Adam Mickiewicz Gymnasium in Pruzhany was a gymnasium in Pruzhany, Belarus, operating during the time of the Second Polish Republic, providing education at the level of an eight-year secondary school from 1922 to 1939 and in the form of underground education during World War II. The school was established on the initiative of local residents. Until 1924, it followed a mathematical and natural science profile, then a humanistic one; it operated alongside organizations such as the scouting organization and the school brass band.
History Until 1922, there was a primary school in Pruzhany, but there was no secondary school that would qualify students to take university entrance exams. The closest such institutions were the near the Bug river and the .
Private school In 1922, the Organizational Committee for the Establishment of a Secondary School in Pruzhany was formed. It consisted mainly of city residents and locals who wanted to provide their children with the opportunity for secondary education in their hometown. These were mostly wealthy citizens, intellectuals, officials, Jewish merchants, and local gentry. A group led by technologist engineer Zbigniew Neczaj-Hruzewicz officially submitted a proposal to the Pruzhany City Magistrate to open a school. There was a heated debate within the city authorities, with some decision-makers opposing the new secondary school, arguing that a vocational school would suffice for the town's scale. However, the concept of establishing a gymnasium prevailed. Under the leadership of Mayor Feliks Szymański, the Pruzhany City Magistrate, and the Organizational Committee, a decision was made to establish a private coeducational mathematical and natural science gymnasium at the beginning of the 1922/1923 school year, without the rights of a state gymnasium. A special social committee was formed to launch the institution, consisting of influential city residents, including the deputy mayor and the son of a distinguished participant in the Russian Revolution of 1905, as well as Father Bolesław Franciszek (Catholic military chaplain and social activist), Father Konstanty Gubarew (Orthodox clergyman from St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral), the local rabbi, engineer I. Czarnocki (landowner), Dr. Augustyn Pacewicz (leader of the local gentry and social activist), Mr. Krywopisza (owner of the city pharmacy), Birnbaum, and a representative of the officer corps. The committee raised funds for the organization of the school and obtained permission for its opening.
The Polesie School District Curatorium granted permission to open the institution on 21 September 1922. Three rooms were purchased in a building at 9 Strażacka Street for its needs. It was a two-story wooden building with a tin roof, erected in 1902. During the Russian Empire era, it served as the residence of the military commandant of the city. The Pruzhany City Magistrate proposed Zbigniew Neczaj-Hruzewicz as the headmaster. On 3 October 1922, the school was ceremonially opened, attended by representatives of various state institutions, a large number of gentry, bourgeoisie, peasants, workers, and Orthodox Jews.
State school
In 1923, a district school commission visited the gymnasium to examine the teaching conditions and positively assessed its level. On October 1 of the same year, with the support of the high school inspector Jan Bobka and the Polesie School District Curatorium, the Polish government decided to nationalize the institution. From then on, admissions were conducted through a representative of the district commission at special conferences. With the beginning of the 1923/1924 school year, by decision of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education, the school was officially transformed into a state coeducational higher gymnasium with a mathematical and natural science profile and Polish as the language of instruction.
According to an agreement between the curatorium and the Pruzhany Municipal Council, the city provided the entire previous wooden building with a small courtyard for the gymnasium's needs. It also committed to supplying electricity and heating. Adam Mickiewicz was unanimously chosen as the school's patron, reflecting Pruzhany's ties to the culture of Vilnius. On 6 November 1923, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education officially named the school Państwowe Wyższe Gimnazjum im. A. Mickiewicza w Prużanie (English: State Higher Gymnasium named after A. Mickiewicz in Pruzhany). Bolesław Guttmann was appointed headmaster for the 1924/1925 school year. On 11 September 1924, the profile of the gymnasium was changed to humanities. By decree of September 11 and December 17, 1924, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education appointed Władysław Cichocki (formerly a professor at the ) as the headmaster of the gymnasium in Pruzhany from 1 October 1924 for the 1924/1925 school year. Shortly thereafter, through the efforts of the Directorate and the Parent Committee, the Pruzhany City Magistrate renovated and provided a brick building with a soccer field for the gymnasium.
In the 1925/1926 school year, the gymnasium operated in a wooden building with four small classrooms, a conference room, offices for the headmaster and secretary, and two pass-through toilets for the offices. There were no basements, and the administration complained about the prevailing dampness. According to the 1926 report, both buildings were entirely unsuitable for the gymnasium. The total area under the school's jurisdiction was 3,280 m2, with the buildings occupying 412 m2.
