The National University of San Cristóbal de Huamanga () is a
public university
A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whether a national university is considered public varies from o ...
located in the city of
Ayacucho
Ayacucho (, , derived from the words ''aya'' ("death" or "soul") and ''k'uchu'' ("corner") in honour of the battle of Ayacucho), founded in 1540 as San Juan de la Frontera de Huamanga and known simply as Huamanga (Quechua: Wamanga) until 1825, i ...
(formerly known as Huamanga) in southern
Peru
Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
.
History
The university was established in 1677 by Cristóbal de Castilla y Zamora, the
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
archbishop
In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...
of
La Plata o Charcas. Until it was closed in the mid-19th century, it operated mostly as a seminary for the training of Catholic priests. The government of Perú reopened it in 1959 as a national university.
In the 1960s, the university became a breeding ground for
communist
Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
organizations, including the
Shining Path
The Shining Path (, SL), self-named the Communist Party of Peru (, abbr. PCP), is a far-left political party and guerrilla group in Peru, following Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and Gonzalo Thought. Academics often refer to the group as the ...
. This group, led by philosophy professor
Abimael Guzmán
Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reinoso (; 3 December 1934 − 11 September 2021), also known by his ''nom de guerre'' Chairman Gonzalo (), was a Peruvian Maoist guerrilla leader. He founded the organization Communist Party of Peru – Shining ...
, started there before growing into a violent
guerrilla
Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...
movement that conducted a
bloody campaign against the government of Perú and against rival leftists groups. (See also
Efraín Morote Best.)
The rector of the university is Homero Ango Aguilar, a biologist.
See also
*
List of colonial universities in Latin America
The list of universities established in the viceroyalties of the Hispanic America comprises all University, universities established by the Spanish Empire in America from the settlement of the Americas in 1492 to the Spanish American wars of inde ...
References
External links
*
Official website*
Ayacucho República Aristocrática photo gallery
Universities in Peru
1677 establishments in the Spanish Empire
Internal conflict in Peru
Educational institutions established in the 1670s
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