Polish-Ukrainian college is inaugurated in Lublin

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

PRAGUE - Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and his Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid Kuchma, on October 6 attended the inauguration of the European College of Polish and Ukrainian Universities in Lublin, eastern Poland, according to reports by both Polish and Ukrainian media. The founding declaration states the college has been founded to help create a strategic partnership between Poland and Ukraine.

Speaking at the inauguration, both presidents stressed that the college is the first step toward the establishment of a Polish-Ukrainian university.

"Educational institutions are able to build bridges of reconciliation. Both science, as well as culture and arts were, are, and will be stronger, more powerful than borders, visas and passports," Mr. Kwasniewski said in Lublin.

"For centuries, Lublin was a place where cultures of the West and the East came together, so the education of a younger generation here in the spirit of tolerance and respect for others and democratic principles will promote the rapprochement of both nations that are on the road toward a unifying Europe," Mr. Kuchma noted.

Eighty-six Ukrainian, two Belarusian and 16 Polish post-graduate students (who will be working toward their doctorates) were matriculated into the college on September 6. The college was set up by three Lublin-based universities - Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Catholic University, and the Central and Eastern European Institute - as well as three Ukrainian ones: the Kyiv-based Taras Shevchenko University, the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and the Lviv-based Ivan Franko National University.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, October 28, 2001, No. 43, Vol. LXIX

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