms of nationality and confession. The university in Wilno was the smallest among the five functioning state universities in Poland, both as regards its scholarly-scientific possibilities and teaching staff, and the number of students studying there. In the 1930s, under the influence of growing anti-Semitism, the percentage of students of Jewish origin also began to decrease at the Wilno institution. This decline was not compensated for by an increased influx of young persons of Polish background. Among the outstanding graduates of the university was Czeslaw Miłosz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. [From the publication]