National University Ostroh Academy

The National University of Ostroh Academy is the successor of Ostroh Slavic, Greek and Latin Academy, the first institution of higher education of the Eastern Slavs. It was founded in 1576 by Prince Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski (also known as Kostiantyn Vasyl Ostrozky or Vasyl-Kostiantyn of Ostroh).

Niece of Prince Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski, Princess Halshka of Ostroh, was the beneficiary of the Academy and spent a great deal of money on its development. Basically, Ostroh Academy was quite common by the standards of European education of the Middle Ages, though unusual by the Ukrainian ones as the so-called ’Seven Liberal Arts’ (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy), and higher sciences: philosophy, theology and medicine had been taught there. The originality of this establishment consisted also in the fact that it was the first institution to unite two cultures, Byzantine and West European. Not surprisingly, the Renaissance of Ukrainian nation was connected with Ostroh Academy. Ivan Fedorov’s printing house with Cyrillic type was the most developed Ukrainian publishing house of those times. It was established in Ostroh cultural centre simultaneously with the Academy. Greek and Slavic ABC-Book, the first Ukrainian school-book (1578); The New Testament (1580); Tymofii Mykhailovych’s Sobranie Veshchey Nuzhneyshykh (Collection of Essential Things), the first directory of old printed texts in the history of Cyrillic polygraphy; Andrii Rymsha’s Chronology (1581), the first printed poetic masterpiece in Ukraine; first complete The Slavic Ostroh Bible (1581), a masterpiece of old-Ukrainian polygraphy; outstanding polemic works — A Key to Heavenly Kingdom, The New Roman Calendar (1587) by Herasym Smotrytskyi, Apokrysys by Christopher Filaret, etc. were published here. An Ostroh Academy graduate, Meletius Smotrytskyi, wrote the first fundamental Slavic Grammar (1619), which M.Lomonosov called ‘the gates to learning’. The chronicles of the revived Ostroh Academy in Independent Ukraine started in 1994 with the Decree of the President of Ukraine. By virtue of succeeding decrees of the President of Ukraine, development of Ostroh Academy received a new impact for further growth. In October 2000, Ostroh Academy officially became the National University.