Charles University

The Collegium Carolinum (the Latin name of Charles University) is the oldest university in Central Europe, founded in 1348 by Charles IV. Jan Hus, famous for his campaign against church corruption, became the University Rector in 1402, urging that Czech students and professors be given more power within their own university. The University’s student body was a center of Hussite activity for 200 years. After the Catholic victory at the battle of the White Mountain in 1620, the Jesuits took over the University. After the Jesuit order was disbanded in 1773, the premises were used as a seminary, university and library. In 1882, the University was split into Czech and German parts, a concession to growing Czech nationalism. The author Franz Kafka enrolled at the Charles University in 1901 for eight semesters of law school.

During the brief lifetime of democratic Czechoslovakia (1918-1938), academic life was liberalized, although the basic organization of the University was similar to its structure during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the period of Nazi occupation, during which all universities were closed, normal University life began again in 1945. Many changes were instituted under the communist regime. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the idea of strict planning according to state ideology was abolished and academic freedom and a high degree of autonomy from the state became the goals of the new era.