Galicia was the only part of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to have its own parliament in the second half of the 19th century, with its seat in Lviv. For twenty years, the sessions of the Galician National Sejm were held in the old redoubt hall of the Skarbek Theatre, which was rented for this purpose and was completely unsuitable. Apart from the theatrical and ballroom decorations, which protruded from behind the curtains during the sessions, the old wooden building could not boast either sufficient space (parliamentary benches were placed there only once a year for the sessions) or good technical condition. An idea was therefore put forward to build a modern, in-house Sejm building, which was warmly supported by the then Speaker of the Sejm, Ludwik Wodzicki (1834-1894), and Vice-Marshal Oktawian Pietruski (1820-1894). The new edifice was built in 1876-1881 in Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque style and was designed by a Polish architect, from 1872 the head of the Municipal Building Office - Juliusz Hochberger. His design for a representative parliament building is considered an example of the implementation of the so-called Austrian models in Lviv.

The three-storey edifice was located on the site of the former Jesuit gardens, at 1 Marszalkowska St. It was characterised by unusually rich Renaissance architecture and magnificent interiors. The façade was distinguished by a central risalit with an arcade and columns supporting a beam with an attic surmounted by a sculptural group "The Caring Spirit of Galicia" by Teodor Rygier. The standing female figure is an allegory of Galicia, the seated female figure of the Vistula, and the male figure of the Dniester. Above the main cornice are also four symmetrically spaced figures personifying Faith, Truth, Justice and Love chiseled by Zygmunt Trembecki and Feliks Mikulski. On the ground floor, figures of Education and Labour by Rieger stood on monumental plinths.

The interiors of the Sejm building were equally richly decorated. The magnificent staircase was decorated with two groups of sculptures by Trembecki, placed in a spacious vestibule, depicting the rulers of Poland and Russia: Mieszko I with Casimir the Great and Jaroslav the Wise with Vladimir the Great. Let us give the floor to Franciszek Barański, author of Guide to Lviv published in 1904 :

"The Seimas Hall, of very beautiful architecture, accommodates 152 amphitheatrically rising seats for the members of the Seimas. By the rear wall there are seats for the Speaker, government representatives and a tribune for rapporteurs. Behind the Speaker's seat, on the back wall, there is a beautiful oak panelling with a frieze painted by Henryk Rodakowski. The entire frieze is divided by six naves into five fields. Painted in the naves are: Faith, Moses, Lycurgus, Solon, Justinian and Labour. The beautifully painted fields between the nyzes represent: Fine Arts, Awakening Science, Domestic Industry, Trade and Agriculture. The faces of the individual figures are portraits of the most prominent people of Lviv's political, scientific and literary-artistic world. On the opposite side, from the front, the flats of the National Marshal, with the meeting room of the National Department, in which there is a painting by Jan Matejko Unia Lubelska (The Lublin Union ) and the so-called Hall of Marshals with portraits of former marshals of the country and a painting by Jan Matejko Konstytucya 3-go Maja . "

It is worth mentioning that the "Union of Lublin" was purchased "on the property of the country" from public contributions in 1877, at the beginning of construction, for the sum of 18,000 zlotys. In turn, the 'Constitution of 3 May' was donated by Master Matejko to the National Sejm in the spring of 1892, with the proviso that it would go to the Sejm Hall of the Royal Castle in Warsaw after Poland regained its independence. The painting was located in the National Marshal's Audience Room, together with two other works by Matejko: portraits of Alfred Potocki and Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz, and a likeness of Stanisław Badeni by Kazimierz Pochwalski.

We can reconstruct the interior of the Sejm building at the beginning of its construction today by looking at a painting by Henryk Rodakowski - 'The Reception of Emperor Franz Joseph in the Sejm Building', painted between 13 September 1880 and the beginning of April 1881. The artist immortalised in it a scene when the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, together with Octavian Pietruski, ascends the mezzanine floor of the magnificent staircase. The interior depicted in the painting is still austere, devoid of any later decoration, but the whole makes an unusually solemn impression. As early as the late 1870s, the National Department, which was the administrative and executive body of the Galician Sejm, decided to place a portrait of the first Speaker of the Galician Sejm in the interior of the building, in accordance with the custom of the time. Prince Leon Sapieha was given a free hand to choose the author of his portrait - and he chose the eminent painter and private friend, Henryk Rodakowski. In a stroke of good faith, the National Department decided to establish a gallery of marshals - the portrait of Alfred Potocki was painted by Jan Matejko in 1879, Włodzimierz Dzieduszycki a year later by Rodakowski, while the portrait of Ludwik Wodzicki was also painted in 1880 in Henryk Siemiradzki's workshop. In subsequent years, further likenesses adorned the walls of the Sejm. They did not include the portraits of the last two Speakers - Adam Gołuchowski, who held office in 1913-1914, and Stanisław Jakub Niezabitowski, who held office in 1914-1918. It is worth mentioning that in 1881-1888, as a token of his gratitude for being entrusted with the task of painting portraits of Leon Sapieha and Włodzimierz Dzieduszycki, Rodakowski selflessly created a magnificent frieze for the Sejm hall, described by Barański in the excerpt quoted above.

