Leonidas Donskis
Leonidas Donskis was a Lithuanian-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" at Vytautas Magnus University, Honorary Consul of Finland in Kaunas, and deputy chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. He was also a member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2014.
As a public figure in Lithuania, he acted as a defender of human rights and civil liberties. In 2004, Donskis was awarded the title of the ambassador for tolerance and diversity in Lithuania by the European Commission. A center-right politician, he was always opposed to all extreme or exclusionary attitudes and forms of violent politics, and, instead, was leaning to liberalism with its advocacy of individual reason and conscience, ability to coexist with democratic programs of other non-exclusive ideologies, and moderation.
Early life and education
Leonidas Donskis was born in Klaipėda into a Lithuanian Jewish family. In 1985, he graduated from Lithuanian State Conservatoire, with a BA in philology and theater, and then pursued his graduate studies in philosophy at the University of Vilnius, Lithuania, graduating with an M.A in 1987. In 1990, he earned his first doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vilnius with the dissertation title Culture 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 from the University of Helsinki, Finland with a dissertation entitled: The End of Ideology and Utopia? Moral Imagination and Cultural Criticism in the Twentieth Century..His main scholarly interests were the philosophy 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.
Career
A wandering scholar, he researched and lectured in the United States, Great Britain, and Europe. He was involved in various public philosophical and political debates at the Institute of Art and Ideas. Donskis was an IREX-International Research and Exchanges Board Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, and a visiting professor of philosophy at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, US; a Swedish Institute Guest Researcher at the University of Gothenburg and a guest professor of East European studies at the University of Uppsala, Sweden; a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Bradford, Great Britain; Paschal P. Vacca Chair of Liberal Arts at the University of Montevallo in Alabama, US; and a fellow at the Collegium Budapest/Institute for Advanced Study, Hungary.Until 7 June 2009, Leonidas Donskis acted as professor of political science at Vytautas 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 at ISM University of Management and Economics. He was also a member of the editorial board of the magazine New Eastern Europe.
Political activity
In 2009, the Lithuanian Liberal Movement Party invited Donskis to campaign for the European Parliament. He was the number one candidate on the list of the party.At the European Parliament, Donskis worked as a part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group, 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.
Personal life and death
Donskis died on 21 September 2016 in Vilnius Airport of an apparent heart attack.Donskis said that he had been influenced by Lewis Mumford, Louis Dumont, Ernest Gellner, Isaiah Berlin, and Zygmunt Bauman.