Tadeusz Bujnicki and Jacek Purchla, professors of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, received the Knight’s Crosses of the Order of Merit for Lithuania from the President of the Republic of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda.

Professor Tadeusz Bujnicki was born in Vilnius. In 1955 he graduated from the Polish Studies at the Jagiellonian University. He obtained his doctorate in 1964. He is a researcher of Polish-Lithuanian literary and cultural relations, a professor emeritus at the Jagiellonian University. He was a co-creator of Polish studies at the University of Vilnius.

Professor Jacek Purchla is the chairman of the Jagiellonian University Council. For almost 30 years he was employed at the Jagiellonian University and was the head of the Department of Urban Studies at the Institute of Art History, and then the head of the Department of European Heritage at the Faculty of International and Political Studies. He is a member of the Polish Committee of the International Council for the Protection of Monuments ICOMOS. He has been chairing the Polish UNESCO Committee since 2015. In the years 2016-2017 he was the chairman of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.