17 November – International Students Day

The Bolashaq Academy congratulates all students on International Student Day!

Our dear students! We wish you to fulfill all your wishes! Let all doors be open for you! Good health to you and your families! Thank you for your trust! “Bolashaq” is the future.

International Students’ Day is celebrated annually on 17 November. It was established in 1941 at an international meeting of students from countries that fought against fascism, held in London (Great Britain), but it has been celebrated since 1946. The date was set in memory of Czech patriotic students.

Of course, this holiday is associated with youth, romance and fun, but its history, which began in Czechoslovakia during the Second World War, is linked to tragic events.

On 28 October 1939, in fascist occupied Czechoslovakia, Prague students and their teachers demonstrated to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Czechoslovak state (28 October 1918). Occupier units dispersed the demonstration, and Jan Opletal, a medical student, was shot and killed.

Jan Opletal’s funeral on 15 November 1939 turned into another protest action. Dozens of protesters were arrested. On 17 November, Gestapo and SS members surrounded the student hostels in the early morning. More than 1,200 students were arrested and imprisoned in a concentration camp in Sachsenhausen. Nine students and student activists were executed without trial in prison cells in the Ruzyně district of Prague. On Hitler’s order, all Czech higher education establishments were closed down until the end of the war.

International Student Day was established to commemorate these events, and in the post-war years its celebration was confirmed at the World Congress of Students held in Prague in 1946, and since then it has been celebrated annually.

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