Description

The University of Ljubljana (Slovene: Univerza v Ljubljani) is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. With over 63,000 enrolled undergraduate and graduate students, it is among the largest universities in Europe.

Although certain academies (notably of philosophy and theology) were established as Jesuitical higher education (semi-university) in what now is Slovenia as early as the seventeenth century, the first university was founded in 1810 under the Écoles centrales of the French imperial administration of the Illyrian provinces. That university was disbanded in 1813, when Austria regained territorial control and reestablished in Ljubljana the Imperial Royal Lyceum of Ljubljana as semi-university institution.

During the second half of the 19th century, several political claims for the establishment of a Slovene language university in Ljubljana were made. In the 1890s, a unified board for the establishment of a Slovenian university was founded. Nevertheless, unfavorable political circumstances prevented the establishment of the university until the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the establishment of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, the founding of the university became possible. In late August 1919, the first professor was appointed and on September 18 the full professors established the University Council, thus starting the normal functioning of the institution. The first lectures started on December 3 of the same year.