Borůvka was born in Uherský Ostroh, a town in Moravia (then in Austria-Hungary, later Czechoslovakia; today Czech Republic), the son of a school headmaster [REF].
When the war ended, Borůvka returned to Uherské Hradiště, finished his studies in 1918 at the Gymnasium there, and became a student at the Imperial Czech Technical University of Franz Joseph, in Brno, initially studying civil engineering [REF].