This collection of essays includes contributions delivered during the conference The University and the Republic, 1918–2018, organized by Charles University to commemorate the centennial of the founding of Czechoslovakia. Selected contributions by prominent Czech historians are a representative sample of conference topics as well as of the research interest of contributors (Marek Ďurčanský, Daniela Brádlerová, Jaroslav Šebek, Jan Randák, Zdeněk R. Nešpor, Jiří Hoppe, and Jitka Vondrová). They are all connected by an effort to demonstrate the importance and merits of the academic environment for the formation of the Czechoslovak state and the necessity to understand this development in the broader political and social context.