The largest educational institution with many diverse faculties and subjects studied under the name "University" is often called the educational-scientific-practical complex. There are approximately ten thousand, but most have a relatively short biography. Therefore, they obviously do not expect to have the title of the first, even on a single continent. And what kind of university was opened before others, perhaps, not all know. There are several candidates for this achievement.
Homeless
Initially, "university" was a small group of adult students and teachers of various sciences who gathered to protect their own scientific interests and exchange knowledge. Moreover, they usually did not have permanent premises for such classes and simply rented them together. And only when the authorities paid attention to the problem of good education, homeless universities began to turn into stationary ones. And they not only held lectures and exams, but also carried out a variety of scientific studies.
From Hanlin to the Apennines
In the first millennium, three educational institutions were born at once, which are perfectly acceptable 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 "Hanlin Academy", is considered the VIII century. The second university was located on the Eurasian border, in Constantinople, and appeared in the year 848. Around the same time, they created a university in Salerno, Italy.
True, it was Salerno’s university status that he received much later, almost 400 years later. But it also lasted much longer, until 1861 - in contrast to Constantinople, which 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 deserve a podium. Say, the University of Bologna, formed in 1088, can rightly be proud of what it is today.
Let's go east!
Medieval Europe had a more global division into western and eastern parts than the current one. This concerned the education system. Accordingly, the fact that the first East European university, called the Ostrog 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 applied to maps. Based on this, the first university based on the territory of the USSR should be recognized Gladzorsky in Armenia, who taught students from 1282 to 1338. And from the surviving ones - a university in Vilnius, it appeared three years after Ostrog.
In Russia, a university under serial number 1 came true in 1724. Naturally, Peter I created it, and this happened in St. Petersburg. Formally, St. Petersburg Academic University, which was a division 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, already a modern state university, which considers itself the successor of Petrovsky. The first university, formally registered in the current Russian territory, was Albertina. It was founded in Koenigsberg in 1544, and operated in the capital of East Prussia almost until the arrival of Soviet soldiers and the hasty evacuation in Germany on January 45th.
