Uniwersytet jako miejsce pamięci. Wokół Lelewela i ego-historii

Abstract

The article takes a look at the university from the perspective of cultural memory, shaped in Poland by Romantic literature among other influences. In the first part of the text, the author raises a question whether the canon of Romantic texts, especially the third part of Adam Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve), a national masterpiece inherently related to the image of academy, shaped university as a site of Polish national memory. Dismissing its influence for the collective memory, the author proceeds to discuss in the second part of the article individual memories of the university from the Romantic period – concerning, similarly as in the case of Mickiewicz’s text, Vilnius University from the beginning of the nineteenth century. Through the example of Joachim Lelewel’s autobiographical Przygody w poszukiwaniach i badaniu rzeczy narodowych polskich (Adventures in searching and studying Polish national things, 1857), she discusses the genre of ego-history as a type of personal document, which reflects upon the profession of a historian, the condition of science, and thus the role of university.