Mr Per Carlsen, President of the Governing Council
Prof. Anatoli Mikhailov, President
Prof. Sergei Ignatov, Rector
European Humanities University
1 October 2019
I warmly congratulate you and your entire community, including academicians, the administrative staff and, naturally, the students, on the new academic year at the European Humanities University (EHU). This will be the 28th academic year since the university’s establishment in Minsk in 1992 and its 14th here in Vilnius.
Your pathway has been complicated and unique: apart from retaining your university, you have managed to consolidate it, provide high quality European level studies, and conduct valuable research in the fields of science and arts. The EHU is crucial in promoting European values and critical thinking, spreading the ideas of liberal democracy in Belarus, and winning the hearts and minds of young Belarusians. Your contribution to the efforts of the civil society and the international community streamlined towards democratisation of Belarus is immense and highly appreciated.
I am very pleased to see that within little more than a dozen of years in Vilnius, the EHU community has become an integral part of the Lithuanian society and the cosy local community on Savičius Street in Vilnius. I tend to believe that the EHU’s existence in Lithuania also echoes the atmosphere of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania both in terms of the lively buzz on the streets of the Old Town of Vilnius and in terms of the people-to-people contacts between Lithuania and Belarus.
Let me wish you every success for the new academic year in aiming for the university’s academic and research objectives whilst standing firm in support of democracy and human rights in Belarus.
Gediminas Kirkilas
Deputy Speaker of the Seimas
Chair of the Committee on European Affairs