Lviv University

The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (named after Ivan Franko, Ukrainian: Львівський національний університет імені Івана Франка, romanized: Lvivskyi natsionalnyi universytet imeni Ivana Franka) is a state-sponsored university in Lviv, Ukraine. Since 1940 the university is named after Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko.

The university is the oldest institution of higher learning in continuous operation in present-day Ukraine, dating from 1661 when John II Casimir, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, granted it its first royal charter. Over the centuries, it has undergone various transformations, suspensions, and name changes that have reflected the geopolitical complexities of this part of Europe. The present institution can be dated to 1940.

History

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

The university was founded on 20 January 1661, when King and Grand Duke John II Casimir granted a charter to the city's Jesuit Collegium, founded in 1608, giving it "the honor of an academy and the title of a university". In 1589, the Jesuits had tried to found a university earlier, but did not succeed. Establishing another seat of learning in the Kingdom of Poland was seen as a threat by the authorities of Kraków's Jagiellonian University, which did not want a rival and stymied the Jesuits' plans for the following years.

According to the Treaty of Hadiach (1658), an Orthodox Ruthenian academy was to be created in Kyiv and another one in an unspecified location. The Jesuits suspected that it would be established in Lwów/Lviv on the foundations of the Orthodox Brotherhood's school, and used this as a pretext for obtaining a royal mandate that elevated their college to the status of an academy (no city could have two academies). King John II Casimir was a supporter of the Jesuits and his stance was crucial. The original royal charter was subsequently confirmed by another decree issued in Częstochowa on 5 February 1661.

In 1758, King Augustus III issued a decree, which described the Collegium as an academy, equal in fact status to the Jagiellonian University, with two faculties, those of Theology and Philosophy.

Austrian rule

In 1772, the city of Lwów was annexed by Austria (see: Partitions of Poland). Its German name was Lemberg and hence that of the university. In 1773, the Suppression of the Society of Jesus by Rome (Dominus ac Redemptor) was soon followed by the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which meant that the university was excluded from the Commission of National Education reform. It was renamed Theresianum by the Austrians, i.e. a State Academy. On 21 October 1784, the Austrian Emperor Joseph II signed an act of foundation of a secular university. He began to Germanise the institution by bringing German-speaking professors from various parts of the empire. The university now had four faculties. To theology and philosophy were added those of law and medicine. Latin was the official language of the university, with Polish and German as auxiliary. Literary Slaveno-Rusyn (Ruthenian/Ukrainian) of the period had been used in the Studium Ruthenium (1787–1809), a special institute of the university for educating candidates for the Uniate (Greek-Catholic) priesthood.

In 1805, the university was closed, as Austria, then involved in the Napoleonic Wars, did not have sufficient funds to support it. Instead, it operated as a high school. The university was reopened in 1817. Officially Vienna described it as an "act of mercy", but the actual reasons were different. The Austrian government was aware of the pro-Polish stance of the Russian Emperor Alexander I and the Austrians wanted to challenge it. However, the quality of the university's education was not considered high. Latin was replaced by German and most professors were regarded as ''mediocre''. The few good ones regarded their stay in Lemberg as a springboard to other centres.

Faculties

• Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Informatics
• Faculty of International Relations
• Faculty of Biology
• Faculty of Journalism
• Faculty of Chemistry
• Faculty of Law
• Faculty of Economics
• Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics
• Faculty of Electronics
• Faculty of Philology
• Faculty of Foreign Languages
• Faculty of Philosophy
• Faculty of Geography
• Faculty of Physics
• Faculty of Geology
• Faculty of Preuniversity Training
• Faculty of History
• Department of Pedagogy
• Department of Law

Research divisions and facilities

• Scientific Research Department
• Zoological museum
• University Library
• Journal of Physical Studies
• The Institute of Archaeology
• Ukrainian journal of computational linguistics
• Media Ecology Institute
• Modern Ukraine
• Institute for Historical Research
• Regional Agency for Sustainable Development
• Botanical Garden
• NATO Winter Academy in Lviv
• Scientific technical & educational center of low temperature studies

University management

• Rector Volodymyr Melnyk, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine;
• First Vice-Rector Andriy Gukalyuk, Candidate of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor;
• Vice-Rector for Research Roman Hladyshevsky, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Professor;
• Vice-rector for scientific and pedagogical work and social issues and development Volodymyr Kachmar, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor;
• Vice-rector for scientific and pedagogical work and informatization Vitaliy Kukharsky, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Associate Professor;

Vice-rector for administrative and economic work Vasyl Kurlyak, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Associate Professor.

International cooperation

During 2016–2017, the university signed 15 cooperation agreements and two double degree agreements, two agreements were extended. In total, 147 agreements have been signed with higher education institutions from 38 countries.

The university is involved in signing the Magna Charta Universitatum. In 2000, the university became a co-founder of the European College of Polish and Ukrainian Universities (Lublin, Poland). Agreements with Alecu Russo State University of Bălți (Bălți, Moldova) and the Krakow Pedagogical Academy (Poland) have been extended.

