National University Ostroh Academy. Ostroh Academy: wisdom and charm Why the Ostroh Academy was created

Ukrainian National University "Ostrog Academy" is located in the city of Ostrog, Rivne region. The university has the status of an autonomous research educational institution and is one of the oldest universities in Eastern Europe.

The founding father of the Slavic-Greek-Latin school was Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky. A supporter of strengthening Orthodoxy and preventing the Catholicization of Western Ukrainian lands, Prince Ostrozhsky created a school and then an academy in 1576. The Academy was created on the model of European universities and involved the teaching of seven liberal sciences - grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. The program included higher sciences - medicine, theology and philosophy; as well as 5 languages: Church Slavonic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Polish.

The first rector of the academy was Gerasim Smotrytsky, famous for his preface to the Ostrog Bible of 1581, published by pioneer printer Ivan Fedorov. The son of Gerasim Smotritsky, Meletius, will become famous for publishing the Slavic alphabet, which will be used until the middle of the 19th century. The first teaching staff included Cyril Loukaris, who later became the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Along with the creation of the academy and printing house, Prince Ostrogsky organized a literary circle. Many Ukrainian and European scientists and thinkers participated in this circle late XVI century. The creation of the circle contributed to the unity of the advanced teaching staff, which consisted of representatives of hostile Byzantine and Western cultures. Representatives of different directions of Christianity mutually enriched themselves with cultural characteristics and generously shared their experience and knowledge with students.

Many professors from the university in Krakow, for one reason or another, became professors at the Ostroh Academy. Among them was doctor of medicine, mathematician and astronomer Jan Latos. The color of the Greek professors was Cyril Loukaris and the future Patriarch of Alexandria Dionysius Ralli-Palaeologus. These names gave the academy a high status and impeccable reputation.

After the death of Prince Constantine, the position of the academy was shaken due to lack of patronage. By 1620, the dynasty of princes was in decline. After the opening of the Jesuit college in Ostrog in 1624, the academy also fell into decay. In 1636, the brainchild of Konstantin Ostrozhsky ceased to exist.

More than 350 years have passed. At the end of the twentieth century, in the wake of weakening oppression of the church in the USSR, the idea of ​​reviving cultural heritage Prince Ostrozhsky. In 1989, the local history society “Spadshchina” (heritage) was created. The society was headed by local historian and enthusiast Pyotr Andrukhov. In January 1993, a congress of Ostrog residents took place, at which the need to revive the Ostroh Academy was proclaimed. The organizing committee for the revival of the academy worked intensively until April 1994. On April 12, President of Ukraine L.M. Kravchuk signed decree No. 156/94 “On the formation of the Ostroh Collegium.” And in December 1994, the first 100 students settled in the classrooms of the Ostroh Collegium. By Decree No. 403/96 of June 5, 1996, the college in Ostrog was renamed the academy.

Between January and October 2000, the Ostroh Academy received the status of a national university. Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in 2009, the National University “Ostrog Academy” acquired the status of a self-governing research university.

Behind short term existence, the Ostroh Academy has acquired significant weight among universities in Ukraine and Europe. Students receive thorough training in the spirit of the founding father, Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky.

IN Lately National University "Ostroh Academy" is on everyone's lips. And this is not surprising: over the years, the university’s reputation only grows stronger, enriched with all sorts of awards, titles, the introduction of modern programs and teaching methods, and victories, and not only in the field of education. Thus, quite recently, the academy became the first Ukrainian university to be included in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest reading marathon, which lasted almost a month. The history of the university is rich in events; on its territory there are many attractions that tourists from all over the world come to see.

The first university in Eastern Europe

The history of the Ostroh Academy begins with the year of its creation - 1576 - by Prince Vasily-Konstantin Ostrogsky - a famous political and religious figure, philanthropist. The higher educational institution, which was called the academy, was created on the model of the leading European universities of that time, therefore it is considered the first university in Eastern Europe. The Academy lived up to its title. Spudei - this is the name given to the students studying here in XVII century, received the necessary knowledge in seven sciences: arithmetic and geometry, dialectics and grammar, rhetoric and music, astronomy. In addition, they studied philosophy, medicine, and theology. They also studied several languages: Polish, Hebrew, Greek, Church Slavonic and Latin.

