Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Medicine, 1930-1950.

On 7 June 1930, President Antanas Smetona announced the Law on the Name of the University of Lithuania – in honour of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas Magnus, the University of Lithuania was named Vytautas Magnus University. The new statute of Vytautas Magnus University was announced on the same day. At that time, the university consisted of seven faculties: Theology – Philosophy, Evangelical Theology, Humanities, Law, Mathematics – Natural Sciences, Technology and Medicine. About 4,000 students and free listeners attended them. In one of the largest – the Faculty of Medicine, there were three departments – Medicine, Odontology and Pharmacy. In 1930s the material base of the faculty improved. In the late 1930s a building of the Clinics of Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Diseases of the Faculty of Medicine was built in Vytautas Avenue according to the project prepared by architect V. Landsbergis-Žemkalnis. At the beginning of the 1930s, it was decided to build a new building of the Faculty of Medicine on the site of the old anatomicum on A. Mickevičius Street. The project was prepared by the architect Vladimiras Dubeneckis on the example of the building of the Faculty of Medicine of the Free University of Brussels and the proposals received from the heads of the theoretical departments of VMU Faculty of Medicine. Construction was completed in 1932. In 1937, according to the design of the French architects U. Cassano and E. Ouchanoff, the construction of the Faculty Clinics in Žaliakalnis was begun. In July 1940, all Clinics wards with 663 beds were already prepared for admissions. At the beginning of the first Soviet occupation in the summer of 1940, Vytautas Magnus University was renamed as Kaunas University. Student organisations were banned, and lecturers inconvenient for the government were fired. In 1941, after Nazi Germany occupied Lithuania, the name of Vytautas Magnus University was reinstated, but the new Clinics of the Faculty of Medicine were turned into a military hospital. In 1943 the occupation authorities closed the university, but students in the final year of the Faculty of Medicine were allowed to complete their studies. In autumn 1944, with the onset of the second Soviet occupation, university medical studies were resumed under extremely difficult conditions in the post-war years. At the end of 1950s the university in Kaunas was reorganised into Kaunas Medical Institute and Kaunas Polytechnic Institute by the order of the Soviet authorities.