Vilnius University

The most famous university in Top 5 Best Universities in Lithuania that Toplist would like to introduce to you is Vilnius University. Vilnius University is a public research university located in Vilnius, Lithuania. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the Baltic states and one of the oldest and most renowned in Northern Europe. Today, it is Lithuania's most prestigious academic institution, ranking among the world's top 400 universities (QS).

Stephen Báthory, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, founded the institution in 1579 as the Jesuit Academy (College) of Vilnius. It was the third-oldest university in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (after the Cracow Academy and the Albertina). Due to the November Uprising's defeat (1830–1831), the institution was forced to close and halt operations until 1919. The institution experienced abortive attempts to reestablish it following World War I by the local Polish Society of Friends of Science in Wilno (1915 and November 1918), Lithuania (December 1918), and invading Soviet forces (March 1919). It reopened as Stefan Batory University in Poland in August 1919, following another Soviet occupation in 1920 and the short-lived Republic of Central Lithuania, which was absorbed by Poland in 1922.

Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, the university was briefly administered by Lithuanian authorities (from October 1939) and then by the Soviet Union following Lithuania's annexation by the Soviet Union in June 1940, punctuated by a period of German occupation following Operation Barbarossa, from 1941 to 1944, when it was administered as the Vilnius State University. In 1945, Stefan Batory University's Polish students and faculty were transferred to Toru's Nicolaus Copernicus University. After Lithuania regained independence in 1990, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it reestablished itself as one of the country's leading universities.

Vilnius University's sprawling ensemble encompasses all main architectural forms that were prevalent in Lithuania: Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classicism.

Website: www.vu.lt