ABOUT BABES-BOLYAI UNIVERSITY

Babes-Bolyai University is an academic public institution aiming to promote and sustain the development of specific cultural components within the local, regional, national and international community.

Located in Transylvania, a European province with a troubled history, the Cluj University is the crowning achievement of a long series of attempts to establish here a higher education institution.

Its history begins with the intention of the Prince John Sigismund to set up, in 1567, an academy of studies in Sebes (Alba) followed by the initiative of Stephen Bathory to lay the foundations, following the establishment of universities in Bratislava, Buda and Tārnovo, of a college in Cluj, in 1581, under the control of the Jesuits and having the Italian Antonio Possevino as its Rector. This college was later closed down, and the Protestants and the Unitarians set up other colleges; in 1692 Gabriel Bethlen established the Calvinist College in Alba Iulia, with theology, philosophy and language studies, this college being headed by the famous Alstedt. The Catholics took the initiative again and established an academy in Cluj in 1688, under the control of the Jesuits. In an effort at confessional reconciliation, in 1776, Empress Maria Theresa founded a university in German in Cluj. But this enterprise was not to survive long either, Joseph II replacing the university with the famous Piarist Highschool, where the teaching was done in Latin.

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