Polityczny aspekt walki o autonomię Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w czasach Wolnego Miasta Krakowa
The political aspect of the struggle for the autonomy of the Jagiellonian University at the time of the Free City of Crakow

Summary/Abstract: The conflict about the autonomy of the Jagiellonian University dominated the first period of existence of the Free City of Crakow. In the local dimension this conflict became a part of the power struggle between the governing conservative party of the nobility on the one hand and the liberal bourgeois opposition on the other hand. In the broader dimension this struggle included the Republic of Crakow in the pan-European clash between the backward ideas of the Holy Alliance, represented by the three occupying powers Austria, Prussia and Russia, and the libertarian and liberal forces trying to strain the post -Congress order. The most active centers of the revolutionary effervescence were European universities. In result, a wave of harsh repression met them soon. The case of the Jagiellonian University was also a part of the political game between the superpowers and played an important role in the activities of the powerful Austrian chancellor, Klemens Lothar von Metternich, effectively trying to dissuade the Russian tsar Alexander I of liberal politics. The action against the autonomy of the University was also a part of the fight against Polish culture led by the three occupying powers. The intervention of the powers, provoked largely by Stanisław Wodzicki, the President of the Governing Senate, has brought dire consequences not only for the University in Crakow, but also for the whole Free City and became the beginning of the end of the small republic.

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