The essay investigates issues related to the ways in which University participates in the complex and dramatically changing reality. The „melancholy” refers, on the one hand, to University’s irrevocable right and responsibility to ask difficult questions to which there may be no easy, immediate answers, which is the mode of University addressing urgent issues of actual social and cultural life. On the other hand, however, we have recently faced the authorities’ reluctant attitude towards scholarly activities which may not coincide with the ideological guidelines, which mistrust may result in the imposition of various limitations on research and funding allocations.