Masaryk University was founded on 28 January 1919 with four faculties: Law, Medicine, Science, and Art. The founding of the third Czech university was possible only after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy because of the resistance of the German-controlled city council, which feared giving power to the Czech residents of Brno.[2] Brno was at that time a bilingual city. One notable demonstration in favour of establishing a university in Brno happened in 1905.[3]
From the beginning, the university suffered from a lack of money for development. The fragile state of public finances in 1923-1925 and 1933-1934 led to proposals of abolishing both the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Science. Both faculties eventually survived until 17 November 1939 when the whole university was closed following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. A number of professors of Masaryk University were executed or tortured; for example, the Faculty of Science lost one quarter of its teaching staff.[2] Many of the executions took place in the Mauthausen Contentration Camp in 1942.[3]
The renewal of university life after the end of World War II was interrupted by the Communist takeover. The percentage of students expelled in various faculties ranged from 5 percent at the Faculty of Education to 46 percent at the Faculty of Law, which was completely closed in 1950. In 1953, the Faculty of Education (founded in 1946) was separated from the university. In August 1960, a government decree abolished the Pharmaceutical Faculty and the University was renamed Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Brno.[2]
Relaxation occurred in 1964 with the reintegration of the Faculty of Education into the university and with the reestablishment of the Faculty of Law in 1969. But conditions changed again rapidly with the Normalization of the 1970s after the 1968 invasion of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia.[2]
The University was renamed Masaryk University in Brno in 1990, then regaining its original name by dropping the "in Brno" from the title in 2006. A new era of development began after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the establishment of the Faculty of Economics and Administration in 1991, the Faculty of Informatics in 1994, the Faculty of Social Studies in 1998, and the Faculty of Sports Studies in 2002.[3] A new University campus has been under construction in Brno Bohunice since 2002. The last stage of development should be completed in 2015.[4]
