Nr 1 – Benedictus Baazius also known as Bengt Baaz (1612–1650) was admitted to the university on 20 April 1632. He was the son of the bishop of Växjö. He studied at the Academia Gustaviana in 1632 and 1633, successfully contending a master’s degree. Later Bengt became a private tutor to the Swedish heir apparent, Karl Gustav and in 1648 was named the Governor of Stockholm. In 1647, he was raised to the nobility, receiving the name Ekehielm.

Nr 409 – Johannes Philippus Crusius (1626–?) was the son of Holstein diplomat Philipp Crusius. He was admitted to Academia Gustaviana in 1641 and in 1645 to the University of Rostock. Later he became governor of the Swedish Gold Coast (later Ghana) colony. In 1650, he was raised to the nobility, receiving the surname von Krusenstiern. Several explorers descended from his family; perhaps Adam Johann von Krusenstern (1770–1846) is the best known.

Nr 1007 – Urban Hiärne (1641–1724) was born into a pastor’s family in Ingria. He joined the University of Tartu in 1655 along with his brother (Thomas Hiärne, who would become a historian of Livonia) and Uppsala University in 1658. He later became personal physician to Charles XI of Sweden and built Sweden’s first natural mineral water spa in Medevi, on the eastern shore of Lake Vättern, and the first chemistry lab in Stockholm. He spoke out against the hysteria of witch hunts.

Nr 1239 – Arvidus Mollerus (1674–1758) born in Tartu to a family of a Swedish military representative, he studied at the University of Tartu from 1693 to 1695. From 1702 to 1710 he taught mathematics and law at the Tallinn gymnasium and became a professor at Lund University (1717–1743). He published many felicitation poems and in 1755 “Fata Dorpati”, a work on Tartu’s history.

Nr 1254 – Isaac(us) Björk (1640s–1700) born to a Dalarna mountain mine inspector’s family, and studied in Uppsala where he was involved in student theatre. Between 1686 to 1691 he was a playwright in Sweden’s first professional theatre troupe (the Lion’s Den) in Stockholm. He studied law at the University of Tartu from 1691 to 1693 and also excelled in poetry. He was later a notary in Narva’s consistory and the head of a local Swedish school.

Nr 321 – Jakob Friedrich Wilhelm Parrot (1791–1841) was the son of the University of Tartu’s first rector, G. F. Parrot. From 1807 to 1814 he studied at the Faculty of Medicine, completing his doctoral degree in medicine and surgery. Between 1821 and 1826 he was a professor of physiology and from 1826 to 1841 professor of physics at the University of Tartu. He was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences from 1814 and held the position of the university’s rector from 1831 to 1833. He conducted many research expeditions with aim of carrying out physical measurements – to the Pyrenees, Crimea, Caucasus Mountains and Nordkapp in Norway, among other destinations. In 1829 he was the first to conquer Mount Ararat, helping to launch the age of mountaineering.

Nr 577 – Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876) studied at the Faculty of Medicine from 1810 to 1814, continuing his studies in Berlin, Vienna and Würzburg. He became a professor at Königsberg University in 1821 and moved to Saint Petersburg in 1834. Between 1841 and 1852 he worked at the Saint Petersburg Medical Academy as a professor of comparative anatomy and physiology. He founded the Russian Geographical Society. While researching embryology and developmental biology Bae discovered the mammalian ovum.

Nr 2202 – Philipp Jakob Karell (1806–1886) studied at the Faculty of Medicine from 1826 to 1832 and was one of the first doctors of Estonian origin to receive a doctoral degree in medicine from the University of Tartu. After graduation, he moved to Saint Petersburg, where he was a military doctor, rising to become the personal physician to the families of Nicholas I and Alexander II. Karell was one of the so-called Saint Petersburg patriots, a group of Estonian intellectuals supporting the printing of the Estonian epic poem Kalevipoeg and also aiding in the education of Estonian artists.

Nr 6145 – Arthur von Oettingen (1836–1920) studied physics and astronomy at the University of Tartu from 1853 to 1857, successfully defending his doctoral thesis in physics in 1865. He became a physics professor two years later. He ushered in practical training as part of physics studies and established a network of meteorological observatories in the Baltics. Work in both the fields of meteorology and music theory brought him fame. His entire family merits attention: his brother Georg was an eye doctor and second brother Alexander a theology professor while his father, Alexander, was the highest official of the local Livonia knighthood.

Nr 9105 – Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) studied chemistry at the University of Tartu from 1872 to 1875, successfully defending his doctoral thesis in 1878. He began his academic career at the university as an assistant before becoming a lecturer at Riga Technical University and Leipzig University. He was a well-known chemist, physicist and philosopher, and the founder of physical chemistry. In 1909 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on chemical equilibria and reaction velocities. So far, he is the only University of Tartu graduate to win a Nobel Prize.

Nr 15612 – Jānis Endzelīns (1873–1961) was scholar of the Latvian language. At the University of Tartu, he studied classical philology from 1893 to 1898, Slavic philology from 1898 to 1900 and history from 1900 to 1903. He was a renowned Baltic language academic and specialist on historic-comparative linguistics. He published fundamental research on the history of the Latvian language, dialect, grammar and vocabulary. He was an academic and received the Lenin Prize in 1958. From 1920 to 1950 he was a professor of Baltic languages and comparative linguistics at the University of Latvia.

Nr 16520 – Petras Avižonis (1875–1939) was a Lithuanian eye doctor and the rector of the University of Lithuania (1925-1926). He had previously studied biology at the Saint Petersburg University and studied at the University of Tartu’s Faculty of Medicine from 1897 to 1901.