Prince Ostrozhsky, being an educated and intelligent man, assembled an excellent teaching staff at the academy: Demyan Nalivaik, Gerasim Smotrytsky, Jan Latosh, Kirill Lukaris and others. Many university students became famous for their deeds after graduating from the academy. For example, the future hetman of the Zaporozhian Army Petro Konashevich-Sagaidachny studied here.

It was on the basis of the cultural and educational center of the academy that the printing house where Ivan Fedorov worked was founded. The first “Bukvar” and Grammar in Rus' were published in this printing house, as well as full version Church Slavonic Bible - the Ostrog Bible, which is today a collectible old printed edition.

Sights of the Ostroh Academy

The Academy is not called a European university for nothing: the scientific buildings are surrounded by a well-groomed green area with a park, sculptures and a pond where people live wild ducks. Moreover, the sculptures are not only classical, but also modern: huge bees made of metal rods (the bee is a symbol of the academy, because its rector is Igor Pasechnik). There is even a beautifully painted wall of love.

The oldest building of the academy is the monastery building, where the Faculty of Humanities is located. The thickness of the walls here reaches a meter. The newest one is a building located perpendicularly, the walls of the classrooms are made of glass. The academy has several museum rooms dedicated to the history of the university and the history of early printed publications, where a valuable collection of books is collected. In addition, there is an Orthodox church on the territory of the university, where a valuable ancient icon - “Christ Pantocrates and St. Stephen” is kept.

Ostrog Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy (high school, trilingual lyceum, trilingual gymnasium) was founded by Prince Vasily Ostrozhsky (1526-1608, statesman and cultural figure, one of the richest officials, uncrowned king of Ukraine) in the city of Ostrog in Volyn (now Rivne region) in 1576 Vasily Ostrogsky known under the name of Konstantin, which he used in honor of his father, Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky. A large amount of funds for the development of the academy was provided by his niece - Princess Galshka (Galshka Ilyinichna, Elizaveta, Evdokia) Ostrozhskaya (1539-1582) - the daughter of Ilya Ostrozhsky and Beata Kosteletskaya. She was born in Ostrog Castle in 1539; her father died three months before his birth. Representatives of many magnate families tried to intermarry with the powerful Ostrozhsky family. Despite Beata's (Halshka's mother) preliminary consent given in 1552 to the marriage of Dmitry Sangushko and Halshka, she soon retracted her word, especially since the Polish king spoke out against this marriage, which would have united the two leading princely families of Ukraine. Armed detachments of the princes Ostrog and Sangushko stormed the castle in Ostrog, and against the will of her mother, in September 1553 Galshka was married to Prince Dmitry. The Royal Court declares Sangushko outlawed. In February 1554 the prince was killed (he was buried in a church in the Czech city of Jaromir). Against the will of her mother, King Sigismund Augustus marries the young widow to the governor Lukasz Gurko, who is several times her age. Galshka, together with her mother, not recognizing this marriage, hides in the Lviv Dominican monastery, where Beata entered into her daughter’s third marriage - with Prince Semyon Slutsky. However, strength and royal support were on the side of Gurka, who, after an armed siege, took possession of Halshka and took him to his possessions in Szamotuly (Greater Poland). NOT submitting to the man imposed on her, Halshka Ostrogskaya spent 14 years in the “tower of the black princess” - one of the towers of the Shamotul Castle, so named in connection with the mourning outfit in which she occasionally appeared in public. Widowed in 1573, Galshka returned to his homeland. The princess transferred her rights to the estates of her parents who died at that time, including Ostrog (usurped by Beata Kostelecka’s second husband Albert Lasski, and then by the king), to her uncle Vasily-Konstantin Ostrogsky (1526-1608), who, thanks to the favorable political situation in the state for the Ostrogskys , managed to return them to the possession of his family.

On the initiative of Vasily-Konstantin Ostrozhsky and with his funds, schools were also founded in Turov and Vladimir Volynsky. He invested heavily in the construction, restoration and decoration of churches and monasteries in Ostrog, Kyiv, Lvov and other cities and villages of Ukraine.

There is no documentary information about the structure of the Ostrog Academy, but it can be assumed that it was organized according to the models of other schools of this type of that time (the basis of its activities was traditional education for medieval Europe). The course of study consisted of the famous “seven liberal sciences”. The leading place in the program was occupied by the teaching of three languages: Slavic-Russian, Greek and Latin. The training probably lasted eight years. Here, for the first time, two types of cultures united: Byzantine and Western European. It is with the Ostroh Academy that the Renaissance (the Renaissance, a period in ideological and cultural development) of the Ukrainian people is associated.

