Story
The story of University of Warsaw
Poland's largest university was born out of necessity. After the partitions, Warsaw was left without a university, so in 1816 Tsar Alexander I allowed the Polish authorities to create one, and it was established on 19 November 1816 with five faculties.
It soon had 800 students and 50 professors. Because most of them took part in the November Uprising of 1830, the Russians closed it, and it was closed again after the January Uprising of 1863. During the Second World War, when the Germans shut all Polish universities, professors organised the Secret University of Warsaw, teaching small groups in private flats at the risk of their lives; by 1944 more than 300 lecturers and 3,500 students were taking part.
Many students fought in the Warsaw Uprising. Among the university's alumni are Frédéric Chopin, L. L. Zamenhof, Alfred Tarski, Wacław Sierpiński, and the Nobel prize winners Joseph Rotblat and Olga Tokarczuk.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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