Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy Ojców Jezuitów w Chyrowie

Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy Ojców Jezuitów w Chyrowie (Scientific and Educational Department of the Jesuit Fathers in Chyrów) was a Jesuit academic institution, with the status of a lower secondary school (gimnazjum), founded and run by the Jesuits in Khyriv, then Chyrów, near Przemyśl, southeast Poland (now Ukraine) between 1886 - 1939. The school, opened not without obstacles form the Austrian authorities, as the area was within the Austrian partition of Poland, was to continue the tradition of the Jesuit college in Tarnopol^[1] and functioned until the Soviet invasion of Poland (1939). It was considered one of the most prestigious in Poland, a world-class school during the Second Polish Republic and had some very notable pupils such as:

• Roman Abraham
• Witold Bełza
• Aleksander Birkenmajer
• Jan Brzechwa
• Kazimierz Rafał Chłapowski
• Adam Epler
• Mieczysław Jerzy Gamski
• Marian Garlicki
• Józef Garliński^[2]
• Kamil Giżycki
• Kazimierz Junosza-Stepowski
• Jerzy Kirchmayer
• Kazimierz Konopka^[3]
• Adam Kozłowiecki^[4][5]
• Mieczysław Kuznowicz
• Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, Prime Minister of the Second Polish Republic
• Antoni Halka-Ledóchowski,^[6] one of the creators and first professors (since 1920) of the Maritime School (Państwowa Szkoła Morska) in Tczew, which is considered the 'cradle of the Polish merchant navy'.^[7]
• Tadeusz Łubieński
• Juliusz Mieroszewski^[8]
• Edward O'Rourke
• Zdzisław Peszkowski^[9]
• Ksawery Pruszyński
• Andrzej Rostworowski
• Paweł Siwek
• Adam Styka
• Kazimierz Tomczak
• Roman Wajda
• Kazimierz Wierzyński
• Antoni Wiwulski.

The school's faculty included such prominent names, such as:

• the future blessed Father Jan Beyzym, SJ (1850-1912) who taught in Tarnopol and Chyrów for 17 years prior to leaving, at 48 in 1898, for Madagascar to begin the apostolate to lepers.,^[10][11]
• Father Kazimierz Konopka S.J., the school's graduate who came back to teach in Chyrów from 1910, becoming (from December 29, 1915) the chaplain for the Polish Legion; from 1918, he was a professor at Żytomierz Seminary, and then later at Łuck Seminary. From 1920 he taught religion in Cheƚm Lubelski secondary schools and served as a hospital chaplain. He later organized a lower-secondary school (gimnazjum) in Vilnius, serving as its headmaster/principal. Author of many publications, recipient of awards from the Polish state, he went on to serve several years as a missionary in Rhodesia, giving talks on the subject of missions e.g. during an exhibit and a diocesan convention on missions organized by the Young Men's Congregatio Mariana (Sodalicja Mariańska Młodzieńców) in 1934 in Ruda Śląska.^[12] Returning to Poland, Fr. Konopka directed the Jesuit Retreat House in Lwów from 1938 until the onset of WWII and the Soviet occupation of Lwów. Imprisoned by the Soviets in Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939–46), he was shot to death in Lwów Prison on June 26, 1941, one of the 35 000 prisoners killed during the Soviet retreat by NKVD massacres of prisoners in mid-1941 ^[13]

Library

(1886–1939) The Jesuits, as committed scholars, devoted great effort and attention to the development of the library. The nucleus of the collection was formed from the collection moved from their College in Tarnopol, set up in 1820 and closed in 1886. Expanded with the volumes the Jesuits managed to recover from multiple locations after the re-establishment of the Order, new purchases and donations, the collection included medieval manuscripts, incunabula, old music prints, collections of the 18th-century maps, rare scholarly and scientific works, academic and school manuals from Jesuit Colleges (the oldest from the Połocko College, later opened as Połocko Academy), from missions (e.g. Minsk) and from Jesuit houses before the suppression of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit order). The collection from Chyrów surpassed, in the number of volumes, their value and its educational quality, the libraries of all secondary schools in Austrian Partition of Poland and then, after Poland regaining independence, in the [Second Polish Republic]. At the time of the Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) the Library at the Jesuit Institution for Scholarship and Education consisted of over 50 000 volumes. In 1939 the Institution was liquidated by the Soviet authorities and the book collection destroyed.

History

The founding of the Academy (Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy Ojców Jezuitów) was initiated by two Jesuit priests: Father Marian Ignacy Morawski and Henryk Jackowski (1834-1905). In 1883 the Jesuits purchased the estate of Franciszek Topolnicki in Bąkowice near Chyrów, about 33 km/20 miles from Przemyśl, where in 1886 they opened Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy Ojców Jezuitów in Chyrów. Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy Ojców Jezuitów w Chyrowie drew from the tradition of the Jesuit Połock Academy (Akademia Połockia), operating from 1812 to 1820, then from 1820 as Konwikt Tarnopolski (Jesuit college in Tarnopol).^[14] Konwikt tarnopolski (Jesuit college in Tarnopol) in turn, along with the Jesuit Collegium noblilium in Lwów, functioned until the Jesuits had to withdraw from the Austrian Empire in 1848. In 1856 the school in Tarnopol reopened, then it was moved to Chyrów. The building of the Collegium nobilium in Lwow (1837-1842) was taken over by the Lwów University. The Jesuits focused their efforts on the konwkikt tarnopolski, based on the program of the Collegium in Lwów.^[15]

The school in Chyrów and its grounds have not been returned to the Jesuits. Instead, in August 2013 the historic Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy Ojców Jezuitów was sold in a Ukrainian government auction for 2 231 000 hryvnias (then about $275 000) to a private investor "Chyrów-rent-inwest”.^[16]

References