Seite - 63 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 2 ♦  63 should address universal issues, the question of Polish science should be dealt with within the “peculiar” (eigenthümlich) institution of Cracow’s Scientific Society, “whose members are for the most part professors of the Royal and Imperial University and which made the further enhancement of national interests as its primary goal. If Polish scientific literature has a germ of a viable future, it will be most suitable to commit it into the care of [Cracow’s Scientific] Society, whose enthusiasm seemed so far most laud- able, and will certainly suffice to foster the beginnings of terminological accounts to prosperous development, which by no means should be the duty of the university.” The petition heralded the official introduction in December 1853 of the use of German in Cracow and L’viv, “for the duration of martial law [in Galicia],” which, however, ended already in 1854.72 The removal of Polish lectures was not complete, as the ministry allowed two professors of the medical faculty, Józef Majer and Antoni Kozubowski, to teach their classes in Polish; this privilege was awarded at first for one year and then renewed on an annual basis until 1861, when regular lectures in Polish resumed.73 However, at the same time, German-speaking professors held parallel lectures, and the Polish ones became optional. Thun-Hohenstein’s memo- randum also proposed that “to give attention to the development of the Polish language, a distinct chair of Polish language and literature be appointed and that it be left to the discretion of Privatdozenten to read allowed disciplines in the Polish language, and, inasmuch as a vital necessity exists, to cover this or that subject in the Polish language.”74 Both Thun-Hohenstein and the academic senate of the Jagiellonian University clearly strove to fill the position of the chair of Polish language and literature; the latter also urged the University of L’viv to appoint a corresponding chair.75 Further contradicting the story of a forceful and unwelcome Germanization, the conservative Cracow journal Czas (Time), in several articles, accepted the language change as serving practical purposes well.76 Furthermore, Bratranek, whose petition had begun the process of introduc- ing German, also remained at the university after the language of instruction changed back to Polish. This probably resulted from a university petition showing the professors’ support for Bratranek but also from his popularity in Galicia.77 Because he published widely on Polish-German relations in the newspaper Dziennik Polski (Polish daily) in 1869, he was viewed as someone who almost became a Pole.78