The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (
Ukrainian: Львівський національний університет імені Івана Франка,
romanized: Lvivskyi natsionalnyi universytet imeni Ivana Franka) is a public university in
Lviv,
Ukraine.
The university is the oldest institution[citation needed] of higher learning in continuous operation in present-day
Ukraine, dating from 1661 when
John II Casimir,
King of Poland, granted it its first royal charter. Over the centuries, it has undergone various transformations, suspensions, and name changes that have reflected the geopolitical complexities of this part of
Europe. The present institution can be dated to 1940. It is located in the historic city of Lviv in
Lviv Oblast of
Western Ukraine.
History
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The university was founded on 20 January 1661, when King
John II Casimir in Polish Jan II Kazimierz Waza of Poland granted a charter to the city's
Jesuit Collegium, founded in 1608, giving it "the honor of an academy and the title of a university". In 1589, the Jesuits had tried to found a university earlier, but did not succeed. Establishing another seat of learning in the
Kingdom of Poland was seen as a threat by the authorities of
Kraków's
Jagiellonian University, which did not want a rival and stymied the Jesuits' plans for the following years.
According to the
Treaty of Hadiach (1658), an
OrthodoxRuthenian academy was to be created in
Kyiv and another one in an unspecified location. The Jesuits suspected that it would be established in Lwów/Lviv on the foundations of the
Orthodox Brotherhood's school, and used this as a pretext for obtaining a royal mandate that elevated their college to the status of an academy (no city could have two academies).[5][6] King John II Casimir was a supporter of the Jesuits and his stance was crucial. The original royal charter was subsequently confirmed by another decree issued in
Częstochowa on 5 February 1661.
In 1772, the city of Lwów was annexed by
Austria (see:
Partitions of Poland). Its German name was
Lemberg and hence that of the university. In 1773 the
Suppression of the Society of Jesus by Rome (
Dominus ac Redemptor) was soon followed by the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which meant that the university was excluded from the
Commission of National Education reform. It was renamed Theresianum by the Austrians, i.e. a State Academy. On 21 October 1784, the Austrian Emperor
Joseph II signed an act of foundation of a secular university.[7] He began to Germanise the institution by bringing German-speaking professors from various parts of the empire. The university now had four faculties. To theology and philosophy were added those of
law and
medicine. Latin was the official language of the university, with Polish and German as auxiliary. Literary Slaveno-Rusyn (Ruthenian/Ukrainian) of the period had been used in the Studium Ruthenium (1787–1809), a special institute of the university for educating candidates for the Uniate (Greek-Catholic) priesthood.[8]
In 1805, the university was closed, as Austria, then involved in the
Napoleonic wars, did not have sufficient funds to support it. Instead, it operated as a high school. The university was reopened in 1817.[7] Officially Vienna described it as an "act of mercy", but the actual reasons were different. The Austrian government was aware of the pro-Polish stance of the Russian Emperor
Alexander I and the Austrians wanted to challenge it. However, the quality of the university's education was not considered high. Latin was replaced by German and most professors were regarded as ''mediocre''. The few good ones regarded their stay in Lemberg as a springboard to other centres.[citation needed]
In 1848, when the pan-European revolution reached Lemberg (see:
Revolutions of 1848), students of the university created two organizations: "The Academic Legion" and "the Academic Committee" both of which demanded that the university be
Polonized. The government in Vienna answered with force, and on 2 November 1848, the centre of the city was shelled by the troops led by General Hammerstein striking the buildings of the university, especially its library. A curfew was called and the university was temporarily closed. Major demand for Ukrainians was the education of teachers and promotion of Ukrainian culture through Ukrainian courses at the university and to this end, a committee for the Defense of Ukrainian Education was created.[9]: 58
It was reopened in January 1850, with only limited autonomy. After a few years the Austrians relented and on 4 July[citation needed] 1871 Vienna declared Polish and Ruthenian (Ukrainian) as the official languages at the university.[10] Eight years later this was changed. The Austrian authorities declared Polish as the main teaching medium with Ruthenian and German as auxiliary. Examinations in the two latter languages were possible as long as the professors used them. This move created unrest among the Ruthenians (Ukrainians), who were demanding equal rights. In 1908, a Ruthenian student of the philosophy faculty,
Miroslaw Siczynski, had assassinated the Polish governor of
Galicia,
Andrzej Kazimierz Potocki [
pl].[citation needed]
In the 1870s,
Ivan Franko studied at Lemberg University. He entered world history as a well-known Ukrainian scholar, public figure, writer, and translator. In 1894, the newly founded Chair of World History and the History of Eastern Europe was headed by Professor
