Associated Professor Laimute Balode was awarded the Medal of the Baltic Assembly

It is really encouraging that our distinguished colleague’s work in promoting the unity of the Baltic nations and Baltistics as a branch of science has received such a high appraisal – on 6 October, she was awarded the Medal of the Baltic Assembly, and earlier this year, on 7 February, Laimute became the commander of Karininko kryžius (Officer’s cross) of the order ‘Už nuopelnus Lietuvai’ (‘For merits to Lithuania’) presented by the President of Lithuania. For more than 15 years Laimute Balode has managed to combine work at two leading universities of the Baltic Sea countries – in Riga and Helsinki. She is a popular guest lecturer in the neighbouring countries and a frequent participant at international conferences. Together with her colleagues, Laimute is organizing the international meeting on Baltic and Finno-Ugric language contacts at the University of Helsinki in June 2012. Laimute is also a member of the editorial board of continued publications such as ‘Baltu filoloģija’ (Baltic Philology), ‘Linguistica Lettica’ and ‘Humanitāro Zinātņu Vēstnesis’ (Journal in Humanitarian Sciences). She is the coordinator of the UL Centre of Lithuanistics and teaches a self-developed academic course in Onomastics. The Medals of the Baltic Assembly were also awarded to two university representatives from Lithuania and close partners of the Department of Latvian and Baltic studies at the UL Faculty of Humanities: Bonifacas Stundžia, professor at the Department of Baltic Studies at the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University and editor-in-chief of ‘Baltistica’, the Journal of  Baltic Linguistics; and Alvydas Butkus, professor at the Department of the Lithuanian Language at the Faculty of Humanities and Head of Letonics Centre of Vytautas Magnus University. We congratulate all three professors!

Translated by students of the professional study programme Translator of the University of Latvia.