page_title: Vilnius University
section_title: 1918-1939
hierarchical_section_title: Vilnius University / History / History by period / 1918-1939
caption_attribution_description: Lietuvių: VU bibliotekos Smuglevičiaus salė
context_page_description: Vilnius University is the oldest university in the Baltic states, one of the oldest and most famous in Central Europe, preceded only by the universities of Prague, Kraków, Pécs, Budapest, Bratislava and Königsberg. Today it is the largest university in Lithuania.
  The university was founded in 1579 as the Jesuit Academy of Vilnius by Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, Stephen Báthory. It was the third oldest university in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the aftermath of the Third Partition of Poland and the November Uprising, the university was closed down and suspended its operation until 1919. In the aftermath of World War I the university saw failed attempts to restart it by Lithuania and invading Soviet forces. It finally resumed operations as Stefan Batory University in Poland, a period followed by another Soviet occupation in 1920, and the less than two-years of the Republic of Central Lithuania, incorporated into Poland in 1922.
context_section_description: Lithuania declared its independence in February 1918. The university, with the rest of Vilnius and Lithuania, was opened three times between 1918 and 1919. The Lithuanian National Council re-established it in December 1918, with classes to start on January 1, 1919. An invasion by the Red Army interrupted this plan. A Lithuanian communist, Vincas Kapsukas-Mickevičius, then sponsored a plan to re-open it as "Labor University" in March 1919 in the short-lived Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (later, Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic), but the city was taken by Poland in April 1919. Marshall Józef Piłsudski reopened it as Stefan Batory University (Uniwersytet Stefana Batorego) on August 28, 1919. The city would fall to the Soviets again in 1920, who transferred it to the Lithuanian state after their defeat in the battle of Warsaw. Finally, in the aftermath of the Żeligowski's Mutiny and 1922 Republic of Central Lithuania general election, the Vilnius Region was subsequently annexed by Poland. In response to the dispute over the region, many Lithuanian scholars moved to Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, the interwar capital.
  The university quickly recovered and gained international prestige, largely because of the presence of notable scientists such as Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Zdziechowski, and Henryk Niewodniczański. Among the students of the university at that time was future Nobel prize winner Czesław Miłosz. The university  grew quickly, thanks to government grants and private donations. Its library contained 600,000 volumes, including historic and cartographic items which are still in its possession.
  In 1938 the university had:
  7 institutes
  123 professors
  104 scientific units (including two hospitals)
  3110 students
  The university's international students included 212 Russians, 94 Belarusians, 85 Lithuanians, 28 Ukrainians and 13 Germans. Anti-Semitism increased during the 1930s and a system of ghetto benches, in which Jewish students were required to sit in separate areas, was instituted at the university. Violence erupted; the university was closed for two weeks during January 1937. In February Jewish students were denied entrance to its grounds. The faculty was then authorized to decide on an individual basis whether the segregation should be observed in their classrooms and expel those students who would not comply. 54 Jewish students were expelled but were allowed to return the next day under a compromise in which in addition to Jewish students, Lithuanian, Belarusian, and "Polish democratic" students were to be seated separately. Rector of the university, Władysław Marian Jakowicki, resigned his position in protest over the introduction of the ghetto benches.
caption: P. Smuglevičius hall in the Vilnius University Library.
exif: {"Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 30D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Photo Professional", "Image DateTime": "2007:08:16 15:49:58", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Tag 0x8649": "[]", "Image ExifOffset": "172", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "25628", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9476", "EXIF ExposureTime": "3/10", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:08:16 14:20:17", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:08:16 14:20:17", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "56917/32768", "EXIF ApertureValue": "453435/65536", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "17", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1142", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "761", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}