This article analyses the cultural images of the Vilnius ghetto and the methods of its categorisation in Polish-language texts of the interwar period in tourist guides, feuilletons, and poetry. In the texts of the Vilnius authors, Julisz Kłos, professor of Vilnius University, poets Witold Hulewicz and Konstanty Gałczyński, the ghetto is defined in terms of modernity as a medieval and chaotic urban space that requires modernisation; in terms of pictorialism as a picturesque part of the city; in terms of heterogeneity as an alien space creating an urban heterotopia, and as a space of everyday life, specific for the whole of Vilnius. The article emphasises the fact that the image of Vilnius as an urban heterotopia was shaped by foreigners, including authors of German guides of the World War I years and subsequently by foreign guests visiting Vilnius in the interwar period. In their texts, the ghetto appears as an intriguing part of the city space. Noticed by a foreigner who played the role of the “other”, the specificity and originality of the ghetto influenced the perceptions of the city by some representatives of the Polish intelligentsia. The textual image of the Vilnius ghetto reveals the beliefs, worldviews, images, ideology, and to some extent the aesthetic inclinations of the authors for whom the ghetto was an alien city. A different attitude was represented by Jerzy Wyszomirski, a writer and journalist who comprehended the space of the ghetto, its languages, Yiddish and Hebrew, and treated the Jewish world with kindness as neighbourly and familiar, thus eliminating the structures of otherness that allowed the ghetto to be incorporated into the general idea of the city.

1919: Memory of Vilnius – memory in VilniusThis article applies the framework of three types of memory – individual, communicative and cultural – as an effective tool for describing the phenomenon of “circulation” of the content of memory in communities of memory. I approach the Polish community in Vilnius, especially the intelligentsia, as a community of memory, and show how the three forms of memory were activated at a particular historical time. I argue that the year 1919 and the time of reviving Vilnius University was crucial for the transfer of the content of communicative memory in general, and family memory in particular, to cultural memory. The effort to revive the university was directly related to the restoration of cultural memory in the urban landscape of Vilnius. The person who played the main role in this process was Ferdynand Ruszczyc, the artistic supervisor of revitalisation of university buildings, the author of toponyms and the key figure of cultural life of the city at the time. Rok 1919: pamięć Wilna – pamięć w WilnieW swoim artykule przywołuję wyodrębnione przez współczesnych badaczy trzy formy pamięci: indywidualną, komunikacyjną, kulturową – i traktuję je jako poręczne narzędzie do opisywania zjawiska „cyrkulacji” treści pamięci we wspólnotach pamiętających. Za taką pamiętającą wspólnotę uznaję polską społeczność Wilna, zwłaszcza inteligencję, i ukazuję, w jaki sposób aktywizowały się te trzy formy pamięci w konkretnym czasie historycznym. Stawiam tezę, iż rok 1919 i czas pracy nad wskrzeszeniem uniwersytetu był kluczowy dla przeniesienia treści pamięci komunikacyjnej, zwłaszcza jej postaci rodzinnej, do pamięci kulturowej. Prace nad wskrzeszeniem uniwersytetu łączyły się bezpośrednio z przywracaniem pamięci kulturowej w przestrzeni miasta. Zasadniczą rolę w tym procesie odegrał Ferdynand Ruszczyc jako artystyczny opiekun prac rewitalizacyjnych gmachów uniwersyteckich, autor toponimów i kluczowa postać ówczesnej kultury wileńskiej.

The medical society associating doctors dealing with diseases of the ear, nose, larynx and pharynx in the territory of the Republic of Poland was registered in 1921 as the Polish Otorinolaryngological Society. The Society's Vilnius Section was established in 1924. We know the most about the Vilnius Section of the Polish Otorinolaryngological Society because the protocols of the section meetings have been preserved. According to the protocols, 58 sessions were held during the 16 years of the Vilnius Section's existence. During the entire period of the Section's activity, over 250 different clinical cases were demonstrated, over 30 papers, inventions, new therapeutic and surgical methods were discussed and presented. Colleagues shared their experience gained abroad, internships held in centers abroad, participation in congresses in Poland and abroad were discussed. The Vilnius Section, as part of the 13th Congress of Polish Doctors and Naturalists in Vilnius, on September 26-29, 1929, organized the VIII National Congress of the Society and a Section meeting.

Many eminent surgeons provided excellent foundations for the establishment and development of otorhinolaryngology, head and neck surgery. One of them was professor Władysław Dobrzaniecki. Of the 66 items written by W. Dobrzaniecki, 26 works concerned issues related to the head and neck. These works show that the main topic was plastic surgery, both aesthetic and reconstructive after extensive oncological operations. The scientific and professional career of such a talented surgeon was suddenly interrupted. At the age of 44, he was murdered by the Nazis, in Lviv on July 4, 1941, along with other professors.

Before the Department and Clinic of Otorhinolaryngology was established, scientific and professional activity on the ENT field was carried out in others specialist departments, including internal and surgery departments, as well as in hospital outpatient clinics and clinics dealing with ear, nose and larynx diseases. Otorhinolaryngologist got involved in this activity. The Chair of Otorhinolaryngology at the University of Warsaw was established on June 1, 1920, while the Department on January 15, 1921 at Elektoralna Street 12 in Warsaw was opening. In this paper we discuss on the otorhinolaryngology student’s teaching in the newly opened Chair and Department, taking into account staff, housing, teaching aids and legal acts issued at that time.