Kiev Mogila Academy

(collegium), the first institution of higher education in the Ukraine. It was organized in 1632 by the merger of the school of the Kiev Bogoiavlenskoe Brotherhood, founded in 1615, with the school of the Kiev-Pecherskaia Laura, founded in 1631 by Petr Mogila, the metropolitan of Kiev. It was called a collegium from 1633 to 1701, when it was renamed an academy. The school accepted the children of cossack leaders, the gentry, prosperous townspeople, and clergy.

In the 17th century the academy had eight study groups divided into lower (four groups), middle (two groups), and upper (two groups) levels. The full course of study lasted 12 years and included such subjects as the Slavonic, Greek, Latin, and Polish languages, grammar, rhetoric, poetics, philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, and theology. In the lower and middle divisions the pupils were called spudei and the teachers, didaskaly; in the two upper divisions the pupils were called students and the instructors, professors. Classes were generally conducted in Latin.

In the 18th century the number of study groups increased to 20, and new subjects were introduced, including German, French, Hebrew, universal history, natural history, geography, architecture, economics, and medicine. In 1742 there were 1,234 students enrolled in the academy, which trained teachers for the Slavonic-Greek-Latin academies, religious educators, and the rectors and faculties of seminaries.

The academy was also the most important institution of general education in southern and southwestern Russia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many leading cultural figures and educators worked or studied there, notably Epifanii Slavinetskii, Simeon Polotskii, Feofan Prokopovich, G. S. Skovoroda, L. Baranovich, I. Galiatovskii, and I. Gizel’. After the establishment of Moscow University the academy declined in importance, and the founding of the University of Kharkov in 1805 marked the end of the school’s role as an institution of higher education. The academy was closed in 1817.