Royal Academy of Turku

The Academy at Turku (Finnish Turun Akatemia, swedish Kungliga academies i Åbo ) was the first university in Finland and the predecessor of the University of Helsinki. It was founded in 1640 in Turku and relocated to Helsinki in 1828. It is not to be confused with the Åbo Akademi founded in 1918.

1640 founded the Swedish Queen Christina, with the support of the Governor General of Finland Count Per Brahe the Younger and the bishop of Turku Isaacus Rothovius the Royal Academy of Turku. For this was the gymnasium to Turku, which fell again to the Cathedral School, founded in 1276, converted into the academy. The opening ceremony took place on July 15, 1640. The Academy at Turku was after Uppsala University ( founded in 1477 ) and the University of Tartu (1632 ), the third university in the Kingdom of Sweden, to which Finland belonged. Their creation is like the foundation of the University of Tartu and the University of Lund ( 1666) in connection with the promotion of education and the sciences during the Swedish great power in the 17th century.

The state verhoffte to be able to be trained the necessary offspring of clergy, doctors, civil servants and officers of the University. Within the Swedish Empire, the Academy had to Turku only regional importance for Finland but it was an important center of culture and science. 1642 was built in Turku during the founding of the university, the first printing of Finland. In the 17th and 18th century scholars were like the philologist Daniel Juslenius, the historian Henrik Gabriel Porthan or the chemist Johan Gadolin at the Academy. Beginning of the 19th century summed up by a circle around Adolf Ivar Arwidsson in the environment of the Academy to Turku the romance in the form of so-called " Turku Romance" foot.

After Finland was ceded by Sweden to Russia in 1809 and converted into an autonomous Grand Duchy, the Royal Academy of Turku, was renamed to " Imperial Academy of Turku ". 1827 destroyed the great fire of Turku a large part of the collections and premises of the Academy. As a result, the Academy was moved to Turku in the following year in the new capital Helsinki and transformed into the University of Helsinki. Built in 1801-1815 Academy building, one of the greatest examples Gustavian architecture in Finland, has been repaired after the fire and now houses the High Court of Turku.

Turku was only in 1918 again a university, as the Swedish-speaking Åbo Akademi was founded. In 1920, the Finnish language University of Turku.