On the occasion of the jubilee of PWSW in Przemyśl ceremonies were held, during which the MP Marek Kuchciński, one of the initiators of the establishment of the university, was honored.
During his speech, the Marshal recalled the beginnings of the creation of the university: "The idea was conceived 30 years ago, in the milieu of the people then forming the Solidarity Civic Committee and the independent culture later called the Cultural Strych. We were impressed by the information about the functioning of societies in the free world of the West provided by various scholars, politicians and intellectuals from the circle of Roger Scruton and such universities as Oxford, Nottingham, Harvard and Kansas, who often visited our part of Europe and Przemyśl. Hence, the plans were also Central European.
The first ideas of establishing a university were connected with taking over the property left after the PZPR. In Przemyśl, this was the headquarters of the PZPR Central Committee on Kościuszki Street. At that time, through friends of the Cultural Attic in Warsaw, the idea of establishing the College of Foreign Languages in that building reached Przemyśl and we treated it as the first stage of establishing a higher education institution. At that time, the College was created, but there was no determination to continue this way. It was not until a few years later, in 1996/7, when the AWS circles and the later Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek were working on the new administrative division of the country, that the same Przemyśl Cultural Attic community, now operating as the legally registered Przemyśl Cultural Association, developed a concept for the location of various supraregional and provincial institutions that would continue to operate in Przemyśl, a city that was losing its status as a provincial town. The original political plans were to move all provincial institutions to Rzeszów.
Among many institutions proposed at that time for Przemyśl, it was possible to obtain the seat of the Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments, Customs Chamber or Border Guard. Among new institutions, the State Higher Vocational School was approved to be established. Unfortunately, the ambitious efforts for the Przemyśl Academy had to be postponed.
But I believe that the future of the Academy is not closed. As an example, let's take the National Museum of the Przemysl Region, which we also proposed 25 years ago to be included in the list of government institutions. We didn't succeed then, but for several years now it has been co-managed by the Minister of Culture. And this is an unfinished road.
photo. Kamil Krukiewicz