The first rector of the academy was Gerasim Smotritsky (a polemicist, cultural and educational figure). Among the professors, in addition to the Orthodox, there were also non-Orthodox professors, who, due to Protestant views, were expelled from Catholic schools.

The academy collected a library containing a large number of sources not only of Orthodox, but also of Catholic and Protestant literature.

The heyday of the Ostroh Academy is limited to the first 30 years. Then the private-magnate character of the center, its relatively narrow social base, and the strengthening of the Catholic reaction began to be felt. After the death of Konstantin Ostrogsky (1608, buried in Ostrog), the academy began to decline and gradually turned into an elementary educational institution. In 1624, the grandson of Prince Ostrog, who accepted the Jesuit faith, founded a Jesuit college in Ostrog. In the spring of 1636, the Orthodox Collegium ceased its activities. The Ostroh Academy left a significant mark on the history, cultural and national revival of Ukraine, and became an incentive for the emergence of numerous fraternal schools.

At the same time, a literary and scientific circle was organized in Ostrog with the Academy by Prince Ostrog. It included specialists from languages, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, anti-Uniate writers and publicists (Demyan Nalivaiko, Vasily Surazhsky, Cleric Ostrozhsky, Timofey Mikhailovich, Jan Latosh (a student of the University of Krakow), Belarusian Andrei Rimsha, Greeks Dionysius Ralli and Feofan the Greek, etc. .they translated the works of Byzantine theologians, prepared for publication teaching aids and other books. They were published in the printing house where Ivan Fedorov worked at the invitation of Konstantin Ostrozhsky. It was one of the first printing houses in Ukraine. Founded around 1576 by Prince K. Ostrozhsky. from 1578 to 1612. more than 20 titles of books were published here in the Ukrainian literary, Slavic liturgical and Polish languages ​​using Greek, Latin and Hebrew scripts, among which in 1578 - the "primer" (Greek-Slavic primer - the first Ukrainian textbook), New Testament(1580), “Chronology” by Andrey Rymsha - the first printed poetic work in Ukraine (1581); outstanding polemical works: “The Key of the Kingdom of Heaven”, “New Roman Calendar” (1S87) by Gerasim Smotrytsky, “Apocrisis” by Christopher Philaret and the like.

The highest achievement of the Ostroh printing house was the publication of a masterpiece of ancient Ukrainian printing - the first complete Bible in Ukraine (about 1581). It was printed in the liturgical (Slavic) language of that time. In preparation for printing, the texts were checked against various foreign language publications, changes and corrections were made, and those parts of the Bible were translated that had not been translated before. Outstanding Ukrainian scientists from the Ostroh circle (72 translators) worked on the preparation of the publication. This was the result of long and painstaking work. The Bible contains a foreword by Prince K. Ostrozhsky, a poetic foreword by G. Smotritsky and an afterword by the printer I. Fedorov. The book totaled 1256 pages. Its circulation was in the range of 1000-1500 copies. She was widely known in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and other countries of the world. In particular, it was registered in the Oxford library; the Swedish king Gustav Adolf, Cardinal Barberini, and many famous scientists and public figures of that time had copies. Now 70 copies are known. The Ostrog printing house existed in 1612

Among the graduates of the Ostroh Academy were teachers, writers, printers, and preachers. In particular, Demyan Nalivaiko (elder brother of Severin Nalivaiko), the first rector of the Kiev fraternal school (Metropolitan) Job Boretsky, writers Elisha Pletenetsky, Melety Smotrytsky, hetman of the Zaporozhye Army Petro Konashevich-Sagaidachny, author of the famous "Papinode" Zecharia Kopystensky, famous church and cultural figure Isaakia Boriskovich and others famous people that time. During its 60 years of existence, approximately 500 people graduated from this institution.

The chronicle of the revival of the Ostroh Academy in independent Ukraine begins in 1994 with the Decree of the ex-President of Ukraine L. M. Kravchuk No. 156/94 “On the formation of the Ostroh Collegium.” Thanks to the decree of L. D. Kuchma (No. 403/96) “On the renaming of the Ostroh Collegium into an Academy,” the development of the Ostroh Academy gained new momentum. In October 2000, it received the status of a national university (Decree of the President of Ukraine No. 1170 / 2000 "On granting the status of the National University of Ostroh Academy"), and on August 23, 2003, a decree was promulgated, according to which the National University "Ostrog Academy" (NAUOA) came under patronage of the President of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.According to the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 798/2009, NaUOA was granted the status of a self-governing (autonomous) research national higher education institution.

