Former underground educational enterprise in Warsaw, Poland
The Flying University (Polish: Uniwersytet Latający, less often translated as "Floating University") was an underground educational[1] enterprise[2] that operated from 1885 to 1905 in Warsaw, the historic Polish capital, then under the control of the Russian Empire, and that was revived between 1977 and 1981 in the communist People's Republic of Poland.
The purpose of Flying University and similar institutions was to provide Polish youth with an opportunity for an education within the framework of traditional Polish scholarship when that collided with the ideology of the governing authorities. In the 19th century, such underground institutions were important in the national effort to resist Germanization under Prussian and Russification under Russian occupation.[3] In the People's Republic of Poland, the Flying University provided educational opportunities outside government censorship and control of education.[4]
After the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was partitioned in the late-18th century, its lands were divided among its neighbors: Imperial Russia, Prussia and Austria's Habsburg monarchy (which seven decades later became part of Austro-Hungary). Warsaw, the historic Polish capital, fell under Russian control. In the Russian and Prussian partitions the situation of Poles progressively worsened.[3] Particularly in the Russian sector, the initially moderate ethnic policies were revised in the aftermath of the Polish revolts aimed at overthrowing Russian control, the November Uprising (1830–1831) and the January Uprising (1863–1864). Following the defeats of the uprising the autonomy of the Congress Poland was initially limited (1831) and finally abolished (1865).
Among the increasing policies of Germanization and Russification, it became increasingly difficult for Poles to obtain a Polish higher education.[3] Also, the higher education opportunities for women that existed in the Russian Empire were severely limited,[5] and teaching or research into some fields, like Polish language, CatholicismorPolish history, ranged from difficult to illegal.[3][6][7]
As a response to such policies,[3][8] and inspired by the Polish positivism movement,[9] secret courses began in 1882 in private houses in Warsaw. At first it was a series of conspiratorial education courses for women, and among the first teachers were Józef Siemaszko, Stanisław Norblin, Piotr Chmielowski and Władysław Smoleński. In 1885 transformed due to the efforts of one of the students, Jadwiga Szczawińska[10] (also known as Zofia Szczawińska[11]), the various pro-education groups were united into a single, informal, and illegal, secret university open for both sexes[10] known as the Flying University (the courses, spread throughout the city, often changed locations to prevent the Russian authorities from learning the location and arresting the teachers and students[10][11]). The fees (2–4 rubles per month) were used as honoraria for the teachers and to create a secret library. The curriculum of the Flying University extended over 5–6 years with 8–11 hours per week and was divided into four main subjects: social sciences, pedagogy, philology and history, and natural sciences.
During the twenty years of the existence of the university, its courses were attended by approximately 5,000 women and men.[9] Among the most famous of its students was the future Nobel Prize winner, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, more commonly known as Madame Curie.[3][13] Other well known students included Zofia Nałkowska and Janusz Korczak.[10]
Around 1905–1906 the Flying University was able to start legal activities, and was transformed into the Society of Science Courses (Towarzystwo Kursów Naukowych),[13] as Poland's partitioners, anticipating the First World War, sought to convert the Poles to their cause.[3] Around 1918–1919, after Poland regained independence (as the Second Polish Republic), the Association was transformed into the private university, Free Polish University (Wolna Wszechnica Polska).[13] In 1927 it founded a branch in Łódź.
After the Second World War, the Wolna Wszechnica Polska was not immediately recreated in Warsaw, although its branch in Łódź served as the foundation for the University of Łódź.
Many participants of this second flying university were abused by milicja, with common incidents like a prominent dissident, Jacek Kuroń, being thrown down the stairs or his apartment ransacked by milicja-supported thugs; despite this, the Flying University was active until the imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981, which, although designed to destroy the Solidarity movement, stifled the flying university's activities too.
