ALMA MATER VILNENSISI: THE RECONSTITUTION OF STEPHEN BATHORY UNIVERSITY IN VILNIUS The article discusses the early 20th-century attempts of the Polish intellectual elites to re-establish in Vilnius the institution of higher education which had been closed by a tsar’s ukase in 1832. It focuses on the efforts undertaken in 1915–1919, which led to the foundation of Stephen Bathory University (Universitas Batoreana Vilnensisi) by a decree of Chief of State Józef Piłsudki’s on 28 August 1919
