Beginnings
The first meeting of students demanding independent Association took place on August 27, 1980 in Gdańsk. On September 2, the Temporary Founding Committee of the University of Gdańsk was founded, followed by similar bodies in other Polish cities, such as Warsaw, Poznań, and Kraków.
Between 18 and 19 October 1980, at the Warsaw University of Technology, a founding meeting of a newly created student organization took place, with 60 chapters, representing different Polish universities and colleges. It was there that the name Independent Students’ Association was approved. There were other suggestions for the name, such as Solidarity of the Association of Polish Students, but they did not gain popularity. During the meeting, it was decided that the NZS would be seated in Warsaw, also the National Founding Committee was established, with eleven members (among them Maciej Kuroń, and Piotr Bikont). The NZS was a follower of the late 1970s organization Student Committee of Solidarity, which had been created in 1977, after the murder of Stanislaw Pyjas.
In 1980, the Association was in some way a student equivalent of Solidarity, as it was created following the strikes of the so-called Polish August 1980. It gathered young people who wished to organize themselves independently of the Communist regime. They wanted democratization of Polish universities as well as respect for Polish patriotic traditions of fighting for independence. The NZS was an alternative to the official Polish Students' Association (ZSP), which was subordinated to the Polish United Workers' Party.
Read more about this topic: Independent Students' Union
Famous quotes containing the word beginnings:
“When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.”
—John Cheever (1912–1982)
“The beginnings of altruism can be seen in children as early as the age of two. How then can we be so concerned that they count by the age of three, read by four, and walk with their hands across the overhead parallel bars by five, and not be concerned that they act with kindness to others?”
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“[Many artists], even the greatest ones, are not sure of their own existence. So they search for proof, they judge, they condemn. It strengthens them, it is the beginnings of existence. They are alone!”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)