Plaque in memory of Czesław Miłosz

In June 2011, a plaque dedicated to Polish Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz was unveiled in Vilnius on the building that housed the King Sigismund Augustus State Gymnasium before the war. The inscription in two languages, Lithuanian and Polish, reads:

"In this building - the former Sigismund Augustus Grammar School - Czeslaw Milosz, an honorary citizen of the city of Vilnius and Nobel Prize winner, studied from 1921 to 1929."

The plaque was unveiled at the initiative of the capital's local government and the Polish Institute in Vilnius.

King Sigismund Augustus State Gymnasium in Vilnius

The King Sigismund Augustus State Gymnasium operated from 1915 to 1939 and was intended for boys. It was established at the end of August 1915 as a school of the Polish Teachers' Association. As early as 22 August 1915, six days after enrolment was announced in the city, 197 pupils and 62 teachers had already enrolled. It was also at this time that the women's school (later known as the Eliza Orzeszkowa Grammar School) began operating. The initiator of the establishment of both these institutions was Stanisław Kościałkowski, a professor at the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius.

The first director of the First Male Gymnasium (that was its official name until the early 1920s) was Stanisław Cywiński. The grammar school was located at 10 Wileńska Street (opposite St Catherine's Church), and in 1919 it obtained premises at the corner of Mala Pohulanka and Gora Bouffałowa, which had housed the Russian Vinogradov Gymnasium until the First World War.

Stanisław Zieliński became the next headmaster of the men's school, which was then located at 10 Wilenska Street. The school operated during the difficult times of the First World War and during the occupation of Vilnius by Bolshevik troops, but education was not interrupted. The situation improved after the occupation of Vilnius by the Polish army in April 1919, when the school received material support from the state authorities, and moved to a larger building at 11, Mala Pohulanka Street. Zygmunt Józef Fedorowicz (until 1924), a zoologist and teacher, became the head of the institution. In 1920, the gymnasium was nationalised and took the name of Zygmunt August, and was granted the rights of a public school. From 1932, the school became the King Sigismund Augustus Grammar and Secondary School. In December 1939, it was transformed into the Vilnius State Gymnasium, where teaching continued in Polish. From 1924 the headmaster was Jan Żelski.

The teaching staff was of a very high standard, the school provided excellent teaching aids, and lessons were held exclusively in special rooms, including a physics room, each student having his own laboratory station, equipped with electric and gas appliances, ammeters and voltmeters.

Many eminent compatriots were graduates of the King Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium: including the later Nobel Prize for Literature winner Czesław Miłosz, and another Pole born in Vilnius who was awarded this prize (in 1977 in the field of medicine) - biochemist and physician Andrew Schally. The poet visited the gymnasium in Vilnius during his second post-war visit in 1993.

Other later eminent compatriots studied at this school: Melchior Wańkowicz, Leszek Beynar (Paweł Jasienica), Jerzy Zagórski, Mieczyslaw Niedziałkowski, Stanisław Cat-Mackiewicz. The building in Pohulanka was also visited by the President of the Republic of Poland Stanisław Wojciechowski, and Władysław Mickiewicz - Adam's son - came here.

Milosz is also remembered in Vilnius by a plaque in Zwierzyniec, placed on the building of the radio station where the future Nobel laureate worked, and another in the Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski courtyard at the university. A plaque with the poet's name is also on a wall in Vilnius' Literary Lane among many others commemorating writers and poets.