Ukraine, dating ukraine dating lviv 1661 when the Polish King, John II Casimir, granted it its first royal charter. Over the centuries it underwent transformations, suspensions and name changes that reflected the geo-political complexities of this part of Europe. The present institution can be dated to 1940.

The university was founded on January 20, 1661 when King John II Casimir granted a charter to the city’s Jesuit Collegium, founded in 1608, giving it “the honour of an academy and the title of a university”. The Jesuits had tried to found a university earlier, in 1589, but did not succeed. Orthodox Ruthenian academy was to be created in Kiev and another one in an unspecified location. In 1758 King Augustus III issued a decree, which described the Collegium as an Academy, equal in fact status to the Jagiellonian University, with two faculties, those of Theology and Philosophy.

Its German name was Lemberg and hence that of the University. In 1805 the University was closed, as Austria, then involved in the Napoleonic wars, did not have sufficient funds to support it. Instead, it operated as a high school. The university was reopened in 1817.