THE COLLECTIVE INTEREST – WHERE DID IT STAND AT THE UNIVERSITY OF POZNAŃ IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR?

Abstract

A historian’s contribution to considerations of the collective interest is a study of a particular case: that of one of Poland’s universities in the aftermath of the Second World War. The university is a collective that is also a community. It is a community in the sense that it is a body defined by its institutional framework, with a complex structure headed by the president, who in Poland is traditionally known as the rector. It is a community in the sense that it is united by a consensus on its goals and on the values that determine the means by which these goals are achieved. These goals are the acquisition of knowledge (research) and its transmission. After the Second World War, which was particularly devastating for Poland, the academic community – in this case, that of the University of Poznań – was trying to rebuild itself. At the same time, it was threatened by the plan to replace it with totalitarian power, in accordance with the nature of that system. Within the university community, a confrontation was taking place between the traditional community and the external political forces that were infiltrating it – a confrontation that shed new light on the question: what was the collective interest, and where did it lie?