Archives and Museum of the University of Warmia and Mazury

Archives and Museum of the University of Warmia and Mazury
ul. Oczapowskiego 4
10-719 Olsztyn
Tel. (89) 524 62 74
Hall of Traditions:
ul. Oczapowskiego 12 B
10-719 Olsztyn
Main Library of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn:
Ist Floor, Room no. 121
Tel. (89) 524 62 74
archiwumuwm@uwm.edu.pl
Free admission
Tuesdays, Fridays: 10 am – 2 pm
Please make an appointment by telephone if you wish to visit on another day.
Head of Archives and Museum: Tel. (89) 524-62-75
Deputy Head of Archives and Museum: Tel. (89) 523-47-04

The Museum of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn was established by a resolution of the University Senate in March 2002 as an entity functioning within the Archives of the University of Warmia and Mazury. The museum’s most important task is to safeguard all monuments connected with the university’s history, and to inform people about the value and contents of the collections and promulgate knowledge about the university. The exhibits were acquired mainly through appeals made to individual university entities, and through gifts and purchases. During the first years of its existence the museum collected memorabilia related to the establishment of the university: statutes establishing the university, posters, invitations to the first inaugurations, congratulatory letters, the university’s first publications, leaflets and brochures. The museum also contains materials related to subsequent university  commemorations, gifts received from guests and foreign delegations, seals, medals and decorations awarded to the university, the insignia of rectors of the former Academy of Agriculture and Technology, and the former Higher Teacher Training School, gowns of rectors and deans, collections of framed photographs of commemorative events organized by the rector and deans, film reels and VHS cassettes, and banners. There are also museum chronicles, commemorative books, and photograph albums. Some laboratory equipment has also been collected (scales, cameras, geodetic instruments, microscopes, typewriters, counting devices, radios, tape recorders, projectors and diascopes). In the first fifteen years of its operation, more than 3,000 exhibits were recorded in the inventory. The oldest exhibit is a book by Michał Oczapowski (after whom the Academy of Agriculture and Technology in Olsztyn was named). Oczapowski was a professor of agriculture and rector of the University of Vilnius and his book was entitled O roli, jej uprawie i pielęgnowaniu roślin gospodarskich (About the soil, its cultivation and care of agricultural plants). It was donated to the university by Prof. Andrzej Dubas, who was awarded an honorary degree by the university. The item which illustrates the university’s most recent history is a pen used by President Aleksander Kwaśniewski to sign the act for the building of the Humanities Centre (Centrum Nauk Humanistycznych). In January 2013 the Hall of Traditions was opened in the Archives and Museum of the University of Warmia and Mazury. Its seat is located in the university’s Main Library where several permanent exhibitions are organized: ‛Kortowo in photographs’, ‛Rectors of the higher schools and academies which now constitute the university’ (the Higher School of Agriculture, the Academy of Agriculture and Technology, the Higher Teacher Training School and the Warmiński Institute of Technology), ‛Noble Prize Winners from East Prussia’, ‛Road to the University’, ‛The History of University Faculties’. Films and Chronicles from the years 1971–2015 are also screened here. Selected archival documents are also exhibited in the display cases (the deed of establishment, secondary school leaving certificates, diplomas, lists of students, photographs of students and graduates), exhibits such as rectors’ and deans’ gowns, rectors’ insignia, traditional Warmian folk costumes used by the ‛Kortowo’ dance group, the banners of the Academy of Agriculture and Technology and Higher Teacher Training School, medals, decorations, cups related to the institutions that form today’s university. The Hall of Tradition was officially opened by the rector, Prof. Ryszard Górecki, on 14 October 2013. In 2015 the museum was provided with an adjoining room to house a new exhibition: Sixty-five years of Academic Sports in Olsztyn (65 lat sportu akademickiego w Olsztynie) which was opened on 17 October of that year. More than one thousand sports photographs were selected from the archives for the new exhibition. More than 300 exhibits, mostly cups, medals, diplomas, and pennants were transferred from the Kortowo Academic Sports Association (AZS) and the university’s Physical Education and Sports Centre. Thirty different sporting disciplines are presented on the boards and in display cases. The most space is devoted to men’s volleyball, the sport with which Olsztyn has been associated since the 1960s. The team colours of the AZS teams from the 1970s and 1980s draw attention. Alongside the three most valuable cups for winning the Polish volleyball championships in 1973, 1976 and 1978 is the original ball with which the team won the Polish championship in 1976 together with the players’ signatures. The oldest exhibits are a book, which was recently found, illustrating the activities of the AZS at the Higher School of Farming in Cieszyn dating from 1947–1950, a pre-war tennis racket and two pairs of German skis. The wall mural commemorates all the AZS Olsztyn sportsmen who took part in the Olympics. In the space of 5 years, the Hall of Traditions was visited by more than 5,000 people.