History of Charles University ****************************************************************************************** * ****************************************************************************************** Charles University was founded in 1348 during the rule of King of Bohemia and Holy Roman E IV. It became the first Studium generale north of the Alps and east of Paris. Modelled on universities in Bologna and Paris it quickly gained international renown. Orig four faculties: theology, liberal arts, law, and medicine. The status of status of Czech a was strengthened under Charles’ son, King Wenceslas IV. The university underwent transformation during the Hussite reformist movement (which prece Reformation); the religious reformer Master Jan Hus was rector of the university at the ti social and political revolution that followed, the university was reduced to just one facu of Liberal Arts (Facultas artium liberalium), becoming a prototype for later Reformation a Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II turned Prague into a cultural metropolis where the university f alongside the court. In the early 17th century, the university fell under the strong political influence of the Estates involved in the anti-Habsburg opposition movement, whose representatives sparked w Thirty Years’ War that ultimately engulfed most of Europe. The outcome of the war saw fundamental changes and the institution became a part of Charle University (a name which persisted until 1918). All four pre-Hussite faculties were restor university was transformed into a state-governed educational institution. This process cul 1780s with reforms introduced by Emperor Joseph II. Following the reforms of 1848-49, the university began to assume the form of a modern high institution. In 1882, at the culmination of the Czech National Revival, Prague’s Charles-F University was divided into two institutions: Czech and German. By the turn of the 20th century, both universities had achieved a high academic standard. professors at the German University was theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. The academi the Czech University included respected figures who played a prominent role in the process emancipation – most notably Professor Tomáš G. Masaryk, who in 1918 became the first Presi Czechoslovakia. Charles University - the name given to the Czech university after independence – achieved it on a par with the world’s most prestigious academic and research institutions. A notewo is Professor Jaroslav Heyrovský’s inventions in polarography, for which he was awarded the 1959. The occupation of the Czech Lands by Hitler’s Germany brought much hardship and great loss November 1939, all Czech higher education institutions were closed in response to student 28 October 1939 and during the funeral of the medical student Jan Opletal; this was follow persecution of university students and teachers. Charles University was unable to resume its activities until after the Second World War. W of the Nazi German Reich, the German University in Prague, which in 1939 had joined an all universities, also ceased to exist. The renewal of free academic life at Charles University was interrupted by the communist c For many years to follow, the regime subjected education and research to tight ideological control; this naturally had a detrimental effect on international links and research oppor Students, loyal to their tradition of academic freedoms, demonstrated on 17 November 1989 totalitarian regime, eventually initiating its fall. Modern university life began to thrive, drawing strongly on international cooperation. Awa mission, Charles University continues to nurture academic cooperation and plays an active spectrum of European and global programmes.