Students of the faculty of Geography, History and the faculty of International Relations undergo internships in Poland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Employees of the faculty of Mechanics, Mathematics, Philology, Chemistry, Faculty of International Relations and Applied Mathematics and Informatics worked in higher education institutions in Poland, Colombia, France, Switzerland, and Austria on a contract basis. Many graduates continue their studies in higher education institutions in the United States, Poland, Germany, Austria, Britain, and France. In 2016, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv held 5 international summer schools.

In 2016, active international cooperation was established with foreign partners. The university has conducted bilateral research with the University of Vienna (Austria), Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania), the US Civilian Research and Development Foundation, and the Hiroshima Institute of Technology (Japan), funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

In recent years, researchers at the university have been conducting experiments funded by international organizations, including the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Germany), Harvard Medical School (USA), Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (USA), and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, International Center for Diffraction Data (USA), Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (USA), Trust Educational Foundation for Tree Research (USA), Material. Phases. Data. System company (Switzerland).

An agreement has been signed with CrossRef, which allows the DOI to be assigned to university publications. The university, with the financial support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, has a national contact point of the EU Framework Program "Horizon 2020" in the thematic areas "Future and latest technologies" and "Inclusive, innovative and smart society".

Notable alumni

• Roman Aftanazy (1914–2004), historian of culture, librarian, heritage rescuer
• Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890–1963), philosopher, mathematician and logician, a pioneer of categorial grammar
• Bohdan Ihor Antonych (1909–1937), prominent Ukrainian writer
• Marta Barandii (b. 1984), Ukrainian member activist and lawyer
• Piotr Ignacy Bieńkowski (1865–1925), classical scholar and archaeologist, professor of the Jagiellonian University
• Julia Brystiger (1902–1975), political militant, member of the security apparatus of the Polish People's Republic

Józef Białynia Chołodecki (1852–1934), historian of Lviv.

Marianna Dushar (born 1974), anthropologist and food writer.

• Ivan Franko (1856–1916), poet and linguist, reformer of the Ukrainian language
• Ludwik Fleck (1896–1961), medical doctor and biologist who developed in the 1930s the concept of thought collectives
• Stanisław Głąbiński (1862–1941) politician, professor and rector (1908–1909) of the university, lawyer and writer
• Georgiy R. Gongadze (1969–2000), Georgian and Ukrainian journalist
• Ludwik Hass (1918-2008), Polish historian and Trotskyist dissident
• Mark Kac (1914–1984), mathematician, pioneer of modern probability theory
• Wiktor Kemula (1902–1985), chemist

Notable professors

• Henryk Arctowski (1871–1958) - oceanographer, Antarctica explorer
• Szymon Askenazy (1866–1935) - historian, diplomat and politician, founder of the Lwów-Warsaw School of History
• Herman Auerbach (1901–1942) - mathematician
• Stefan Banach (1892–1945) - mathematician, one of the moving spirits of the Lwów School of Mathematics, father of functional analysis
• Oswald Balzer (1858–1933) - historian of law and statehood
• St. Józef Bilczewski (1860–1923) - archbishop of the city of Lwów of the Latins
• Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński (1874–1941) - gynecologist, writer, poet, art critic, translator of French literary classics and journalist
• Franciszek Bujak (1921–1941) - historian
• Leon Chwistek (1884–1944) - Avant-garde painter, theoretician of modern art, literary critic, logician, philosopher and mathematician
• Antoni Cieszyński (1882–1941) - physician, dentist and surgeon
• Matija Čop (1797–1835) - Slovene philologist and literary theorist
• Jan Czekanowski (1882–1965) - anthropologist, statistician and linguist
• Władysław Dobrzaniecki (1897–1941) - physician and surgeon
• Stanisław Głąbiński (1862–1941) - politician, rector (1908–1909), lawyer and writer
• Yakiv Holovatsky (1814–1888) - poet

Other

János Bolyai (1802–1860), mathematician, the founder of noneuclidean (absolute) geometry. The highest figure of Hungarian mathematics worked at the University of Lviv from 1831 to 1832.

Włodzimierz Dzieduszycki (1825–1899), landowner, naturalist, political activist, collector and patron of arts

Stanisław Lem (1921–2006), satirical, philosophical, and science fiction writer

Józef Marcinkiewicz (1910–1940), mathematician. He worked at the University of Lviv from 1935 to 1936.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860–1941) virtuoso pianist, composer, diplomat and politician, the third Prime Minister of Poland

Literature

Academia Militans. Uniwersytet Jana Kazimierza we Lwowie, red. Adam Redzik, Kraków 2015, ss. 1302.

Ludwik Finkel, Starzyński Stanisław, Historya Uniwersytetu Lwowskiego, Lwów 1894.

Franciszek Jaworski, Uniwersytet Lwowski. Wspomnienie jubileuszowe, Lwów 1912.

Adam Redzik, Wydział Prawa Uniwersytetu Lwowskiego w latach 1939–1946, Lublin 2006

Adam Redzik, Prawo prywatne na Uniwersytecie Jana Kazimierza we Lwowie, Warszawa 2009.

Józef Wołczański, Wydział Teologiczny Uniwersytetu Jana Kazimierza 1918–1939, Kraków 2000.

Universitati Leopoliensi, Trecentesimum Quinquagesimum Anniversarium Suae Fundationis Celebranti. In Memoriam. Praca zbiorowa. Polska Akademia Umiejętności, Kraków 2011, ISBN 978-83-7676-084-1

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