On 12 June 1925, the first maturity exam took place at the school. In the 1925/1926 school year, due to the large number of students, classes were held in a two-shift system. From the following year, classes returned to a normal schedule due to the leasing of premises by the Parent Committee, which accommodated three classrooms and offices. In September 1928, Headmaster Władysław Cichocki ended his tenure in Pruzhany to assume the position of director of the near Bug river.
In 1932, at the initiative of the Parent Committee, a new two-story building was added to the gymnasium's premises. This expansion provided the school with new classrooms, a large hall, and a corridor, reaching a total area of 967 m2. The expansion allowed the entire school to be moved to one location. The considerable contribution to this was made by the landowner Feliks Suligowski from the Bukrabowszczyzna estate, who offered building materials. A soccer field was arranged next to the school, used for gymnastics and transformed into an ice rink in winter for playing hockey. Konstanty Kosiński assumed the position of headmaster in 1934.
Underground education and the fate of the building
After the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, the gymnasium was liquidated, and in its building, the new authorities established a Soviet secondary school, commonly referred to as the "Russian" school. Its headmistress was Walancina Žukoŭskaja, a Belarusian from Pruzhany and the older sister of a gymnasium graduate, Pruzhany Žuk-Hryškievič. However, she was replaced by a woman brought from deep within the Soviet Union just a few weeks later.
In 1940 and June 1941, some former gymnasium teachers were accused of counter-revolutionary activities and were deported with their families to Kolpashevo in the Tomsk Oblast and to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. Many of them died in exile, including the manual labor teacher Kamiński. At the same time, some teachers among those who remained in Pruzhany, including Łebkowska-Wrońska and Jan Łozowski, continued the gymnasium's activities clandestinely, conducting secret classes, which were successful throughout the entire period of World War II. Meanwhile, in the first half of 1941, the "Russian" school was transformed into the First Belarusian Secondary School in Pruzhany. Its operation was interrupted in June of the same year by the outbreak of the German-Soviet war. In 1943, the building became the seat of an eight-year Belarusian school, established by the with the approval of the German occupying administration. The premises were renovated.
Under the direction of Headmistress Janka Żedzik, the institution operated for a year, had 11 teachers, and about 450 students. It ceased to exist with the evacuation of Belarusian personnel along with the Germans on 11 July 1944. Upon the return of Soviet power, the First Belarusian Secondary School, later renamed Secondary School No. 1, returned to the building. For the last 10 years, it housed the Pioneer House. In the times of independent Belarus, the gymnasium building was demolished. For some time, there was an empty space in its place, and currently, a cultural center stands there.
Former students of the Adam Mickiewicz Gymnasium organize annual meetings in Darłówko.
School institutions In the gymnasium, there were two libraries – one for teachers and one for students. In 1925, the former had 278 volumes, while the latter had 1,186. Over time, the collections grew, reaching 1,214 and 2,847 volumes respectively in later years. In the student library, the most popular books were authored by Maria Rodziewiczówna, Maria Konopnicka, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Stefan Żeromski, Bolesław Prus, as well as adventure books and historical novels. There was also a reading room offering encyclopedias and periodicals. Subscriptions included 10 Polish magazines and 2 newspapers, 4 French magazines and 5 newspapers, as well as 2 German newspapers.
For some time, the gymnasium operated a school dormitory. The Parent Committee organized meals for its residents in private homes in Pruzhany, either paying for the service or providing food products, which helped to keep costs low. In the 1925/1926 school year, 20 students lived in the dormitory, of which 8 paid from 15 to 35 Polish złoty for its use, while the rest were exempt from the fee. The gymnasium also had a physical-chemical laboratory.
Finances The funds of the gymnasium mainly came from three sources: mandatory tuition fees, grants from the City Council, and voluntary contributions to the school. The tuition fee was 20,000 złoty. For children of state officials and teachers, there were many discounts, which in some cases even reached full exemption from fees. From the accumulated funds, the gymnasium paid salaries to teachers, bought books, equipment, fuel, and financed scientific work.
Curriculum In the academic year 1922/1923, the first year of the gymnasium's operation, students were taught according to the higher curriculum of state gymnasia with a mathematical and natural science profile. An exception was drawing and anatomy, which were not held due to a lack of suitable teachers. Latin was an optional subject.
Extracurricular activities
As part of extracurricular activities at the gymnasium, there were four sections: humanities (Polish literature and history), physical and mathematical sciences, tourism, and physical education, as well as numerous clubs: model airplane constructors, chess, etc. At the end of each year, "weeks" of specific subjects were organized, during which students presented their best works (drawings, paintings, exhibits made of glass, metal, wood), and under the supervision of a supervisor, scientific lectures and other initiatives were organized. These events were often attended by real scientists from higher education institutions from all over Poland.