Warsaw Lyceum
TheWarsaw Lyceum(Polish:Liceum Warszawskie;German:Königlich-Preußisches Lyzäum zu Warschau) was asecondary schoolthat existed inWarsaw,under theKingdom of Prussiaand under theKingdom of Poland,from 1804 to its closing in 1831 byImperial Russiafollowing the PolishNovember 1830 Uprising.
History
[edit]The Warsaw Lyceum was founded in 1804 by theKingdom of Prussiaas aGerman languageschool[1]inWarsaw,[2]which had become part ofNew East Prussiafollowing the 1795Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In theSecond Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth(1793), Prussia had acquiredSouth Prussia,and had established a branch of itsCadet Corpsschools inKalisch.In 1804, in Warsaw, a humanisticsecondary schoolfor boys was opened, divided according to thePrussian educational modelinto six classes, plus two preparatory ones. InGerman,it taught Latin, Greek, German and French, philosophy, ethics, mathematics and natural sciences, and (in Polish) thePolish language.
Samuel Lindewas appointed director of the Warsaw Lyceum. TheEvangelical-Augsburg LutheranfromThorninRoyal Prussiahad studied theology and philology at theUniversity of Leipzigand had taught thePolish languagethere. From 1795 he had been librarian toJózef Maksymilian Ossoliński,and had gathered material for his futureSłownik języka polskiego(Dictionary of the Polish Language), a six-volume monolingual dictionary which he published in Warsaw in 1807–14. Linde faced difficulties in organizing the school, and with Prussian authorities who insisted on German as the language of instruction.[3]
Following Napoleon's victory over Prussia, in 1807 Warsaw became the capital of theDuchy of Warsaw.With Linde continuing as the Lyceum's director, the school was now modeled after the French system, while Polish replaced German as the primary language of instruction at theLiceum Warszawskie(Warsaw Lyceum).
The school was initially located in the leased north wing of theSaxon Palace,named after and owned by the GermanHouse of Wettin.Two WettinElectors of Saxonyhad beenkings of Polandbetween 1697 and 1763, and a third Saxon ruled theDuchy of Warsawfrom 1807 until Napoleon's defeat in 1814.
One of the teachers ofFrench languagewas, from October 1810,Nicolas Chopin,father ofFrédéric Chopin.The young composer was one of the Lyceum's most famous pupils, beginning his studies there in the autumn of 1823.[4]
Samuel Linde remained the Lyceum's director when the city, in 1815, came under Russian control as part of theKingdom of Poland.
In 1817 the Saxon Palace was requisitioned for military use, and the Lyceum was moved to theKazimierz Palace.The latter had, until 1795, hosted the WarsawCorps of Cadets,and in 1816 had been made the home of the newly establishedUniversity of Warsaw.(The Kazimierz Palace currently houses the Warsaw Universityrectorate.)
When theNovember 1830 Uprisingwas suppressed in 1831, theRussian Empireregained control of Warsaw, and the Warsaw Lyceum was closed.
Alumni
[edit]- Frédéric Chopin
- Julian Fontana
- Tytus Woyciechowski
- Jan Matuszyński
- Kajetan Garbiński
- Stefan Garczyński
- Oskar Kolberg
- Stanisław Egbert Koźmian
- Aleksander Albert Krajewski
- Zygmunt Krasiński
- Leopold Kronenberg
- Juliusz Konstanty Ordon
- Kazimierz Woyda
Notes
[edit]- ^Samuel Linde"had been appointed Rector of the Warsaw Lyceum, which was founded in 1804 by the Prussian government as a German language school."p. 26,in Iwo Zaluski, Pamela Załuski,Chopin's Poland,P. Owen, 1996,ISBN0-7206-0980-1,ISBN978-0-7206-0980-6.
- ^Portret zbiorowy nauczycieli warszawskich publicznych szkół średnich 1795-1862 Joanna Schiller page 39, 1998
- ^Zbigniew Goliński,Miscellanea z doby Oświecenia(Enlightenment Miscellanea), vol. 6, 1982, p. 123.
- ^Ateş Orga,Chopin,The illustrated lives of the great composers, Omnibus Press, 1983,ISBN0-7119-0247-X,9780711902473,p. 15.
References
[edit]- Stanisław Szenic,Ongiś,Warsaw, 1975.
- Stanisław Szenic,Cmentarz Powązkowski 1851-1890,Warsaw, 1982.
- Eugeniusz Szulc,Cmentarz ewangelicko-augsburski w Warszawie,Warsaw, 1989.
- Jadwiga and Eugeniusz Szulc,Cmentarz ewangelicko-reformowany w Warszawie,Warsaw, 1989.
