Comenius originated from Moravia, but history has no accurate record of his birthplace. There are three possible locations: Kom?a, Nivnice, or Uherský Brod (all three locations are in Uherské Hradi?t? District, southeastern Moravia, Czech Republic). His ancestors came from Hungary (likely from the part that is today Slovakia, which is very close to Moravia in location as well as in language) during the 16th century and his original family name was
Szeges according to his will found in 1968 by Milada Blekastad, a monographer of Comenius.
- Kom?a is a small village where his ancestors from the Szeges family lived and where he takes his name from. (Czech: Kom?a ? Komenský; Comenius is a Latinised form).
- Nivnice is a small village where he spent his childhood.
- Uherský Brod is a town where he moved during his childhood. A museum devoted to him is located there.
John Comenius was the youngest child and only son of Martin Comenius and his wife Anna. Martin, whose original surname was Szeges, started to use the surname Comenius after leaving his birthplace Kom?a to live in Uherský Brod, where he owned a house (he was "the man who came from Kom?a" = Comenius). Both of his parents belonged to the Moravian Brethren, and Comenius later became one of the leaders of that sect. His parents and two of his four sisters died in 1604, and young John went to live with his aunt in Strá?nice.
Due to his impoverished circumstances, he was unable to begin his formal education until late. He was 16 when he entered the Latin school in P?erov (he later returned to this school as a teacher 1614-1618). He continued his studies in the Herborn gymnasium (1611—1613) and the University of Heidelberg (1613—1614). Comenius was greatly influenced by the Irish Jesuit William Bathe as well as his teachers Johann Piscator, Heinrich Gutberleth, and particularly Heinrich Alsted. The Herborn school held the principle that every theory has to be functional in practical use, therefore has to be didactic, i.e. morally instructive. In the course of his study, he also became acquainted with the educational reforms of Ratichius, and with the report of these reforms issued by the universities of Jena and Giessen. Comenius had a few wrinkles on his mentors' thoughts later published in
Janua linguarum reserata (The Gate of Languages Unlocked, 1631) which may have made him and the Unity of Brethren especial targets of the Counter Reformation. Alternatively, the work may have resulted from the pogroms which drove him and his church out of its homeland into exile, but in any event, the work brought him widespread prominence and fame while he suffered exile.
In 1614, Comenius was ordained to the ministry of the Moravian Brethren, and four years later was given the charge at Fulnek, one of its most flourishing churches. Throughout his life, this pastoral activity was his most immediate concern. In consequence of the religious wars, he lost all his property and his writings in 1621, and six years later led the Brethren into exile when the Habsburg Counter-Reformation persecuted the Protestants in Bohemia.
Comenius took refuge in Leszno in Poland, where he led the gymnasium and was given charge of the Bohemian and Moravian churches. In 1641, he went to England to join a commission charged with the reform of the system of public education, but the disturbed political condition of that country interfered with his project. A year later, he moved to Sweden to work with Queen Christina (reigned 1632—1654) and the chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (in office 1612-1654) on the task of reorganizing the Swedish schools. From 1642 to 1648, he lived in Elbing (Elbl?g) in Polish Royal Prussia, then went to England with the aid of Samuel Hartlib, who came originally from Elbing. In 1650 Zsuzsanna Lorántffy, widow of George I Rákóczi prince of Transylvania invited him to Sárospatak. Comenius remained there until 1654 as professor in the first Hungarian Protestant college; he wrote some of his most important works there.
Comenius returned to Leszno. During the Northern Wars in 1655, he declared his support for the Protestant Swedish side, for which Polish partisans burned his house, his manuscripts, and the school's printing press in 1656. From Leszno he took refuge in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where he died in 1670. For unclear reasons he was buried in Naarden, where visitors can see his grave in the mausoleum devoted to him.
After his religious duties, Comenius's second great interest was in furthering the Baconian attempt at the organization of all human knowledge. He became one of the leaders in the encyclopćdic or pansophic movement of the seventeenth century, and, in fact, was inclined to sacrifice his more practical educational interests and opportunities for these more imposing but somewhat visionary projects. In 1639, Comenius published his
Pansophić Prodromus, and in the following year his English friend Hartlib published, without his consent, the plan of the pansophic work as outlined by Comenius. The manuscript of
Pansophia was destroyed in in the burning of his home in Lissa in 1657. The pansophic ideas find partial expression in the series of textbooks he produced from time to time. In these, he attempts to organize the entire field of human knowledge so as to bring it, in outline, within the grasp of every child.
According to Cotton Mather, Comenius was asked to be the President of Harvard University, but moved to Sweden instead. Comenius also attempted to design a language in which false statements were inexpressible. He also wrote Protestant Hymn songbooks (
Gesangbuch). A new Dutch translation of his
Janua Linguarum Reserata by C.F.J. Antonides is available.