Mykhailo Hrushevskyi (1866–1934), an outstanding scholar of Ukrainian History, founder of the Ukrainian Historical School, and author of the ten-volume "History of Ukraine-Rus'", hundreds of works on History, History of Literature, Historiography, and Source Studies. In 1904, a special summer course in Ukrainian studies was organized in Lviv, primarily for Eastern Ukrainian students.[9]: 124
The number of students grew from 1,732 in 1897 to 3,582 in 1906. Poles made up around 75% of the students, Ukrainians 20%, other nationalities 5%.[6]
In mid-December 1910, Ukrainian women students at Lviv University established a Student Union's women's branch, their twenty members meeting regularly to discuss current affairs. In July 1912, they met with their Jewish counterpart branch to discuss the representation of women in the student body of the university.[9]: 64
Second Polish Republic
During the Interbellum period, the region was part of the
Second Polish Republic and the university was known as "Jan Kazimierz University"[6][11] (
Polish: Uniwersytet Jana Kazimierza), in honor of its founder, King
John II Casimir Vasa. The decision to name the school after the king was taken by the government of Poland on 22 November 1919.[12]
In 1920, the university was rehoused by the Polish government in the building formerly used by the
Sejm of the Land,[12] which has since been the university's main location. Its first
rector during the Second Polish Republic was the famous poet,
Jan Kasprowicz.
The university's library acquired, among others, the collection of
Witold Kazimierz Czartoryski [
pl] and 1,300 old Polish books from the 16th and 17th century, previously belonging to Józef Koziebrodzki. By September 1939, it expanded to 420,000 volumes, including 1,300
manuscripts, 3,000 diplomas and
incunables, and possessed 14,000
numismatic items.[16]
In 1924 the Philosophy Faculty was divided into
Humanities and Mathematics and Biology Departments, thus there were now five faculties. In the 1934/35 academic year, the breakdown of the student body was as follows:
Theology – 222 students
Law – 2,978 students
Medicine – 638 students (together with the Pharmaceutical Section, which had 263 students)
Humanities – 892 students
Mathematics and Biology – 870 students
Altogether, during the academic year 1934/35, there were 5900 students at the university, consisting by religious observance of:
Ukrainian professors were required to take a formal oath of allegiance to Poland; most of them refused and left the university in the early 1920s. The principle of "
Numerus clausus" had been introduced after which Ukrainian applicants were discriminated against – Ukrainian applications were capped at 15% of the intake, whereas Poles enjoyed a 50% quota at the time.[17]
World War II
After the German
invasion of Poland and the
accompanying Soviet invasion in September 1939, the
Soviet administration permitted classes to continue. Initially, the school worked in the pre-war Polish system.[13] On 18 October, however, the Polish rector, Professor
Roman Longchamps de Bérier, was dismissed and replaced by
Mykhailo Marchenko [
uk], a Ukrainian historian transferred from the
Institute of Ukrainian History in
Kyiv,[13][18] grandfather of Ukrainian journalist and dissident
Valeriy Marchenko.
His role was to
Ukrainize and
Sovietize the university.[19][13] At the beginning of January 1940, the official name of the university was changed to Ivan Franko Lviv State University.[13] Ukrainian was introduced as the language of instruction.[20] Polish professors and administrative assistants were increasingly fired[13][18] and replaced by cadres specializing in
Marxism,
Leninism,
political economics, as well as
Ukrainian and Soviet literature, history, and geography. This was accompanied by the closure of departments seen as related to religion, free-market economics, capitalism, or
the West in general. All academics specializing in Polish geography, literature, and history were dismissed.[13] Marchenko was released from his post in Spring 1940 and arrested in June 1941.[18] From 1939 to 1941, the Soviets killed 17 and imprisoned 37 academics from the University of Jan Kazimierz.[13]
After Lviv was
occupied by the Nazi Germany in June 1941, the Germans closed the University of Ivan Franko[13] and
killed over 20 Polish professors (as well as members of their households and guests, increasing the total number of victims to above forty).[13][21][22] The victims included lecturers from the University of Lviv and other local academic institutions. Among the killed was the last rector of the University of Jan Kazimierz, Roman Longchamps de Berier, his three sons,[13] and the former Polish prime minister and a
polytechnic professor,
Kazimierz Bartel.[23][a] The underground University of Jan Kazimierz was established in Autumn 1941.[13]
In the summer of 1944, the advancing
Red Army, assisted by the Polish
Home Army forces (locally implementing
Operation Tempest), pushed the
Wehrmacht out of Lviv.[24][25] and the university reopened.[7] Due to
post-war border changes, the Polish population of the city was
expelled[26][27] and most of Polish academics from the University of Jan Kazimierz relocated to Wrocław (former
Breslau), where they filled positions in the newly established Polish institutions of higher learning.[28][29] The buildings of the university had survived the war undestroyed, however, 80% of its pre-war student and academic body was gone.[30] The traditions of Jan Kazimierz University have been duplicated at the
University of Wrocław, which replaced the pre-war University of Breslau after the German inhabitants of that city had been
expelled following Stalin's establishing Germany's eastern border farther to the west.
