Comenius University in Bratislava is the largest
universityA university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
in
SlovakiaThe Slovak Republic is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe with a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia borders the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is its capital, Bratislava...
, with most of its faculties located in
BratislavaBratislava is the capital of the Slovak Republic and, with a population of about 429,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River...
. It was founded in 1919, shortly after the creation of
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. It is named after Jan Amos Comenius, a 17th century Czech teacher and philosopher.
In 2006, Comenius University had more than 30 thousand students and 2000 faculty members. As are most universities in Slovakia, it is financed mostly by the government.
Comenius University in Bratislava is the largest
universityA university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
in
SlovakiaThe Slovak Republic is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe with a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia borders the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is its capital, Bratislava...
, with most of its faculties located in
BratislavaBratislava is the capital of the Slovak Republic and, with a population of about 429,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River...
. It was founded in 1919, shortly after the creation of
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. It is named after Jan Amos Comenius, a 17th century Czech teacher and philosopher.
In 2006, Comenius University had more than 30 thousand students and 2000 faculty members. As are most universities in Slovakia, it is financed mostly by the government. Although there have been plans to establish
tuitionTuition means "instruction" or "teaching." In American English, the term "tuition" is often used to refer to a fee charged for educational instruction; especially at a formal institution of learning or by a private tutor usually in the form of one-to-one tuition...
fees for university students in Slovakia for years, another attempt failed to gain sufficient support in
parliamentThe National Council of the Slovak Republic...
in May 2005.
History
The Comenius University was established in 1919 with help from the old
University of PragueCharles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1347, it was the first university in the Holy Roman Empire and in Central Europe in general...
. It replaced a Hungarian university located in Bratislava since 1914. Many
professorThe meaning of the word professor varies. In some English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual...
s of the newly established university, including its first rector, Prof. MUDr. Kristian Hynek, were Czechs, since Slovakia at that time did not have enough educated
SlovakThe Slovak language , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages ....
speakers who could serve as faculty members. In spite of personnel, financial, and space difficulties, the university developed research and teaching programs. The Faculty of Medicine opened in 1919, and was quickly followed by the Faculties of Law and Philosophy in 1921. The Faculty of Philosophy, besides offering programs in the
humanitiesThe humanities are academic disciplines which study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences....
and social science, also educated much-needed teachers for Slovakia's
high schoolHigh school is the name used in some parts of the world, particularly in Scotland, Northern America and Oceania, to describe an institution that provides all or part of secondary education...
s.
In 1937, a new university building for the Faculties of Law and Philosophy was opened in the centre of Bratislava. The building includes the Aula (hall) used for graduation ceremonies and other formal functions.
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Slovakia became nominally a republic, but was actually under the sway of
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
. The government reduced
academic freedomAcademic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Still, academic freedom...
s at the university, and the Czech professors were forced out. The university was renamed
Slovak University in 1939, though the original name was reinstated in 1954. The Faculty of Science opened in 1940 and the Roman Catholic Faculty of Theology was established in 1941. Shortly after the war, in 1948, the communists took power in
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, enforced the ideology of
Marxism-LeninismMarxism-Leninism is a communist ideological stream that emerged as the mainstream tendency among the Communist parties in the 1920s as it was adopted as the ideological foundation of the Communist International during Stalin's era....
at Czechoslovak universities, and cancelled academic freedoms. The Roman Catholic Faculty of Theology was taken under direct control of the Ministry of Education.
However, the university continued to grow, and new faculties were established (mostly by splitting the existing faculties):
- Faculty of Education in 1946,
- Faculty of Pharmacy in 1952,
- Faculty of Physical Education and Sports in 1960,
- Faculty of Medicine in Martin in 1969, and
- Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
The Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics is one of the faculties of the Comenius University in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia....
in 1980.
After the anti-Communist
Velvet revolutionThe Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government. It is seen as one of the most important of the Revolutions of 1989.On November 17, 1989, a Friday, riot police suppressed a peaceful student demonstration...
in 1989, the university created a democratic self-government, and mandatory courses on
Marxist ideologyMarxism is the political philosophy and economic worldview based upon a materialist interpretation of history, a Marxist analysis of capitalism, a theory of social change, and an atheist view of human liberation derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; three primary aspects of...
were abolished. The Roman Catholic Faculty of Theology and the Evangelical Theological Faculty joined the university.
The transformation of Slovakia into a market economy created a need for professionals in management and financial sciences. As a result, the
university established the Faculty of Management 1991 and the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences in 2002. In 2000, the European credit transfer system was implemented to improve student mobility.
List of faculties
- Faculty of Medicine
Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
- Jessenius
Jan Jesenius was a physician, politician and philosopher of Slovak origin...
Faculty of Medicine in MartinMartin is a city in northern Slovakia, situated on the Turiec river, under the Malá Fatra mountains, near the city of Žilina. The population numbers approximately 59,000, which makes it the eighth largest city in Slovakia...
- Faculty of Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences, and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of medication....
- Faculty of Law
Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
- Faculty of Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
- Faculty of Natural Sciences
The Faculty of Natural Sciences is a faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava.It is situated in the Mlynská Dolina Valley in the Bratislava in 5 pavilion complex, build in years 1960-1987....
- Faculty of Mathematics
Mathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
, PhysicsPhysics is a natural science; it is the study of matter and its motion through spacetime and all that derives from these, such as energy and force...
and InformaticsInformatics is the science of information, the practice of information processing, and the engineering of information systems. Informatics studies the structure, algorithms, behavior, and interactions of natural and artificial systems that store, process, access and communicate information...
(read also a separate articleThe Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics is one of the faculties of the Comenius University in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia....
about the faculty)
- Faculty of Physical Education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting...
and Sports
- Faculty of Education
Education in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual...
- Faculty of Management
Management in all business and human organization activity is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading, directing, facilitating and controlling or manipulating an organization or effort for...
- Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences
- Evangelical
Protestantism is a branch within Christianity, containing many denominations with some differing practices and doctrines, that principally originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the major divisions within Christianity, together with the Roman...
TheologicalThe term "theology" literally means the study of God, deriving from the Greek word theos, meaning 'God', and the suffix -ology from the Greek word logos meaning "discourse", "theory", or "reasoning"...
Faculty
- Roman Catholic Faculty of Theology of Cyril and Methodius
External links