In the second part, we will go to the Mezhirich suburb, where perhaps the most interesting architectural monument of Volyn is located, the Trinity Monastery, and return to the city through the Ostrog Academy - the first university of the East Slavic world.

I ended the last part with a view from Ostrog Castle, where in the fog the Mezhirichsky Monastery is barely visible, which is about 4 kilometers from here. You can get there by minibus (I’ll explain where to get on on the way back), or by taxi (I didn’t find out the price), but I decided to walk. Honestly, I’m not sure that it made any sense - the walk takes 40-50 minutes, the road runs mainly through the ordinary private sector, something interesting comes across at most once every 10 minutes. For example, a column with the Virgin Mary - I would venture to guess, was placed “behind the Polish hour”, a very uncharacteristic thing for the Russian Empire:

A block suddenly appeared nearby one-story houses- I don’t know anything about their origin, but I would venture to guess - a local shtetl, located outside the city. Although the synagogue is even on the other side of the castle, it is ancient, and this is clearly no older than the end of the 19th century:

You can also remember about Magid from Mezhirich (aka Dov-Ber) - the successor of the Baal Shem Tov from, the second tzaddik (spiritual leader) of the Hasidim... But he was not from here, but from Great Mezhirich, which are also located in the Rivne region.

Mostly along the road there are solid stone huts typical of Western Ukraine from the second half of the 20th century. However, in some places there are also authentic mud huts - apparently, as utility rooms.

There is also a small factory along the road - most likely a sugar factory or brewery from the early 20th century. I don’t know what’s here now, but from the yard they looked at me with extreme hostility, so the angle chosen was not the best:

Along the way, you can see all sorts of rural sketches such as carts, old women in traditional clothes, herds of chickens and geese - but in Western Ukraine you get used to it very quickly. The main thing is not to turn off the asphalt anywhere if you don’t want to ford the river - Mezhirich (Mezhrechye) was named so for a reason. The monastery appears every now and then behind the houses:

The turn is at this decorated cross:

What is quite obvious, however, is that the monastery is clearly visible, and the asphalt on the road leading to it is incomparably better than on the highway:

I was attracted by the massive wooden building on the left - according to a woman passing by, a mill, and apparently still pre-revolutionary. On the other side - a wheel mount, a small dam and a fairly large pond (that is, stakes):

Here we are. The best view of the Trinity Monastery, however, opens from the opposite side, from where you can capture it all in one shot: the size of the monastery is very large, the perimeter is about 440 meters (by the way, pay attention to the cabbage beds under the walls).

And here the uniqueness of this ensemble of the 15th-17th centuries is already clearly visible: like the cathedral in Ostrog Castle, it combines a typically Moscow composition with typically European architecture. The monastery-kremlin, surrounded by a wall with 4 towers and a gate belfry - but only in the Renaissance style; a five-domed cathedral with golden domes - but only Gothic... As I already said, this phenomenon in Volyn is represented by three churches, but the Mezhirichi Monastery is the most complete and perfect ensemble of this kind. The picture is completed by “Pomeranian crosses”, as rare in Ukraine as they are common in the Russian North:

In 1410, a wooden castle was built on this site by Vasily the Red, the son of Fyodor of Ostrog, under whom the dynasty finally became one of the most powerful. In 1442, after his death, the castle was handed over to the monks, and apparently at the same time the stone Trinity Cathedral began to be built at the last end of the Gothic style. The interior is very beautifully decorated with rib vaults. Pay attention to the key-shaped loopholes under the roof - the temple served as a donjon, and the entire Meizhirich fortifications had 2 external lines of defense.

The passage to the cathedral is from the belfry, built in 1610. Very convenient: the monks can easily close the iron gates on either side of the entrance to the cathedral, while leaving the temple open to parishioners. And if they ever do this, it will be very sad, because best views the cathedral can be seen from the monastery territory...

