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Leonidas Donskis | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1962-08-13)13 August 1962 |
| Died | 21 September 2016(2016-09-21) (aged 54) Vilnius, Lithuania |
| Spouse | Jolanta Donskienė |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre Vilnius University University of Helsinki |
| Philosophical work | |
| Institutions | Vytautas Magnus University |
Leonidas Donskis (13 August 1962 – 21 September 2016) was aLithuanian-Jewish philosopher, political theorist, historian of ideas, and social analyst. In addition to this, he was also a political commentator, professor of politics and head of "VDU Academia Cum Laude" atVytautas Magnus University, Honorary Consul of Finland in Kaunas, and deputy chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community.[1] He was also a member of theEuropean Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014.
As a public figure inLithuania, he acted as a defender ofhuman rights and civil liberties. In 2004, Donskis was awarded the title of the ambassador for tolerance and diversity in Lithuania by theEuropean Commission. Acenter-right politician, he was always opposed to all extreme or exclusionary attitudes and forms of violent politics, and, instead, was leaning toliberalism with its advocacy of individual reason and conscience, ability tocoexist with democratic programs of other non-exclusive ideologies, and moderation.
Leonidas Donskis was born inKlaipėda into aLithuanian Jewish family. In 1985, he graduated from Lithuanian State Conservatoire (nowLithuanian Academy of Music and Theater), with a BA inphilology and theater, and then pursued his graduate studies in philosophy at theUniversity of Vilnius, Lithuania, graduating with an M.A in 1987.[2] In 1990, he earned his first doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vilnius with the dissertation titleCulture in Crisis and the Philosophy of Culture: Oswald Spengler, Arnold J. Toynbee, Lewis Mumford.. In 1999, he earned his second doctorate in social and moral philosophy (D.Soc.Sc.) from theUniversity of Helsinki,Finland with a dissertation entitled:The End of Ideology and Utopia? Moral Imagination and Cultural Criticism in the Twentieth Century..[3]
His main scholarly interests were thephilosophy of history,philosophy of culture,philosophy of literature,philosophy of the social sciences, civilization theory,political theory, history of ideas, and studies in Central and East European thought.[4]
A wandering scholar, he researched and lectured in theUnited States,Great Britain, andEurope. He was involved in various public philosophical and political debates[5] at theInstitute of Art and Ideas. Donskis was an IREX-International Research and Exchanges Board Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, and a visiting professor of philosophy atDickinson College in Pennsylvania, US; a Swedish Institute Guest Researcher at theUniversity of Gothenburg and a guest professor of East European studies at theUniversity of Uppsala, Sweden; a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Research Fellow at theUniversity of Bradford, Great Britain; Paschal P. Vacca Chair (distinguished visiting professor) of Liberal Arts at theUniversity of Montevallo inAlabama, US; and a fellow at theCollegium Budapest/Institute for Advanced Study, Hungary.
Until 7 June 2009, Leonidas Donskis acted as professor of political science atVytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. From 2005 to 2009, he served as professor and dean of the Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy at Vytautas Magnus University. In addition, he acted as docent of social and moral philosophy at the University of Helsinki, and as extraordinary visiting professor of cultural theory at Tallinn University, Estonia. From September 2014, Leonidas Donskis acted as vice-president for research atISM University of Management and Economics. He was also a member of the editorial board of the magazineNew Eastern Europe.
In 2009, the Lithuanian Liberal Movement Party invited Donskis to campaign for theEuropean Parliament. He was the number one candidate on the list of the party.[6]
At the European Parliament (term 2009–2014), Donskis worked as a part of theAlliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group (ALDE), which is the third largest political group in the Parliament. He was a member of the Development Committee and member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and also a substitute member at the committee of Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.
Donskis was the full member of the EU and Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee delegation, as well as the delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the EURONEST. He was also a substitute member of the EU relations with Israel, Moldova, and the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly delegations.
Donskis died on 21 September 2016 inVilnius Airport of an apparentheart attack.[7][1]
Donskis said that he had been influenced byLewis Mumford,Louis Dumont,Ernest Gellner,Isaiah Berlin, andZygmunt Bauman.[8]
Donskis has published widely in international refereed journals, and is the author or editor of more than fifty books, some of them in English, including:
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)Donskis's works originally written in Lithuanian and English have been translated into Danish, Estonian, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian. He edited book series for EditionsRodopi, B. V. (Amsterdam and New York), one in Baltic studies (On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics), and another – VIBS-Value Inquiry Book Series. From 2005 to 2009, he served as a member of the Standing Committee for the Humanities (SCH) in the European Science Foundation (ESF).