The Sejm building was not only richly decorated and furnished, but also extremely modern. In 1880 Franciszek Rychnowski completed the heating and ventilation installation in the building, and in 1881-1882 he made the installation of electric lighting in the parliamentary hall, and this was one of the first (if not the first) installation of this type in a parliamentary building in the world. Initially the plan was to install gas lighting, but Rychnowski put forward a counter-proposal, which he described as follows:

"The Sejm hall is illuminated from above, so it has a glass ceiling, which cracked when the hall was trial-lit by gas flames. I took the opportunity to propose electric lighting by means of a dynamo-electric machine. Naturally, I was met with fierce resistance from the decisive circles, who could not accept this new way of lighting; one of the tycoons even declared that such light had a depressing effect on the brain. He was reassured by Professor Baron Roman Gostkowski with the explanation that electric arc light has quite the same effect on the mind as sunlight, under the influence of which not all people become mad. This lesson helped, and I immediately undertook to build a test dynamo and lamp, which also served, after the test, to decide on the electric lighting of the room in question. In Lvov, with the help of ordinary workers, I constructed a large machine that provided electricity to run 10 arc lamps, namely 4 for the hall, 4 for the vestibule and 2 in front of the parliament building. This was quite a feat for those days, when the science of electrical engineering was still in its infant cradle! I placed the lamps in the hall in a huge iron chandelier 4 metres wide and 4.5 metres high [...]".

It is worth adding here that the lamp Rychnowski constructed was not inferior in any way to the lamp constructed by Victor Serrin, then regarded as a peak technical achievement. Interestingly, the Berlin-based Siemens also submitted a bid for the lighting of the building. Although both the total cost of the installation, including equipment, and the cost of operation were lower than the offer made by Rychnowski, it was his lamps that shone brighter. Another important argument in favour of the indigenous installation was the fact that, in the event of a Siemens system failure, there was not a single specialist in Lvov who could fix it. The final test of the new electrical installation in the halls of the Parliament was carried out on 14 June 1882. In the basement of the building, three "dynamometers" were set up, driven by a 6-horsepower Otto gas engine, to power four lamps suspended eight metres above the floor, in which Siemens coal bars were lit. The test was successful, the light produced no colouring and burned silently. Over time, however, the lamps began to flicker and make noise, but despite these inconveniences, the installation served its purpose until 1894, when Siemens & Halske's incandescent lamps were lit in the building. Unfortunately, Rychnowski's historic machine was sold, although the designer himself lamented that it was better "to give it to a museum, as a reminder that the first parliament in Poland was electrically lit".

Difficult years for Lviv and its monuments began as early as the first months of the First World War, when the city was under Russian occupation for almost a year. In the summer of 1916, fearing another occupation of the city by the Russian army, the decision was made to transport the most valuable works of art to Krakow. Six months later, after the outbreak of the Polish-Ukrainian war, the Sejm building was occupied by Ukrainians who did not respect the Polish heritage. "In connection with the damage done to the public collections, we must note here the harm done to us in recent times by Ukrainian troops in Lwów in November 1918. Having forced their way into the Sejm building, they vented their anger towards the Poles by cutting the portraits of the Sejm speakers with sabres, which had already been riddled with bullets when they were fired," reads one document from the Home Department.

After the end of the First World War, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the establishment of the independent Polish state, the former power structures ceased to exist. Galician offices were abolished - in accordance with Act 41 of 30 January 1920, all rights, duties and property held by the Galician Sejm became the property of the Polish state. As early as November 1918, the University of Lwów came under the sovereignty of the Polish Government in Warsaw, to which the Senate of the University replied in a letter notifying its acceptance of the news, "with unspeakable joy and elation of spirit, vowing to fulfil as zealously as possible the duties that may bear the best and most abundant fruit for the good of our reborn Polish Republic". On 8 November 1919, Jozef Pilsudski approved the use by Lwów University of the official name 'Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów', and the naming ceremony took place on 23 November. A few months later, the fates of the abolished Sejm and the newly-named university were to be linked for the next few years.

On 19 January 1920, the university's rector, Stanisław Narajewski, together with the former rector, Alfred Halban, held a press conference on the university's endangered existence. The building on Mikołaja Street, which was crumbling after the destruction of the war, was unfit for use, and even before the war was in little better condition, since the Austrian government had provided a loan for the construction of the university's new premises. It was only four years later, with the rebirth of the Polish state, that this extremely urgent matter could be addressed. The construction of a new university building was out of the question in the face of the post-war crisis, so another solution was chosen. The National Faculty unanimously agreed to the proposal to donate the parliamentary building to the University, and the Council of Ministers, by a unanimous resolution of 26 February 1920, allocated the whole complex of buildings initially for the temporary accommodation of the University, and a year later by a parliamentary resolution for "permanent and permanent use". On 3 May 1920, a ceremony was held in the Lublin Union Hall for the University to take possession of the Sejm Building. The problem was that the Sejm building was in little better condition after the war than the ruined building of the former seat. As was written in the Evening Gazette of 19 May 1920:

"The Polish government with a magnificent gesture donated the building of the former Sejm to the University of Lvov, but the local authorities, namely the Viceroyalty, gave the building back in almost the same condition it was in after the Ukrainian invasion. Barely a pane of glass has been put in the front windows, while the glass roof over the assembly hall, or today's assembly hall, is so crumbled that the rain forms puddles on the floor. Corpses of broken benches form veritable barricades in the middle of the hall. Some of the doors and windows in the building are boarded up".

