The Reception of the Theory of Relativity in Poland

Abstract

The situation of science in Poland in the nineteenth and in the first years of the twentieth century was not favorable. From the last years of the eighteenth century the whole territory of Poland had been divided and occupied by Russia, Prussia and Austria. The occupying powers were by no means interested in the development of science in the annexed country. Therefore, many decades of the nineteenth century were occupied by the struggle of the Polish community for preservation and re-Polonization of academic schools. This struggle succeeded only in the Austrian sector. There, at the turn of the twentieth century, four academic schools were active where science was taught and scientific research was performed, among them the two universities: Jagellonian University in Cracow (founded in 1364) and Lvov University (established in 1661). Physics and mathematics were also taught and cultivated in the Technical Academy in Lvov and in the Agricultural Academy at Dublany, near Lvov.