PRAGUE UNIVERSITY

Prague University has been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the UNIVERSITAS category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the aeternitas and the future of Europe.

	FOUNDATION
Year	1348 A.D.
City	Prague
Founder	King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV
Where	Regna Bohemia (Reich Empire)
Originary subjects	law , liberal arts , medicine , theology

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	NOWADAYS
State	Czech Republic
Name	University of Prague (Univerzita Karlova)
Seates	Prague city , Hradec Králové , Plzeň
Degree programs	Theology , Law , Medicine , Pharmacy , Arts , Science , Mathematic&Physic , Humanities , Social Sciences , Physical Education and Sport
Library	Central Library of Charles University
Collegium	Carolinum
Alumni	Alumni Club of Charles University
Famous teachers	Matthew of Cracow , Jan Gebauer , Anton Gindely , Jan Hus , Jan Jesenius , Jacob of Mies , Ignatz Mühlwenzel , František Josef Studnička , Johannes Vodnianus Campanus , Stanislav Vydra , Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , Edvard Beneš , Eduard Čech , Miroslav Hroch , Bedřich Hrozný , Vojtěch Jarník , Vilém Mathesius , Jan Mukařovský , Alois Musil , Jaroslav Nešetřil , Jan Patočka , Josef Ladislav Píč , Petr Pokorný , Hans Kelsen , Friedrich Adler , Albert Einstein , Phillip Frank , Gerhard Gentzen , Aleš Klégr , Gustav Karl Laube , Ernst Mach , Günther von Mannagetta und Lërchenau Beck , Justin Quinn , Friedrich Reinitzer , Samuel Friedrich Stein
Famous scholars	James Bellak , Bernard Bolzano , Jonas Bondi , Vincenz Czerny , Josef Dobrovský , Samuel Fritz , Anton Gindely , Karel Hynek Mácha , Giovanni Kminek-Szedlo , Jan Marek Marci , Jan Evangelista Purkyně , Agustín Stahl , Jan Štěkna , Ferdinand Stoliczka , Matthias of Trakai , Jan Erazim Vocel , Václav Bělohradský , Antonín Holý , Bohumila Bednářová Adalbert Czerny , Rudolf Rabl , Karel Čapek , Stanislav Grof , Jaroslav Heyrovský , Václav Hlavatý , Miroslav Holub , Milada Horáková , Jan Janský , Charles I of Austria last emperor of Austria-Hungary and king of Bohemia , Luboš Kohoutek , Henry Kučera , Martin Kukučín , Milan Kundera , Vera Nikodem , Emanuela Nohejlová-Prátová , Andrej Sirácky , Vavro Šrobár , Ivana Trump , Wilhelm Winkler , David Navara , Johann Böhm , Carl Ferdinand Cori , Gerty Cori , Viktor Fischl Franz Hofmeister , Franz Kafka , Wilhelm Klein , Arthur Mahler , August Leopold von Reuss , Rainer Maria Rilke , Max Wertheimer , Wolf W. Zuelzer , Bernard Hausner
Awards	The Charles University Research Department nominates the winners of Brain Prize, World Cultural Council Awards, European Charlemagne Youth Prize, Dimitris N. Chorafas Prize, Arrigo Recordati Prize

Prague University is among the oldest of Europe: it was founded in 1348 A.D. by King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg dinasty. Modelled on the universities in Bologna and Paris, it quickly gained international renown and originally it had 4 faculties: theology, law, liberal art and medicine. The status of the Bohemian academic community was then strengthened under Charles’son, King Wenceslas IV, who in fact opened the Univerzita Karlova organized into 4 nations: the Bohemian natio included Bohemians, Moravians, southern Slavs and Hungarians people; the Bavarian included Austrians, Swabians, natives of Franconia and of the Rhine-Palatinate provinces; the Polish included Silesians, Poles and Ruthenians; the Saxon included inhabitants of the Margravade of Meissen and Thuringia, of Upper and Lower Saxony, of Denmark and Sweden. The Archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice took an active part in the foundation by obliging the clergy to contribute and became chancellors of the university. The lectures were held in the colleges, of which the oldest was named for the king the Carolinum, established in 1366 A.D..

In 1402 A.D. Jerome of Prague studying in Oxford copied out the 'Dialogus and Trialogus' of John Wycliffe: when the dean of the philosophical faculty, Jan Hus, translated it into the Czech language Prague University forbade its members to follow that teachings, but the doctrine continued to gain in popularity. The politic involvement of tha studium already had happened during the Western Schism, when the Bohemian nation took the side its king and supported the Council of Pisa, while the other nations of the university declared their support for the side of Pope Gregory XII. Hus and other Bohemians, though, took advantage of Wenceslaus' opposition to Gregory, so by the Decree of Kutná Hora in 1409 A.D. the king subverted the university constitution by granting the Bohemian masters the votes needed to win: as result of this coup was the emigration of foreign (mostly German) professors and students, who founded the University of Leipzig, so that the Charles university of Prague lost a large part of its scholars. In the autumn of same year, Hus was elected rector of the now Czech-dominated university, that became a bastion of the Hussite movement and mostly a regional institution: but soon the faculties of theology and law disappeared, the medicine esparated itself and only the faculty of arts remained in existence.

The atheneum had transformation during the Hussite reformist movement, which preceded the Protestant Reformation: with the social/political revolution that followed, the university was reduced to just 1 faculty, became a prototype for later Reformation academies. Then Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg dinasty called the Jesuits to Prague University in 1562 A.D., who opened the academy 'the Clementinum' where from 1541 till 1558 A.D. the Czech humanist Mattheus Collinus was a professor of Greek language. Progresses were made again when the emperor Rudolph II took up residence in Prague: in 1609 A.D. the obligatory celibacy of the professors was abolished and years later the Jesuit Academy became a university, while Prague was transformed into a cultural metropolis where the atheneum flourished alongside the court.