The building was able to be restored to a state of usefulness over the following years, but the inter-war period was not very auspicious for its operation. In July 1926, subsidies to the university were cut, causing a major financial crisis and the threat of gas and electricity supplies being cut off due to unpaid bills. The "Illustrated Daily Courier" reported at the time:

"Last academic year individual city councillors had to intervene with the City Council to ensure that the university's light and gas were not taken away. After the holidays, the Lviv university will again be forced to resort to such patronage. The lack of money has a disastrous effect on the laboratories. For example, chemistry has no money even for acids, without which the most primitive experiments are impossible, mathematicians do not even have tables."

Until 1928, it was not possible to find funds to renovate the façade of the building, which had been destroyed by wartime shelling. In the "Dziennik Lwowski" of 13 September 1928, we read about the start of work to remove bullet and explosion marks with the comment: "Thus, perhaps the last remnants of the war on the walls of the city will disappear, and Marszalkowska Street, with its renovated building of the University College and the flowerbeds of Kosciuszko's garden, will become one of the most beautiful spots in Lviv." A year later, funds were found for the construction of a new two-storey building - the Collegium Maximum - in the courtyard on the side of Kosciuszko Street, according to a design by the Lviv architect of Jewish origin, Jozef Avin. "Gazeta Lwowska" of 18 July 1929 reported on the work in progress:

"On the first floor of this building there will be an amphitheatre lecture hall much larger than the auditorium, 12 and a half mtr wide and 22 mtr long with room for 600 seats. This new lecture theatre will be dedicated to the humanities and law faculties. Under this hall will be several smaller ones for seminars."

The prosperous years of the interwar period came to an end with the invasion of Poland by Germany and the USSR, the occupation of Lviv by the Soviets in 1939-1941. Initially, the university continued to function, but as early as 18 October 1939, the Russian authorities dismissed the Polish rector, Professor Roman Longchamps de Bérier, appointing in his place Mykhailo Marchenko, who pursued a policy aimed at the full Sovietisation of the institution. The theological faculty was abolished, Ukrainian was introduced as the official language and many academics were dismissed from the university. On 1 December 1939, the name of the university was changed to Lviv State University of the USSR, and the following day a new statute of the university was approved, stipulating that its aim was to train new cadres for the communist homeland. In her memoirs, Karolina Lanckorońska, Ph.D., head of the art history department at the university's Faculty of Humanities, described the university after the Red Army entered:

"It was quite soon that we had our first encounter with the new authorities on our own premises, at the university. The professors, associate professors, assistants, students and caretakers were invited to a meeting on 29 September in the Collegium Maximum. The meeting was very well attended. Above the chair at the top hung a portrait of Stalin, in profile, in colour, of enormous size. Such dimensities were known to us only from Byzantium; and the portrait that hung in front of us testified to a mentality already completely cut off from the classical roots from which Byzantine culture had once sprung. I stared in horror at the features and forehead that we were henceforth to see always and everywhere, whether in shop windows, in restaurants, on street corners or on the tram. This face seemed to me to be fundamentally different from our faces, which are reflections of our feelings and thoughts. This is probably the essence of the face of Westerners, and the features I had before me at the time seemed to be an impermeable veil for these feelings and thoughts. From this face, then still unusual for us, now so familiar, but always equally alien, we learned in an irrefutable and poignant way that a mentality absolutely alien to us had come to rule over us."

A year later, the name was changed once again, this time to Ivan Franko Lviv State University, and 45 lecturers were brought in from Kiev and Kharkiv. Throughout the Soviet occupation, the NKVD arrested 68 academics, of whom 31 were murdered. The university was closed after the German attack on Soviet Russia, during the Nazi occupation of Lviv (30 June 1941 - 23 July 1944). On the morning of 4 July 1941, the Nazis murdered 25 Polish professors of the four Lviv universities, some with their families. After Lviv was reoccupied by the Soviets in August 1944, new staff were brought in from the USSR and the university resumed its operation. As a result of the forced deportation of the Polish population from the former Borderlands, the surviving Polish academics and lecturers for the most part decided to leave Lviv. In the 1950s, little was left of the priceless collections and more than 270 years of history of Jan Kazimierz University - some 2,000 artefacts, including printed works and manuscripts, medals and memorabilia from the university's history, were destroyed and stolen. Today the university operates as the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.

Location: 1 Uniwersytecka Street, Lviv, Ukraine