Medicinska fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani 1919–1945 - Univerza v ...

to abolish both faculties triggered an organised protest meeting of
all the university students in 1921� The Ljubljana Town Council
pleaded for the institutions by sending the ministry an appeal in
support of both faculties� Each of them issued a memorandum
on the basis of which the University Council declared itself for
the integrity of Ljubljana University’s existence on 17 October
1922 and wired its decision to the ministry� The existence of
both faculties was also defended with the Slovenian ministers
in Belgrade by vice-rector Zupančič� There was another serious
student revolt against the government’s intention to abolish the
Faculty of Medicine in March 1922, with protests right up to the
end of 1923� However, threats against the Ljubljana University
and its faculties from the authorities in Belgrade persisted� In
the 1923/24 academic year, the financial bill included an article
abolishing the faculties of Medicine and Technical Sciences�
The University Council adopted a firm protest against this,
emphasizing that the Ljubljana University is of the utmost cultural
importance for the whole country and indispensable for any national
resistance of our nation beyond the borders of the Kingdom of SCS
and sent a delegation to Belgrade which achieved the deletion
of the article abolishing both faculties from the financial act�
Threats of university truncation continued even during work on
the university act in 1925 when news spread that only one faculty
in Ljubljana would be preserved� At the conference of Yugoslav
universities in Zagreb, an initiative from Law Faculty Professor
Metod Dolenc prevented the medical and technical faculties in
Ljubljana from being abolished� The University Council adopted
the University of Ljubljana Manifest to make a stand against
its truncation� When the work on preparing the university act
stalled again, problems arose with the budget� When adopting
the budget and the financial act for 1928/29 academic year,
certain articles of which provided the option to abolish individual
faculties in the country, the crisis and uncertainty about the fate
of the Ljubljana University was the longest and protests brought
together students, professors and the political community� The
Ljubljana University Student Council called a large protest rally
on 24 November 1927 at Union Hall and at the University�
Speakers at the Union included Dean Šerko, who said that
Belgrade wants to take away from us something we had even under
Austria for a while, that the argument that three medical faculties
in our state are too many only holds if Yugoslavia is not and does
not want to be cultured; and the argument about excessive costs
only holds if Yugoslavia is the most beggarly or corrupt country in
the world� The argument that the Medical Faculty in Ljubljana
is too small for its mission only holds if culture is a function of
mass in this state. We may not have any grand cultural institutions,
but Ljubljana University gives its students what is needed.
It is spirit which gives higher education stature and spirit is not
bound either to huge salaries or the number of students. On 25
November 1927, the University Council adopted a resolution
which was also circulated to all Slovenian ministers and MPs,
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and the Ljubljana Regional Assembly adopted a resolution
addressed to the government which firmly demanded striking the
article on abolishing faculties, and University completion� The
Memorandum on the Significance of the Ljubljana University
for Slovenians and the State of SCS was published in 1927,
issued and signed by 28 Slovenian societies, institutions and
organisations from both political camps, stating weighty reasons
for the existence of individual faculties� Among other things it
argued that the fewer students the Faculty of Medicine has, the
better, since it relies on dead and ill human bodies� The more the
students get and the smaller the student body, the more thorough
their education. An Anatomical Institute with 150 students would
be an evil and the professors have already published some books
and scientific treatises. A special faculty reduction committee at
the Education Ministry consisting of the representatives of all
three universities intensively debated the reduction of the universities
in February 1928 and issued a memorandum emphasizing
the significance of all the faculties for the development of the
sciences, particularly at national level� After years of threats
to its existence and while ceremonies on its 10th anniversary
were taking place, the Ljubljana University asked for the King’s
protection and, with his consent, renamed itself the University
of King Alexander I in Ljubljana, but this did not save it from
further threats� When drawing up the financial act in 1932, there
was talk of abolishing as many as four faculties in Ljubljana:
medicine, technical sciences, theology and law� Only the Faculty
of Arts and the Mining, Geology and Metallurgy Department
of the Faculty of Technical sciences would remain� A university
delegation headed by the rector intervened with the minister
and achieved the deletion of the article on abolishing the four
faculties from the draft financial act�
In accordance with the expectations that the Faculty of Medicine
would gradually evolve and that Ljubljana would soon have a
complete medical course, as already envisaged in the March
1919 plan of the subcommittee for the Medical Faculty, the
University Council unanimously carried a motion calling on
the Education Ministry to take all necessary action to gradually
extend the Faculty of Medicine to 10 semesters and point out the
importance and necessity of the Medical Faculty for Slovenia and
the country� The justification and need for a complete Faculty
of Medicine was resolutely upheld by its long-standing dean,
Professor Šerko, both in university teachers’ meetings and in the
professional medical and public media� He already argued for the
faculty’s completion in his report for the Medical Association in
August 1920� The Slovenian Medical Association then issued a
resolution addressed to all Slovenian political parties requesting
their support for the imminent establishment of a complete
Faculty of Medicine and a request to the Belgrade government
for funding� The resolution met with no response, so the socially
aware Dean Šerko sent a memorandum to the education minister