Second Polish Republic - Education and Culture

Education and Culture

In 1919, the Polish government introduced compulsory education for all children aged 7 to 14, in an effort to limit illiteracy, which was widespread especially in eastern Poland, after years of Russian rule. The process was slow, and by 1939, 90% of children attended school. In 1921, one-third of citizens of Poland was illiterate (38% in the countryside), and by 1931, illiteracy level dropped to 23% overall (27% in the countryside).

In 1932, Minister of Religion and Education Janusz Jędrzejewicz carried out a reform which introduced the following levels of education:

• common school (szkoła powszechna), with three levels – 4 grades + 2 grades + 1 grade,
• middle school (szkoła średnia), with two levels – 4 grades of comprehensive middle school and 2 grades of specified high school (classical, humanistic, natural and mathematical). A graduate of middle school received a small matura, while a graduate of high school received a big matura, which enabled them to seek university-level education.

Before 1918, Poland had three universities: Jagiellonian University, University of Warsaw and Lwów University. Catholic University of Lublin was established in 1918; Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, in 1919; and finally, in 1922, after the annexation of Republic of Central Lithuania, Wilno University became the Republic's sixth university. There were also three technical colleges: the Warsaw University of Technology, Lwów Polytechnic and the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, established in 1919. Warsaw University of Life Sciences was an agricultural institute. By 1939, there were around 50,000 students enrolled in further education.

Polish science in the interbellum was renowned for its mathematicians – see Lwów School of Mathematics, Kraków School of Mathematics, and Warsaw School of Mathematics. There were well-known philosophers (see Lwów–Warsaw school of logic), Florian Znaniecki founded Polish sociological studies, Rudolf Weigl invented vaccine against typhus, Bronisław Malinowski was among the most important anthropologists of the 20th century.

In Polish literature, the 1920s were marked by the domination of poetry. Polish poets were divided into two groups – the Skamanderites (Jan Lechoń, Julian Tuwim, Antoni Słonimski and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz) and the Futurists (Anatol Stern, Bruno Jasieński, Aleksander Wat, Julian Przyboś). Apart from well-established novelists (Stefan Żeromski, Władysław Reymont), new names appeared in the interbellum – Zofia Nałkowska, Maria Dąbrowska, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Jan Parandowski, Bruno Schultz, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Witold Gombrowicz. Among other notable artists there were sculptor Xawery Dunikowski, painters Julian Fałat, Wojciech Kossak and Jacek Malczewski, composers Karol Szymanowski, Feliks Nowowiejski, and Artur Rubinstein, singer Jan Kiepura. Theatre was very popular in the interbellum, with three main centers in the cities of Warsaw, Wilno and Lwów. Altogether, there were 103 theaters in Poland and a number of other theatrical institutions (including 100 folk theaters). In 1936, different shows were seen by 5 million people, and main figures of Polish theatre of the time were Juliusz Osterwa, Stefan Jaracz, and Leon Schiller. Also, before the outbreak of the war, there were around 1 million radios (see Radio stations in interwar Poland).