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On 20 March, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis congratulated poet, translator, literary scholar, publicist, Professor Tomas Venclova, who had received an honorary doctorate from the University of Gdansk. The Minister’s letter of congratulations was read at the University of Gdansk, during the ceremony of conferring the title of Honorary Doctor to T.Venclova on March 20. Minister A.Ažubalis welcomed the decision of the University of Gdańsk to confer the title of Honorary Doctor to T.Venclova and to evaluate in this way the Professor’s long-time efforts to foster the ideas of freedom of his Homeland, his native culture and civil thinking.

According to Minister A.Ažubalis, the intellectual creative work of T.Venclova and his openness to other peoples and cultures, the dissemination of tolerance and forbearance is an invaluable contribution to the cultural heritage of Lithuania, the Central and Eastern Europe and entire world. When addressing T.Venclova in his letter, the Minister expresses appreciation for “introducing Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, Czesław Miłosz, Stanisław Barańczak, Osip Mandelshtam and many other world authors to Lithuania, for his savoir-faire and teaching to regard fellow citizens and neighbours, the past and the future calmly, responsibly and without prejudice.”

In the letter, the Minister also highlights that it is very symbolic that the University of Gdansk, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, has conferred this honorary title to the Professor “for outstanding achievements in the Central and Eastern European cultural studies, amazing literary work and wise activities to bring the nations together.”

T.Venclova was born in Klaipėda in 1937. In 1960, he graduated from Vilnius University and worked at the Institute of History, taught at Vilnius University. In 1976, he joined the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. In 1977, he emigrated to the U.S.A. and since 1980 has been Professor of Slavic literature at Yale University, New Haven. In 1990, T.Venclova received the Vilenica International Literary Prize (Slovenia). In 2000, the Professor was awarded with the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize. In Poland, T.Venclova is well known and his literary work is highly appreciated.