The most amazing thing is that only the Trinity Cathedral dates back to the Orthodox era; all other monastery buildings were built at the beginning of the 17th century, during the transfer of the monastery to the Franciscans, which ended in 1612. Catholic monastery-kremlin - where else can you find something like this? Residential buildings (I almost wrote “chambers”) with towers in the corners are attached directly to the Trinity Cathedral; this is a completely Catholic layout:

WITH reverse side it is much better to see how the cathedral is built - after all, it is more of a basilica than a cross-domed church:

Here is such a phenomenon: the West and the East in this exceptionally integral ensemble are intertwined so that they can no longer be differentiated. The architecture of this monastery is the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in miniature.
I don’t know how reliable the patterns surrounding the towers and buildings are - but it looks very beautiful:

The monastery now belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate, which only reminds appearance above the well chapel - no special strictures or crowds were noticed:

To this day, the village is surrounded by a belt of swollen shafts with a length of about 1.5 kilometers. The best-preserved section of the rampart is behind the monastery, and there is also a unique monument of industrial architecture for Ukraine - a 17th century oven with a Renaissance chimney. It served as a boiler house for heating the barracks, and during sieges tar was boiled here. The oldest (outside Crimea) industrial monument in Ukraine:

You can calmly go inside and look at the sky through the chimney. This is what the monastery itself looks like from the oven:

Nearby there is a rampart, again from the 17th century, with surviving gates:

A wooden hut was suddenly discovered behind the gate:

Basically the area here looks like this:

I was too lazy to walk 4 kilometers back to the city, but there is no such need - minibuses run quite often. The only problem is that they are all passing, something like Ternopil-Neteshyn, so their schedule is very uneven: for example. in the 40 minutes that I walked here, I came across two minibuses to Ostrog, and not a single one from Ostrog. On the way back I saw three minibuses almost in a row, two of which I was late for. The stop is where the road to Mezhirich leaves the highway, at the district hospital:

The last shot from Mezhirich is a hospital church made of sand-lime brick:

I returned to Ostrog at dusk. Minibuses do not go to the bus station, the stop is here - there is a castle behind me, near the red house there are people waiting for the flight "there":

Through the quarters of the district Ostrog...

I went out to the Ostroh Academy:

As already mentioned, this is the first university in the Eastern Slavic world, founded in 1576 by Vasily-Konstantin Ostrozhsky - this explains the presence of the university in a town with 14 thousand people. Everything would be fine - but “that same” academy closed in 1640, unable to withstand the competition with the Jesuit colleges and Lviv University. However, the beginning had been made for Orthodox universities: by that time the Kiev-Mohyla Academy was operating in Kyiv (since 1632), and in 1687 the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy opened in Moscow. Be that as it may, the current Ostroh Academy, although considered the successor of “that one,” was opened in 1994, and at first glance, the buildings are authentic - the Capuchin monastery (1756):

I don’t presume to judge the quality of education here, but the atmosphere is very reminiscent of what it should be - student freedom, the “common cause” of students and their teachers. For example, the hypertrophied bees in the yard seem to hint at the name of the rector - Igor Demidovich Pasichnik. Under a nearby tree sits a monument to the First Student, although this is not entirely true - people from the East Slavic peoples had previously studied at universities in Europe (primarily in Krakow) - for example, Ivan Fedorov, who also made his mark here, and Yuri Kotermak from Drohobych even managed to be the rector of the University of Bologna, and in Krakow to lecture to the young Copernicus.

In the park opposite the former cathedral, now a campus, there are ancient sages:

The Academy occupies a fairly large block, and at least half of its territory was already closed at half past six in the evening. Rotunda with dome - library:

A sullen security guard looked after me, since I was quite different from the student flocks. Nevertheless, I managed to photograph the semi-basement of the former monastery through the glass to the indignant exclamations of the people standing there:

Opposite the short street leading to the academy from the main street is a newly built Protestant church:

A hundred meters from which there is a stop for Rivne minibuses, where I was once again convinced that either God exists, or intuition. The fact is that when approaching the stop near Mezhirich, I missed two minibuses in a row - with an interval of half a minute they passed by in front of my eyes and even dropped people off. I waited for the next minibus for about half an hour, and... well, I’m just used to the fact that such failures do not happen in vain, but almost always promise more interesting options. And so it turned out: at the stop the Ostrog-Dubno minibus was waiting for me, where I wanted to go with a transfer in Rivne (and it’s not a fact that tickets would have been found in the evening of a working day), and since I didn’t know that it existed at all, it was precisely the delay in Mezhiriche brought me to the place at the right time.

Well, Dubno, also located 40 kilometers from Rivne. but no longer to the southeast, but to the southwest - the second center of the Ostroh ordination. About him - in the next two parts.

VOLYN-2011
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Lodomeria.
A little bit of Galicia.