University of Wrocław
The University of Wrocław (UWr; ) is a public research university located in Wrocław, Poland. It is the largest institution of higher learning in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship with over 100,000 graduates since 1945, including some 1,900 researchers among whom many received the highest awards for their contribution to the development of scientific scholarship. Renowned for its relatively high quality of teaching, it was placed 44th on the QS University Rankings: EECA 2016, and is situated in the same campus as the former University of Breslau, which produced 9 Nobel Prize winners. It was founded in 1945, replacing  the previous German University of Breslau. Following the territorial changes of Poland's borders, academics primarily from the Jan Kazimierz University of Lwów restored the university building heavily damaged and split as a result of the 1945 Battle of Breslau. History. Leopoldina. The oldest mention of a university in Wrocław comes from the foundation deed signed on 20 July 1505 by King Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary (also known as Władysław Jagiellończyk) for the "Generale litterarum Gymnasium" in Wrocław. However, the new academic institution requested by the town council wasn't built because the King's deed was rejected  by Pope Julius II for political reasons. Also, the numerous wars and opposition from the Cracow Academy might have played a role. The first successful founding deed known as the "Aurea bulla fundationis Universitatis Wratislaviensis" was signed two centuries later, on 1 October 1702, by the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I of the House of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia. The predecessor facilities, which existed since 1638, were converted into Jesuit school, and finally, upon instigation of the Jesuits and with the support of the Silesian Oberamtsrat (Second Secretary) Johannes Adrian von Plencken, donated as a university in 1702  by Emperor Leopold I as a School of Philosophy and Catholic Theology with the designated name Leopoldina. On 15 November 1702, the university opened. Johannes Adrian von Plencken also became chancellor of the University. As a Catholic institute in Protestant Breslau, the new university was an important instrument of the Counter-Reformation in Silesia. After Silesia passed to Prussia, the university lost its ideological character but remained a religious institution for the education of Catholic clergy in Prussia. Silesian Friedrich Wilhelm University in Breslau. After the defeat of Prussia by Napoleon and the subsequent reorganisation of the Prussian state, the  academy was merged on 3 August 1811 with the Protestant Viadrina University, previously located in Frankfurt (Oder), and re-established in Breslau as the Königliche Universität zu Breslau – Universitas litterarum Vratislaviensis (in 1911 named the Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau, to honour the founder Frederick William III of Prussia). At first, the conjoint academy had five faculties: philosophy, medicine, law, Protestant theology, and Catholic theology. Connected with the university were three theological seminars, a philological seminar, a seminar for German Philology, another seminar for Romanic and English philology, an historical seminar, a mathematical-physical one, a legal state seminar , and a scientific seminar. From 1842, the University also had a chair of Slavic Studies. The University had twelve different scientific institutes, six clinical centers, and three collections. An agricultural institute with ten teachers and forty-four students, comprising a chemical veterinary institute, a veterinary institute, and a technological institute, was added to the university in 1881. In 1884, the university had 1,481 students in attendance, with a faculty numbering 131. The library in 1885 consisted of approximately 400,000 works, including about 2,400 incunabula, approximately 250 Aldines, and 2840 manuscripts. These volumes came from the libraries of the former universities  of Frankfurt and Breslau and from disestablished monasteries, and also included the oriental collections of the Bibliotheca Habichtiana and the academic "Leseinstitut". In addition, the university owned an observatory; a five-hectare botanical garden; a botanical museum and a zoological garden founded in 1862 by a joint-stock company; a natural history museum; zoological, chemical, and physical collections; the chemical laboratory; the physiological plant; a mineralogical institute; an anatomical institute; clinical laboratories; a gallery (mostly from churches, monasteries, etc.) full of old German works; the museum of Silesian antiquities; and the state archives of Silesia. In the late 19th century , numerous internationally renowned and historically notable scholars lectured at the University of Breslau, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Ferdinand Cohn, and Gustav Kirchhoff among them. In 1817, Poles made up around 16% of the student body. At the end of the 19th century around 10% of the students were Polish and 16% were Jewish. This situation reflected the multi ethnic and international character of the University. Both minorities, as well as the German students, established their own student organisations, called "Burschenschaften". Polish student organisations included Concordia, Polonia, and a branch of the Sokol association. Many of the students came from other  areas of partitioned Poland. The Jewish students unions were the Viadrina (founded 1886) and the Student Union (1899). "Teutonia", a German Burschenschaft founded in 1817, was actually one of the oldest student fraternities in Germany, founded only two years after the Urburschenschaft. The Polish fraternities were all eventually disbanded by the German professor Felix Dahn, and in 1913 Prussian authorities established a numerus clausus law that limited the number of Jews from non-German Eastern Europe (so called "Ostjuden") that could study in Germany to at most 900. The University of Breslau was allowed to take 100. As Germany turned  to Nazism, the university became influenced by Nazi ideology. Polish students were beaten by NSDAP members just for speaking Polish. In 1939, all Polish students were expelled and an official university declaration stated, "We are deeply convinced that [another] Polish foot will never cross the threshold of this German university". In that same year, German scholars from the university worked on a scholarly thesis of historical justification for a "plan of mass deportation in Eastern territories"; among the people involved was Walter Kuhn, a specialist of Ostforschung. Other projects during World War II involved creating evidence to justify German annexation  of Polish territories, and presenting Kraków and Lublin as German cities. In January 2015, the university restored 262 PhD degrees stripped during the Nazi period from Jews and other scholars seen as hostile to the Nazis. University of Wrocław. After the Siege of Breslau, the Soviet Red Army took the city in May 1945. Breslau, now known as Wrocław, became part of the Republic of Poland. The first Polish team of academics arrived in Wrocław in late May 1945 and took custody of the university buildings, which were 70% destroyed. Parts of the collection of the university library were lost  during the Red Army's advance in 1945, burned by soldiers on 10 May 1945, four days after the German garrison surrendered the city. Very quickly some buildings were repaired, and a cadre of professors was built up, many coming from prewar Polish Jan Kazimierz University of Lwów and Stefan Batory University of Wilno. Following postwar border shifts, thousands of former employees of the Lwów Library, the Jan Kazimierz University and the Ossolineum Institute moved to the city. In mid-1948, over 60% of professors at the Wrocław University and Polytechnic were from Kresy, with scholars from prewar Lwów being particularly  prominent. Stanisław Kulczyński from the University of Lwów became the first president of the two Polish universities in Wrocław, while Edward Sucharda from the Lwów Polytechnic was the vice-president. The University of Wrocław was refounded as a Polish state university by the decree of the State National Council issued on 24 August 1945. The first lecture was given on 15 November 1945, by Ludwik Hirszfeld. Between 1952 and 1989 the university was named Bolesław Bierut University of Wrocław (Polish: "Uniwersytet Wrocławski im. Bolesława Bieruta") after Bolesław Bierut, President of the Republic of Poland (1947–52). In 2015, nearly 80  years after the fact, the university restored academic degrees stripped from German Jews by the Nazis owing to German anti-Semitism. "Wroclaw University estimates that in total some 262 people suffered a similar fate." Faculties. There are 10 faculties that provide 44 areas of study, in which the language medium is mostly in Polish, with only some in English. The University of Wrocław provides Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral level programmes. All of the degree certificates awarded by UWr are recognised globally.