Ukrainian SSR
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adding to it. (May 2021)
In 1964, a monument dedicated to Ivan Franko was built in front of the university.[31]
Independent Ukraine
The
proclamation of the independence of Ukraine in 1991 brought about radical changes in every sphere of university life.[7] Professor, Doctor
Ivan Vakarchuk, a renowned scholar in the field of theoretical physics, was rector of the university from 1990 to 2013. Meeting the requirements arising in recent years new faculties and departments have been set up: the Faculty of International Relations and the Faculty of Philosophy (1992), the Faculty of Pre-Entrance University Preparation (1997), the Chair of Translation Studies and Comparative Linguistics (1998). Since 1997 the following new units have come into existence within the teaching and research framework of the university: the Law College, The Humanities Centre, The Institute of Literature Studies, The Italian Language and Culture Resource Centre. The teaching staff of the university has increased amounting to 981, with scholarly degrees awarded to over two-thirds of the entire teaching staff. There are over one hundred laboratories and working units as well as the Computing Centre functioning here. The Zoological, Geological, Mineralogical Museums together with those of Numismatics, Sphragistics, and Archeology are stimulating the interests of students.[17]
Faculties
Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Informatics[32]
First Vice-Rector Andriy Gukalyuk, Candidate of
Economic Sciences, Associate Professor;
Vice-Rector for Research Roman Hladyshevsky, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of
Chemical Sciences, Professor;
Vice-rector for scientific and pedagogical work and social issues and development Volodymyr Kachmar, Candidate of
Historical Sciences, Associate Professor;
Vice-rector for scientific and pedagogical work and informatization Vitaliy Kukharsky, Candidate of
Physical and
Mathematical Sciences, Associate Professor;
Vice-rector for administrative and economic work Vasyl Kurlyak, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Associate Professor.[64]
International cooperation
During 2016–2017, the university signed 15 cooperation agreements and two double degree agreements, two agreements were extended. In total, 147 agreements have been signed with higher education institutions from 38 countries.
Students of the faculty of Geography, History and the faculty of International Relations undergo internships in Poland,
Germany,
Austria,
Hungary, the
Czech Republic, and
Slovakia. Employees of the faculty of Mechanics, Mathematics, Philology, Chemistry, Faculty of International Relations and Applied Mathematics and Informatics worked in higher education institutions in Poland,
Colombia,
France,
Switzerland, and Austria on a contract basis. Many graduates continue their studies in higher education institutions in the
United States, Poland, Germany, Austria,
Britain, and France. In 2016, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv held 5 international
summer schools.
An agreement has been signed with
CrossRef, which allows the DOI to be assigned to university publications. The university, with the financial support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, has a national contact point of the
EU Framework Program "Horizon 2020" in the thematic areas "Future and latest technologies" and "Inclusive, innovative and smart society".
Notable alumni
Roman Aftanazy (1914–2004), historian of culture, librarian, heritage rescuer
Hersch Lauterpacht (1897–1960), lawyer and Developer of the legal concept of "Crimes Against Humanity" in the Nuremberg Trials and writer of "An International Bill of the Rights of Man"
Stefania Turkewich (1898–1977), Ukrainian composer, pianist, and musicologist
Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) He participated in the
Manhattan Project, originated the Teller–Ulam design of thermonuclear weapons, discovered the concept of the cellular automaton, invented the Monte Carlo method of computation, and suggested nuclear pulse propulsion.
Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1866–1934) - historian, organizer of scholarship, leader of the pre-revolution Ukrainian national movement, head of Ukraine's parliament, first
president of Ukraine, who wrote an academic book titled: "Bar Starostvo: Historical Notes: XV-XVIII" about the history of
Bar, Ukraine.[65]
Jakub Karol Parnas (1884–1949) - (Russian: Яков Оскарович Парнас or Yakov Oskarovich Parnas). A Jewish-Polish–Soviet biochemist author of notable studies on carbohydrates metabolism in mammals. Glycolysis, a major metabolic mechanism, is universally named Embden-Meyerhoff-Parnas pathway after him.
János Bolyai (1802–1860) The founder of noneuclidean (absolute) geometry. The highest figure of
Hungarian mathematics worked at the University of Lviv from 1831 to 1832.
^The extent to which Ukrainian nationalists may have been involved in identifying and selecting some of the victims is still a matter of debate, as Polish historian
Adam Redzik wrote, while a group of Ukrainian nationalist students most likely helped to prepare the lists of Polish academics, it is unlikely they expected or knew about their intended purposes (i.e., the executions).[13]
^Isaievych, Iaroslav (2006). Voluntary Brotherhood: Confraternities of Laymen in Early Modern Ukraine. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. p. 153.
^
abcdWoleński, Jan (1997). "Lvov". In Poli, Roberto (ed.). In Itinere: European Cities and the Birth of Modern Scientific Philosophy. Rodopi. pp. 163, 165.
^Magocsi, Paul R. A history of Ukraine: the land and its peoples. University of Toronto Press, 2010. Pg. 425.
^
abcBohachevsky-Chomiak, Martha. Feminists Despite Themselves: Women in Ukrainian Community Life, 1884-1939. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1988.
^Strauss, Johann. "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire" (Chapter 7). In: Murphey, Rhoads (editor). Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule (Volume 18 of Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies). Routledge, 7 July 2016.
ISBN1317118448, 9781317118442.
Google BooksPT196.
^Dębiński, Antoni; Pyter, Magdalena (2013). "The role of Jan Kazimierz University in the process of development of legal studies at the Catholic University of Lublin (1918–1939)". Visnyk of the Lviv University. Series History. 49: 147.
^
abcCiara, Stefan (2011). "De Universitate Leopoliensi eiusque tabulario brevis expositio". The Lviv University Archives (until 1939)". Biuletyn Polskiej Misji Historycznej (6): 111.
ISSN2083-7755.
^Allen Kent; Harold Lancour; William Z. Nasri (1968). Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Vol. 23. M. Dekker. p. 31.
ISBN978-0-8247-2023-0.
^Amar, Tarik Cyril (2015). The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv: A Borderland City between Stalinists, Nazis, and Nationalists.
Cornell University Press. p. 20.
ISBN978-0801453915.
^Service, Hugo (2013). Germans to Poles: Communism, Nationalism and Ethnic Cleansing after the Second World War (New Studies in European History).
Cambridge University Press. pp. 314–315.
ISBN978-1107671485.
^Dobosh, Elena (2016). "Universities with multicultural disrupted past: what meanings current students attribute to them?". Journal of Education Culture and Society (2): 34–35.
ISSN2081-1640.
^
ab"Проректори". Львівський національний університет імені Івана Франка (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 6 April 2021.
^Hrushevsky, M., Bar Starostvo: Historical Notes: XV-XVIII, St. Vladimir University Publishing House, Bol'shaya-Vasil'kovskaya, Building no. 29–31, Kiev, Ukraine, 1894; Lviv, Ukraine,
ISBN5-12-004335-6, pp. 1 – 623, 1996.
Literature
Academia Militans. Uniwersytet Jana Kazimierza we Lwowie, red. Adam Redzik, Kraków 2015, ss. 1302.
Ludwik Finkel, Starzyński Stanisław, Historya Uniwersytetu Lwowskiego, Lwów 1894.
Franciszek Jaworski, Uniwersytet Lwowski. Wspomnienie jubileuszowe, Lwów 1912.
Adam Redzik, Wydział Prawa Uniwersytetu Lwowskiego w latach 1939–1946, Lublin 2006
Adam Redzik, Prawo prywatne na Uniwersytecie Jana Kazimierza we Lwowie, Warszawa 2009.
Józef Wołczański, Wydział Teologiczny Uniwersytetu Jana Kazimierza 1918–1939, Kraków 2000.
Universitati Leopoliensi, Trecentesimum Quinquagesimum Anniversarium Suae Fundationis Celebranti. In Memoriam. Praca zbiorowa. Polska Akademia Umiejętności, Kraków 2011,
ISBN978-83-7676-084-1