Palacký University Olomouc

Palacký University Olomouc is the oldest university in Moravia and the second-oldest in the Czech Republic. It started in 1573 as a public university led by the Jesuit order in Olomouc. Olomouc then was the capital of Moravia and the seat of the bishop. At first it taught only theology, but then philosophy, law and medicine were added.

After the Bohemian King Joseph II's reforms to the church in the 1770s it became a public university. University students and professors were active in the Revolution of 1848 on the side of democratisation. Then the conservative king Francis Joseph I closed most of the university during the 1850s. Only the independent Faculty of Theology and the independent University Library stayed open. After the German invasion in 1939, all the Czech Universities were closed. It was reopened by an act of the Interim National Assembly in February 1946. This act also changed the name from University of Olomouc to Palacký University Olomouc, after František Palacký, a 19th-century Moravian historian and politician.

The city of Olomouc has more university students for its size than anywhere else in Central Europe. There are about 25,000 university students (including those at Moravian College Olomouc), compared to a population of 100,000 inhabitants. Notable people from the university include Albrecht von Wallenstein and Gregor Mendel.