The largest educational institution with many different faculties and subjects under the name "University" is often called an educational, scientific and practical complex. There are about ten thousand of them, but most of them have a relatively short biography. Therefore, they clearly do not expect to have the title of the first, even on a separate continent. And, perhaps, not everyone knows which university was opened earlier than others. There are several contenders for this achievement.
Homeless
Initially, the "university" meant a small group of adult students and teachers of various sciences who gathered to defend their own scientific interests and exchange knowledge. Moreover, they usually did not have permanent premises for such activities and simply rented them together. It was only when the authorities paid attention to the problem of good education that homeless universities began to turn into stationary ones. And they not only held lectures and exams, but also carried out a variety of scientific research.
From Hanlin to the Apennines
In the first millennium, three educational institutions were born at once, which it is quite permissible to call the oldest universities. The date of birth of one of the three, created, according to data gleaned from ancient Chinese sources, under the name "Academy of Hanlin", is considered to be the 8th century. The second university was located on the Eurasian border, in Constantinople, and appeared in 848. Around the same time, a university was created in Salerno, Italy.
True, it was the university status that Salerno received much later, almost 400 years later. But it also existed much longer, until 1861 - in contrast to Constantinople, which was closed after the capture of the city by the Turks. These universities are considered the first universities in Europe. However, several other continental educational institutions also deserve the podium. For example, the University of Bologna, founded in 1088, can be justly proud of the fact that it still operates today.
Let's go East
Medieval Europe had a more global division into western and eastern parts than the present. This also applied to the education system. Accordingly, the fact that the first Eastern European university, called the Ostroh Academy, appeared only in 1576, is not particularly surprising. Geographically, it was located in the Rivne region of modern Ukraine, which then, however, was not yet plotted on the maps. Based on this, the first university based on the territory of the USSR should be recognized as Gladzor in Armenia, which taught students from 1282 to 1338. And of the surviving ones - the university in Vilnius, it appeared three years after Ostrog.
In Russia, the university under serial number 1 became a reality in 1724. Naturally, Peter I created it, and it happened in St. Petersburg. Formally, the St. Petersburg Academic University, which was a subdivision of the Academy of Sciences, worked only until 1766. But later it was "reanimated" - in the form of a gymnasium, a pedagogical institute and, finally, a modern state university, which considers itself the legal successor of Petrovsky. The very first university formally registered on the current Russian territory was "Albertina". It was founded in Konigsberg in 1544, and operated in the capital of East Prussia almost until the arrival of Soviet soldiers there and the hasty evacuation in January 1945 to Germany.
Quartet "A"
Needless to say, universities exist and have existed not in Eurasia alone, but also on other continents - in Australia, North and South America, and Africa. The oldest of them, scientists consider the Moroccan "Al-Karaouin", it appeared in 859. In 1551, the monks of the Dominican Order founded the University of San Marcos in the capital of Peru. After another 85 years, Harvard College was formed in North American Cambridge, which later grew to a university. Finally, since 1850, the Green Continent has its own university, the Australians created such a university in Sydney.
