Knafelj Foundation, Vienna

Contact

Knafljeva ustanova

Seilerstätte 2, AT-1010 Wien

CountryAUSTRIA

Organised byUniversity of Ljubljana

Knafelj Foundation was established in 1676 as an institution with the aim to financially help students, firstly only to male students of law, medicine and philosophy, from Carniola with their studies in Vienna, the Central European's most important university city. Today, the Foundation with an impressive history still represents an important part of the Slovene cultural heritage with the on-going funding of the accommodation in Vienna for postgraduate students coming from Slovenia.

Background

The Foundation is named after its founder Luka Knafelj (1621–1671), a Carniola-born priest, who left his money and fortune for Carniolan students coming to study in Vienna where he also worked and died. Until the break-up of Austria-Hungary in 1918, more than 1200 students received the funding, including the prominent poet France Prešeren and many others.

In the beginning the Foundation was run by the consortium at the University of Vienna, in 1995 the legal basis of the institution transformed into a private foundation and as a property, run by a managing committee comprised out of members from University of Ljubljana, Mohorjeva družba from Klagenfurt and Anton Levstek as a trustee.

The aid and support

Each year an open call is published and addressed to postgraduates students of all disciplines enrolled at the University of Vienna. The grant is assigned as a monthly rent for student rooms at the Knafelj House in Vienna (Seilerstätte 2), a 19th Century building in Vienna's first district.

See also

• Slovenian Scientific Institute Vienna
• Slovenian Culture and Information Centre, Vienna
• Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office (ASRLO), Ljubljana
• University of Ljubljana

External links

• The Knafelj Foundation webpage, University of Ljubljana
• Knafelj Foundation on Wikipedia (in Slovenian)