HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

512 MARTHA BOHACHEVSKY-CHOMIAKThe Situation among Ukrainians was similar. Although in the 1920smost of the intelligentsia still agreed that higher education was vital tothe national cause (in the next decade the rise of integral nationalismwould challenge that conception), there was little agreement abouthow the goal could be achieved. The successes of the ClandestineUniversity led some to advocate such self-organization, despite Polishopposition. Others, especially academics, realized that to function wella university needs stable financial support and government recognition.A serious proposal for creating an official Ukrainian university camebetween 1924 and 1925 from a coalition government of centrist andright-of-center parties. It was formulated in the Ministry of Religionsand Public Education by Stanisław Grabski, Tadeusz Waryński, andStanisław Łoś. 31The plan called for the creation of a commissioncomprising representatives of government, the faculty of Poland'soldest university, the Jagellonian in Cracow, and Ukrainian faculty(later it was decided to include faculty members of the John CasimirUniversity). This commission would work toward establishing thenucleus of a Ukrainian university in Cracow. Once that nucleus wasorganized, it was to be moved to a city in ethnic Ukrainian territory.The government saw the situation in Lviv as too volatile to permit aUkrainian university to be created there, as most Ukrainians insisted.As is evident in the materials appended here, the Poles felt that if thiscompromise proposal were spurned by the Ukrainians, the onus ofintransigence would be on the minority nationality rather than on thegovernment.The government approached the rector of the Jagellonian, Jan Łoś(no relation to Stanisław Łoś), about heading such a commission. 3231Stanisław Grabski held various positions in the early years of the PolishRepublic and was a leader of the national-democratic camp. Seeing Germany as amajor threat to Poland, Grabski advocated compromise with national minoritiesin the eastern part of the country, as well as with the Soviet Union (he expoundedthese views in a book published in 1922). But, in fact, his willingness to compromisewas circumscribed by his commitment to a strong Poland, and in Galicia hisname became linked with the Polonization of schools. On 27 November 1923, inthe last month of Wincenty Witos's government, he became the minister ofeducation. On December 19 his brother, Władysław Grabski, became primeminister. Miklaszewski served as minister of education for a time, but StanisławGrabski continued to play a vital role in the Ukrainian university issue. For anoverall discussion of the political situation of Ukrainians in Poland, see MirosławaPapierzyńska-Turek, Sprawa ukraińska w Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej, 1922-1926(Cracow, 1979).32The Jagellonian University had naturally produced many politically prominent