ABSTRACT
Poland has a university tradition dating back to the Renaissance. The first Polish university was created by King Casimir the Great in Krakow during the fourteenth century. In 1795, Poland lost its independence, its territory divided among three powers: Russia, Prussia and Austria. Poland owes the rapid development of universities during the inter-war period, not only to academic staff educated in Poland and at Austrian, German or Russian universities, but also to numerous Polish academics, who had lived and worked abroad and had returned to the country after 1918. The beginning of World War II and the occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union caused academic institutions to halt their activities entirely. Poland was the only country in the Soviet bloc where farms remained in private hands. The 1970s witnessed strong development in economic relations between Poland and Western countries.