Nr 16306 – Axel von Freytagh-Loringhoven (1878–1942) studied law at the University of Tartu between 1897 and 1901. In 1908 he became a privatdozent in Saint Petersburg and a professor of international law in Yaroslavl in 1910 and at the University of Tartu in 1911. He left for Germany during World War I and in 1918 became a professor of government and international law in Wroclaw (Breslau).

Nr 18543 – Jaan Lattik (1878–1967) was an Estonian writer, involved in religion, education and politics. He studied theology at the University of Tartu from 1902 to 1908. He spent a trial year at Saint John’s parish in Saint Petersburg, then worked as the pastor of Saint Paul’s church in Viljandi, a position he held from 1910 to 1939. He was one of the Christian People’s Party leaders, member of the first five Riigikogu (parliament) formations, from 1925 to 1927 the education and from 1928 to 1931 the foreign minister. He was the Estonian ambassador to Lithuania between 1938 to 1940. He fled to Sweden in 1944 and again became a pastor.

Nr 23986 – Villem Ernits (1891–1982) was an Estonian linguist and promoter of the temperance movement. He studied at the University of Tartu’s Faculty of History and Philology from 1911 to 1917. He was involved in the movement of interest in Finno-Ugric peoples and cultures, organising Estonian students and journalism. He was one of the architects of the idea to establish a University in Tartu teaching in the indigenous language, Estonian.

Nr 11759 – Kuno Kõrge (1913–1989) studied at the Faculty of Medicine from 1931 to 1937, continuing his studies in Budapest and Debrecen universities. From 1944 he was an internal medicine lecturer at the University of Tartu and from 1956 to 1978 the head of the facilities internal medicine department. From 1946 to 1949 he was the head physician at the health ministry and later Tartu’s head physician.

Nr 2609 – Hilda Taba (1902–1967) was an Estonian pedagogy academic. She studied at the University of Tartu’s department of trade between 1921 and 1922, then at the Faculty of Philosophy from 1922 to 1931, specialising in pedagogy. In 1926, she moved to the USA as a Rockefeller Foundation grant recipient, successfully defending her master’s degree in 1927. She received her doctoral degree at New York’s Columbia University. Between 1938 and 1942, she was a lecturer and researcher at various US universities.

Nr 10550 – Pent Nurmekund (until December 1936 Arthur Roosmann; 1906–1996) was an Estonian linguist, polyglot, orientalist and poet writing in the Mulgi dialect. He received his master’s degree in 1939 and candidate degree in philology in 1968. From 1930 to 1935 he studied Romance and Germanic languages at the University of Tartu. He continued his studies at Copenhagen, Berlin, Munich, Paris and Gothenburg universities. From 1955 until 1985 he was a lecturer at the University of Tartu and founder of the university’s oriental studies department. He spoke around 80 different languages.

Fred Kudu was an Estonian athlete, coach and sports educator. He studied physical education, law and medicine at the University of Tartu from 1937 to 1942. Kudu was the founder of the Tartu State University Faculty of Physical Culture as well as the Kääriku Sports Centre. He was also the long serving senior coach of the Soviet Union combined track and field events athletes and their coach at five Olympic Games.

Nr 141 – Alma Aline Tomingas (1900–1963) was a pharmacist and the first female professor at the University of Tartu. She studied pharmacy at the University of Tartu from 1925 to 1928 and received a doctoral degree in 1933. She was appointed a professor in 1940. From 1940 to 1963 she headed the pharmacognosy department and was the dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1952 to 1955. In 1946 she was named an Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR academic.

Nr 16853 – Jaan Kross (1920–2007) was an Estonian novelist, poet, essayist and translator. In 1938 he enrolled at the University of Tartu’s Faculty of Law where he studied until 1944. He joined the Estonian Students’ Society in 1938 and in 1988 was one of the initiators of the organisation’s reestablishment. He is best known for historical novels based on the history of Estonia, for example Between Three Plagues, The Czar’s Madman and Professor Martens’ Departure. Kross was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Nr 46358 – Artur Lind (1927–1989) was an Estonian molecular biologist, academic and the founder of Estonian molecular biology. He studied at the Tartu State University’s Faculty of Medicine from 1946 to 1952. He was a strong surgeon but had to change fields as he became allergic to novocaine. He then chose biochemistry. His students include Richard Villems, Andres Metspalu and Toivo Maimets among others.

Nr 47251 – Ellen Hiob (Niit, from 1958 Kross) (1928–2016) was an Estonian writer and translator. She studied Estonian language and literature at Tartu from 1947 to 1952 and was a post-graduate in Estonian children’s’ literature from 1952 to 1956. She penned the classic children’s’ song “Rongisõit” and created children’s literature characters like Krõll.

Nr 48337 – Lennart Georg Meri (1929–2006) was an Estonian writer, translator, film director, diplomat, politician and the president of Estonia from 1992 to 2001. He studied at the Tartu State University’s Faculty of History and Philology from 1948 to 1953. In 1998, the French newspaper La Vie named Lennart Meri European of the Year.

Nr 50 243 – Laine Kose (from 1956 Peep) (1932–2001) was an Estonian psychologist and bibliographer. She studied the Estonian language and psychology at the University of Tartu from 1950 to 1956 and later librarianship and bibliography. She was a department head at the Tartu Public Library from 1956 to 1960 and from 1962 to 1990 she was the director of the University of Tartu Library. She launched the construction of the new library building, which was opened on 22 February 1982, just before the University of Tartu’s 350th anniversary celebrations.