Turku Academy
The Turku Academy ( Finnish. Turun akatemia , Swedish. Kungliga Akademien i Åbo ) was the first university in Finland and the predecessor of the University of Helsinki . It was founded in Turku in 1640 and moved to Helsinki in 1828 . It should not be confused with Åbo Akademi, founded in 1918 .
Finland was part of the Swedish Empire when it was founded . On March 26, 1640, the Swedish Queen Christina founded the Royal Academy of Turku with the support of the Governor General of Finland Per Brahe the Younger and the Turku Bishop Isaacus Rothovius . For this purpose, the Turku grammar school, which in turn went back to the cathedral school founded around 1276, was converted into the academy. The opening ceremony took place on July 15, 1640. After Uppsala University (founded in 1477) and Tartu University (1632), the Turku Academy was the third university in the Kingdom of Sweden, to which Finland was then part. Its foundation, like the founding of the University of Tartu and the University of Lund (1666), is related to the promotion of education and science during the Swedish era in the 17th century.
The state hoped to be able to train the necessary young clergy, doctors, civil servants and officers through the university. Within the Swedish Empire , the Turku Academy was only of regional importance, but for Finland it was an important center of culture and science. In 1642, when the university was founded in Turku, Finland's first printing house was opened. In the 17th and 18th centuries, scholars such as the philologist Daniel Juslenius , the historian Henrik Gabriel Porthan and the chemist Johan Gadolin worked at the academy. At the beginning of the 19th century, romanticism in the form of the so-called " Turku Romanticism " took hold through a circle around Adolf Ivar Arwidsson in the vicinity of the Turku Academy .
After Finland was ceded by Sweden to Russia in 1809 and converted into an autonomous Grand Duchy , the Royal Academy of Turku was renamed the "Imperial Academy of Turku". In 1827, the great fire in Turku destroyed much of the Academy's collections and premises. As a result, the Turku Academy was relocated to the new capital Helsinki the following year and converted into the University of Helsinki . The academy building, built between 1801–1815 and one of the most important examples of Gustavian architecture in Finland, was restored after the fire and now houses the Turku court.
Turku did not get a university again until 1918 when the Swedish-speaking Åbo Akademi was founded. In 1920 the Finnish-speaking University of Turku followed .