Jan Amos Komensky was born 28^th March 1592, probably in Nivnice      near Gottwaldov in  Moravia close to Slovakia now. His birthplace, on the other hand, has never been identified and there are several places    claimed, Nivnice or UherskГЅ Brod and so on. At the age of 16              Comenius was sent to the BrethrenВґs Latin School in Prerov.  He         finished school at 19 and could then go on to university. Comenius was at school in Prerov from 1608 til 1611.                                                   

For all his life, Komensky remained a devoted Christian, and a member of   the Unity of Czech Brethren, by which he was baptized and raised. This       religious society was based on a rather strict teaching of a 15th century        Czech yeoman, Petr Chelcicky, and one century later strongly influenced by the German reformer Martin Luther. After university studies in Herbron and Heidelberg in Germany, Comenius was ordained as a Czech Brethren priest in 1616. He married and had two children, but his happiness did not last long - his wife and both children died of plague in 1622. And it was a time of big changes throughout Europe: The political and social and economical        changes initiated during the Renaissance and Reformation became        established in the 17^th century. So the time was very difficult. The         political event of this Г©poque was the Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648. it was in fact not one but several wars which all concluded with the peace treaty and peace of Westphalia in 1648.                                

But there were crucial changes on the political scene in the Czech Kingdom as well: after the defeat of the Protestant nobility at the Battle of White        Mountain near Prague in 1620, the Catholic grip tightened, and the Czech  nation, hitherto allowed to profess both beliefs, was subject to strict re-      catholization ordered from Vienna. A wave of involuntary migration started:  The Thirty Years War resulted not only in the new political alignments but also in massive democratic changes. Flights and emigrations were permanent features over the 17^th century and Bohemia and Moravia   were particularly badly affected. In 1627 all Protestants were forced to chose between becoming Catholics ore being expelled from their           country.                                                                                                    

Komensky could not betray his Protestant belief. He went into hiding and stayed with some of his friends in Bohemia, but finally he decided to flee:  It was that in the year 1628 Comenius was told to accompany a small group of the Brethren to Leszno,  Poland. Comenius spent total 16 years in Leszno  which were some of the hardest years of his life. Then 1625 fire swept throughLeszno. Many of Comenius writings were destroyed including his dictionary of the Czech language which he had been working on for over 40 years.

Komensky could never come back to his native country, although he wrote several protest letters addressed to the Swedish king. In 1648, his second wife died when their daughters Kritstina and Alzbeta were already adult. Their two younger children - 5-year-old Zuzana and 2-year old Daniel - were looked after by Komensky's third wife, Jana Gajusova, following his third marriage. But Komensky's life was not to be a happy one and he was to die in exile:  1641 to 42 he went on the invitation of friends to London where he was held to reform the English school system. The whole project was however thwarted by the conflict between the king and the parliament. Then he left London for Sweden. On the way to Sweden he first visited Netherlands where he was also well known. While he stayed there he later met the philosopher RГ©nГ© Descartes. Then, via Amsterdam, Bremen, Hamburg and LГјbeck, Comenius reached NorskГ¶pping in Sweden in 1642. The Swedish Councillor asked him to help to reform the Swedish school system. Later Comenius spent several years on singular projects in Saros Patak, Transylvania  now Hungary. In this time he was supported by aristocratic families and in this period produced a number of works including the famous Orbituarium Pictus. In 1656 Comenius returned to Amsterdam and he died there in exile on 15 November 1670 and was buried in Naarden.

Before his death, Komensky assessed his own life in the following words:
"I led a wandering life, I had no homeland. I was constantly propelled from one place to another, never and nowhere did I find a permanent home."