Kharkiv National University

The Karazin University (Ukrainian: ???????????? ???????????) or officially V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukrainian: ??????????? ???????????? ??????????? ????? ?. ?. ????????) is one of the major universities in Ukraine, and earlier in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It was founded in 1804 through the efforts of Vasily Karazin becoming the second oldest university in modern-day Ukraine after the University of Lviv.

On 29 January [O.S. 17 January] 1805, the Decree on the Opening of the Imperial University in Kharkiv came into force. The university became the second university in the south of the Russian Empire. It was founded on the initiative of the local community with Vasily Karazin at the fore, whose idea was supported by the nobility and the local authorities. Count Seweryn Potocki was appointed the first supervisor of the university, the first rector being the philologist Ivan Ryzhski.

In 1811, the Philotechnical Society was founded, while the Mathematical Society of Kharkiv, the Historical and Philological Society of Kharkiv, the Naturalists Society, Societies of Physics, Chemistry, Law, among others, were established in the second half of the 19th century. The first periodicals in Slobozhanshchyna appear in the university around this time, including Kharkovski Ezhenedelnik (1812), Ukrainski Vestnik (1816–1819), Ukrainski Zhurnal (1824–1825), etc.

Under the Soviet Union, the University of Kharkiv has decorated the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, the Order of the October Revolution and the Order of Peoples' Friendship.

Kharkiv National University holds the second place in Ukraine in the volume of publications and citations in scientific database Scopus and the Hirsch index.