In the early 17th century, Praga University fell under the strong political influence of the Protestant Czech Estates involved in the anti-Habsburg opposition movement, whose representatives sparked what grew into the Thirty Years’ War that ultimately engulfed most of Europe. So, Cardinal Ernst Adalbert of Harrach actively opposed the union of the university with another institution and the withdrawal of the archiepiscopal right to the chancellorship and prevented the drawing up of the 'Golden Bull' for the confirmation of the grant to Jesuits. So he funded the Collegium Adalbertinum but in 1638 A.D. the Emperor Ferdinand III limited the teaching monopoly enjoyed by the Jesuits: he took from them the rights, properties and archives of the Carolinum, making Prague University once more independent under imperial protector. During the last years of the religious ars the Charles Bridge in Prague was courageously defended by the students of the Carolinum and the Clementinum. Since 1650 A.D., those who received any degrees took an oath to maintain the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, which has been renewed annually. The outcome of the Peace of Westfalia saw fundamental changes: the institution became a part of Charles-Ferdinand University (name persisted until 1918 A.D.) and all 4 pre-Hussite faculties were restored, so the atheneum was transformed into a state-governed educational institution, a process culminated at the end of XVIII century with reforms introduced by Emperor Joseph II.

Following the mid-19th century reforms, Prague University began to assume the form of a modern higher education institution but in 1882 A.D., at the culmination of the Czech National Revival, Prague’s Charles-Ferdinand University was divided into 2 institutions: the Czech (Czech: Česká universita Karlo-Ferdinandova) and the German (German: Deutsche Karl-Ferdinands-Universität) universities, separate spoken national colleges that would allow both nations to retain the collective traditions of the university, by an act of the Cisleithanian Imperial Council which Emperor Franz Joseph sanctioned. Each section was entirely independent of the other and enjoyed equal status, even if the 2 universities shared medical and scientific institutes, the old insignia, aulas, the library and the botanical garden, meanwhile the common facilities were administered by the German University. The high point of this was the epoch preceding the First World War, when it was home to world-renowned scientists such as physicists and philosophers Ernst Mach, Moritz Winternitz and Albert Einstein, together with students Max Brod, Franz Kafka and Johannes Urzidil. At that time the 'Lese und Redehalle der deutschen Studenten in Prag' had been an important social and scientific centre: its library contained circa 23,000 books and offered 248 scientific journals, 19 daily newspapers, 49 periodicals and 34 papers of entertainment, while regular lectures were held to scientific and political themes.

When the Austro-Hungarian Empire was abolished in 1918 A.D., succeeded by Czechoslovakia state, Czech politicians demanded that the original insignia of 1348 A.D. were exclusively to be kept by the Czech national university: it happenned in 1920 A.D., when the professor of physiology František Mareš obtained that the Czech University was the successor to the original medieval, changing its name in Univerzita Karlova in czech language, while the other became officially called the Deutsche Universität Prag that had been moved to Liberec (Reichenberg), in northern Bohemia, giving origin to the movement for annexation to Germany in Thierties. By the turn of the 20th century, both universities had achieved a high academic standard: one of the professors at the German University was the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, while the academic staff at the Czech University included respected figures who played a prominent role in the process of national emancipation as Professor Tomáš G. Masaryk, who became the first President of Czechoslovakia in 1918 A.D..

Charles Prague University achieved results putting it on par with the world’s most prestigious academic and research institutions: a noteworthy example is Professor Jaroslav Heyrovský’s inventions in polarography, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1959 A.D.. The German University has ceased to exist at falling of Nazi German Reich regime. Even though, the renewal of free academic life at Prague University had been interrupted again by the communist coup of 1948 A.D. and for many years had to follow the regime subjected education and research to tight ideological and political control, with detrimental effects on international links and research opportunities. Then on November 1989 A.D. students, loyal to their tradition of academic freedoms, demonstrated against the totalitarian regime, eventually initiating its fall.

Modern Prague University life began to thrive, drawing strongly on international cooperation: aware of its mission, it continues to nurture academic cooperation and plays an active role in a broad spectrum of European and global programmes, paying great attention to the European Research Council (ERC) grants, as it considers them, like all other scientific institutions in Europe, a benchmark of research quality. The Charles University strives to provide systematic and long-term support to applicants with the aim of increasing its success rate in obtaining ERC grants in the years to come: so the atheneum has initiated and substantially participates in the ERC Expert Group, whose coordinator is Prof. Zdeněk Strakoš (MFF). Moreover, the Karlova University is involved in the activities of a number of prestigious networks and organizations with the purpose to create a common higher education and research area, scientific networks, to share examples of good practice and making the universities' position visible in the world context, such as 4EU+, CELSA, CENTRAL, the CoimbraGroup, EUA, EUF, Europaeum, The Forum, IAU, LERU and UNICA.

Prague University maintains the traditional academic rituals of passage: matriculation and graduation ceremonies. In ancient matriculation ceremony, students entered in the student register of a faculty (matricula) pledge to fulfil the requirements of academic study, to honour their moral obligation toward the University and to respect its internal regulations and the decisions of the academic officials. The order of the matriculation ceremony is stipulated by Matriculation and Graduation Code of CU: like most Charles University ceremonial events nowadays, matriculation ceremonies take place in the Aula Magna of the Carolinum, by featuring the atheneum insignia and the Prague University officials present at the ceremony wear academic gowns.

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