History of the Institute for French Studies
The Romance Philology was founded on the Warsaw University in 1919 by Maurycy Mann, a disciple of Gustave Lanson and of Joseph Bédier. He has been working before in the Jagellonian University in Cracow, where Romance studies have existed since 1892. Professor Mann has directed firstly, a Seminar of Romance Philology, then the Department of Romance Philology, until 1932. He also has founded the library of the Department; its collection grew until it reached, by now, about 30.000 volumes.
Professor Mann was the first in Poland to study the work of J.-J. Rousseau. After he had resigned, the Department was directed, by Stanisław Wędkiewicz. He also was a professor at the Jagellonian University, who owed his education to Vienna, particularly to his tutor, Meyer-Luebke. He had directed the Department until 1939, then, after the outbreak of the Second World War, he organized underground courses.
During the years 1919-1945 the programme of the study included the history of French and Italian literature since the Middle Ages until the Romantic period. The students could choose French, Italian, Spanish or Rumanian as a foreign language. Since 1928, they could attend lectures given in the French Institute in Warsaw [Institut Français de Varsovie] by eminent specialists such as Jean Fabre or Pierre Francastel, instead of similar lectures in the University.
Since 1945, Mieczyslaw Brahmer, a well-known specialist in Italian culture, a disciple of Stanislaw Wedkiewicz, has been the director of the Department of Romance Philology. In 1968 the unit was transferred into the building Oboźna 8, where it still is. In 1976 the unit was renamed once more - now its name was Institute of French Studies [Instytut Romanistyki] . Its programme was then completed by courses in history of French literature and of literature of French-speaking countries. It still included French, Italian and Spanish literature, Romance linguistics and French as the main foreign language, whereas courses in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Rumanian had the rank of FL courses.
With the year 1945, the Department has become a centre of research in literature and linguistics. Until 1989, 52 Ph. D. theses and 12 habilitation theses were written and sustained; many monographies and collective works were also published. Since 1957 the Department, later the Institute, organizes many conferences, attended by Polish and foreign specialists. Expositions are also prepared, e.g. to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw French Studies, with the help of the Center of French Culture, created in 1958 and affiliated to the Warsaw University. The library of the Centre owns a part of its collection of books to the former French Institute of Warsaw; now it completes marvellously the Library of the Institute of French Studies (some years ago united with those of the Department of Italian Studies and of the Institute Iberian and Ibero-American Studies. The Centre has its own periodical, Cahiers de Varsovie, where e.a. conference papers are published.
There were many years when the whole number of students [every studies' year] in the Institute of French Studies amounted do 1 hundred. Now this is more or less the number of students inscribed each year.