The main focus of the exhibition is students and their participation in the life of the city, especially their indisputable role in key historical events in Prague as well as that of the nation as a whole.
Charles University was founded on 7th April 1348 as a multinational community with a great deal of autonomy, including its own administration and management, its right to elect university dignitaries, and even its own jurisdiction in both financial and criminal matters.
The University was open to all young men regardless of financial circumstances. Since the times of the Hussite revolution, most of the academic community followed the denomination of Utraquism, later on other non-catholic denominations arose. After 1622 the situation reversed, and only Roman Catholics were allowed into the University. Students’ duties involved attending lectures and famous disputations, taking exams, and later on a defence of their thesis. Students mastered not only science and arts; they were also very good with guns and fighting. They caused affrays and rebellions that sometimes lasted for several days. However, they were also prepared to fight for the common good and formed academic’s militias; the most famous ones existed between 1648 and 1848.
In the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, students’ life was significantly influenced by student associations. One of them was the Czech Central Academic Reader’s Association that was founded in 1848. There were also other specialised and regional associations, including an association for Slovaks, and various other college associations. From 1848 to the end of the 19th century, the central association of German students was called Lese-und Redehalle der deutschen Studenten, which was later on changed into the Jewish Liberal Association. In opposition to this one stood the “burchenschaft” associations with the most prominent one called Germania. In 1882, the Czech Charles-Ferdinand University was divided into the Czech and German universities.
At the turn of the 20th century, a new form of student hostels made their appearance. Straka Academy for aristocratic students, later on changed into Academic House, later it was supplemented by Hlávkova kolej, and others. Towards the end of the 19th century a new phenomenon appeared at the University; female students. Poorer students were supported by endowments, one of the most significant patrons were Josef Hlávka and V. J. Krombholz.
From Opletal to Palach
University students also made their mark in the history of the nation after the German occupation, which took place on 15th March 1939. The biggest demonstration happened on 28th October 1939 in Prague, when one of the students from the Medical Faculty, Jan Opletal, died as a result of a severe injury he had sustained there. His burial became an anti-German demonstration which in turn provided the Nazis with a pretext for a clampdown on Czech intelligentsia. Many university students decided to leave their homeland to join Czech forces in France; later on many became soldiers of the Czechoslovakian militia in the United Kingdom. In memory of the German attack on students and universities, the World Student Union chose 17th November to become the International Students’ Day.
After the end of the Second World, thousands of students that weren’t able to study in the war time entered universities. Very soon students associations came back to life, and students became a respected and influential part of society. After the start of Communism the situation changed dramatically. During the 1948 February putsch, democratic students were the only ones to express their support for parliament democracy.
By the 50s, the left-wing students were for a while one of the decision-making forces at universities. At the turn of 1949, all students were screened, and almost one quarter of Charles University’s students had to leave.
In the middle of the 50s, the Stalinist era came to an end, even in Czechoslovakia, but the relaxation and the revival of public life was only temporary. In the 60s, a big proportion of university students joined radical groups of society. They welcomed the reforms of the Prague Spring and became theirs most radical supporters. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, students were among the most consistent defenders of reforms and of Czechoslovakian independence. In the middle of 1969, the student Jan Palach, sacrificed himself to show his protest against political concessions on the program of the Prague Spring.
Hundreds of documents
Not even the proponents of normalisation who came into power managed to stamp out public and student resistance. At the beginning of the 70s, another wave of purges was inflicted on universities. A few of the most radical representatives of student resistance were sentenced on the basis of fabricated charges. It comes as no surprise that in the 70s and the first half of the 80s, students were more concerned with their career and personal matters, studies just meant a way towards the career of their choice. The members of the Czechoslovakian Youth Movement were the only ones to actively support the regime. Open protests against the political situation didn’t happen very often, and they usually resulted in expulsion from college.
On 17th November 1989, police violently intervened against a permitted demonstration of students. This event started the swift demise of the Communist regime. On 18th November 1989, students announced a sit-in strike that initiated further waves of demonstrations and protests, and subsequently resulted in stirring the public into action. University students belonged to the most radical forces of the November revolution. They didn’t stop until Communists gave up.
With the help of a few hundred documents and exhibits, the exhibition demonstrates the decisive part that students played in shaping the history of the nation. All items are organized in thematic groups according to historical era: important events, institutions, areas and activities of students, studies in medieval times and early modern age, students in arms, students in 1948 revolution, famous personalities, university buildings, students homes and hostels, students associations and endowments, students in the anti-Nazi resistance movement, students anti-communist resistance movement, students in 1968, Jan Palach, the Velvet Revolution 1989 etc.
