Świat “Wspomnień Niebieskiego Mundurka”
The world of Memories of a Blue School Uniform
School is not a stagnant water body; it resembles rather a sea
that has its continual and constant ebbs and flows …
This is a fragment of Memories of a Blue School Uniform – a novel by Wiktor Gomulicki, a poet, novelist, essayist, researcher of the history of Warsaw, collector, bibliophile and one of the most important founders of Polish positivism. In 1858–1864, he was a pupil of the County School in Pułtusk located in the building of the current Piotr Skarga General Secondary School. In classrooms where Skarga secondary school students learn today, young Gomulicki and his classmates in distinctive blue school uniforms acquired knowledge, made first friendships and experienced funny or dramatic adventures. The author tells about that all in his novel, the characters of which are pupils, teachers, the school janitor, but also the town and its inhabitants in the second half of the 19th century.
The book was released for the first time in 1906. For the Skarga secondary school students and inhabitants of Pułtusk, it is still a living and exceptional history. For the purpose of commemorating the characters of the book, on the 580th anniversary of foundation of the school, a sculpture was unveiled in front of its old gate, presenting a historical janitor signalling the end of the lesson with the loud sound of the bell and boys in blue uniforms running out of the school. From now on, the predecessors of today’s secondary school students will accompany the town and the school.
The group sculpture was unveiled on the occasion of the anniversary of the school on 22nd October 2021. It is a work of an excellent sculptor Michał Selerowski. The sculpture is an anniversary gift from local governments of the Pułtusk Commune and the Pułtusk County.
The Piotr Skarga General Secondary School has a tradition of 580 years. The third oldest school in Poland. It was founded by the Bishop of Płock Paweł Giżycki in 1440. It developed under the patronage of bishops. It became the first Jesuit college in the Polish Crown. Many outstanding persons lectured and acquired knowledge there. The vice-chancellor and lecturer of the college was priest Jakub Wujek – a teacher, preacher and translator of the Bible into Polish. Another famous lecturer was priest Piotr Skarga – an outstanding preacher and the author of The Lives of the Saints and Sejm Sermons. The collage was attended, among others, by Jerzy Ossoliński – later Crown Court Treasurer, Andrew Báthory – a nephew of King Stephen Báthory, and Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski – an outstanding Polish–Latin poet, called the “Sarmatian Horace”. After the dissolution of the Jesuit Order, the college started functioning as a provincial school incorporated into the network of schools of the Commission of National Education. In 1781, the collage was handed over to the Benedictine Order.
The partitioning period was a dramatic chapter in the history of the school, causing interruptions of education. Its pupils actively took part in national liberation uprisings. In 1905, they organised a school strike, demanding the restoration of education in Polish. In 1915, the Russian government classical gymnasium was transformed into a Polish seven-year philological gymnasium, with Piotr Skarga as its patron.
During World War I and II, pupils and teachers fought on many fronts. In January 1945, the school building was ruined and looted of its educational aids and books. Nevertheless, the school year started already on 12th March 1945.
Today the Piotr Skarga General Secondary School continues magnificent traditions by educating and bringing up successive generations of young people in the spirit of patriotism and respect for supreme values, and all of its activities are guided by the motto of the jubilee of the 580th anniversary of the school: ‘With tradition into the future’.
‘It was faith and hope from school days,
When I believed in future with my flaming soul
That, though learning is hard and work is toilsome,
Our goals are great and must come true!’
A fragment of Song XIV from Władysław Syrokomla’s poem
Born Jan Dęboróg, recited by Sprężycki
– the main character of Memories of a Blue School Uniform –
when he was running to meet the poet.
A view from the Benedictine Bridge towards the Piotr Skarga Men’s State Gymnasium and the former Benedictine church – 1st quarter of the 20th century.
A bird’s-eye view from the west, with a sports hall added in 2018.
The memorial room with a teacher’s desk from the school days of Wiktor Gomulicki in the foreground and his bust in the background.
The teaching staff of the Piotr Skarga Men’s State Gymnasium – 1925.
The postwar students and teaching staff of the general secondary school in Pułtusk – the late 1940s.
A panorama of Pułtusk by teacher Julian Jurkiewicz – 1921, made on the reverse of a portrait of Tsar Nicholas II Romanov from the times when the school was administered by the Russian invader. Dimensions 1,200 x 2,200 mm. The oil painting hangs in the hall of the secondary school.
The sculpture of characters of Memories of a Blue School Uniform was inspired by a drawing by Konstanty Gorski from the cover of the first edition of the novel in 1906.