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The University of Königsberg (Albertus-Universität Königsberg) was a university in the German city of Königsberg, East Prussia. Founded in 1544 by the Duke Albert of Brandenburg, it was poetically named after Albertina a century later in his homage. After World War II, the university was closed and Königsberg annexed and renamed Kaliningrad by the Soviet Union. The Russian State University Emmanuel-Kant is the successor of Albertus University traditions.

Foundation

Margrave Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, the last great master of the Teutonic order who had joined the Protestant reform and obtained the hereditary title of Duke of Prussia in 1525, installed his new capital in Königsberg. For a long time, he had been thinking about establishing a higher school there, for example. the model of St. Catherine's High School in Lübeck, to constitute a Lutheran counterweight at the Academy of Krakow which was Catholic, the Duchy of Eastern Prussia being at the time a fief of the Kingdom of Poland. For this reason, he relied on the recommendations of humanists such as Johann Gramann and Joachim Camerarius, who supported the establishment of a school to prepare for university studies.

In this perspective, Albert de Prussia founded the University of Königsberg by an ordinance of (according to the Julian calendar) and then inaugurated the following. The first rector was the poet Georg Sabinus, the son-in-law of Philipp Melanchthon and former professor at the Brandenburg University in Frankfurt, who recruited the scholar Andreas Osiander and the rector of Elbing High School, Willem van de Voldersgraft, as professors. He had convinced the Duke to transform the college into a general university.

For centuries, the institution was the spiritual center of Protestant Prussia. Founded outside the Holy Empire, without any imperial or papal privilege, the university is nevertheless recognized by the King of Poland, Sigismund II Auguste, but must recognize the Augsburg confession.

Extending north of the cathedral, the university is organized on the model of the University of Copenhagen, founded by Christian III of Denmark, the brother-in-law of Albert-Frédéric of Prussia.

Essor

From the early years, attracted by prestigious teachers, the students rushed to his benches: it was recorded before 1550; They are rapidly recruited throughout the Germanic world.

In spite of this boom, the theological quarrels that cross the Protestant world did not spare the university, which over the years was affirmed as an evangelical bastion, while in 1613 the Duke in Prussia, Jean-Sigismon, converted to Calvinism.

In the 17th century, the university saw its name attached to that of Simon Dach, who became its rector in 1656, and his friends poets. Then his nickname Albertina was given to him. Following the visit of Tsar Pierre de Russi