On Monday, May 20, at 2 p.m., VDU’s Great Hall (Gimnazijos str. 7, Kaunas) will host a solemn meeting of the VDU Senate, during which the regalia of the VDU Honorary Doctor will be presented to the historian, Professor Timothy Garton Ash.
The name of VMU Honorary Doctor is prof. TG Ash is awarded for merits in the fields of international cooperation and strengthening of democracy and a significant contribution to fostering the values of freedom, justice, and solidarity.
Prof. Timothy Garton Ash is a British historian, journalist, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University, Fellow of the Isiah Berlin Professorship at Oxford St. Antony College and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, who has written eleven books on European transformations over the past 50 years.
Most of his works are devoted to modern European history, especially to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the former communist regimes of the region, the analysis of secret police archives and the accession of the Eastern Bloc countries to the European Union. Prof. TG Ash has researched Europe’s role in the world and the challenges of political freedom, diversity and freedom of expression.
In terms of the influence of his scientific activities, Timothy Garton Ash can be compared with such leaders of states as Vaclav Havel or Joachim Gauck. His connection with the VMU mainly extends through the activities of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for the Development of Democracy. TG Ash contributes to the content formation of A. Sakharov conferences, 2021. delivered a report at the held conference. Even before the establishment of the center, the historian fostered a relationship with Professor Leonidas Donskius.
TG Ash was born in 1955. in London, England. After studying at Oxford University Exeter and St. Antony Colleges, he went on to study in then-still-divided Berlin at the Free University of West Berlin and the Humboldt University of East Berlin. The Stasi, the secret police of the then GDR, followed him and suspected him of being a British spy.
During the Cold War, TG Ash made a name for himself as a champion of freedom of speech and human rights in the then Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries, with a particular focus on Germany and Poland. His books include Und willst Du nicht mein Bruder sein …’ Die DDR heute (1981) about East Germany at the time, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (1983) about the Polish Solidarity movement, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague (1990), Homelands: a Personal History of Europe (2023) and many others.
In the 1980s, Timothy Garton Ash was the foreign news editor of The Spectator and a columnist for The Independent. in 1989 the historian became a research fellow at the University of Oxford in St. Antony College, 2000 – senior research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution think tank, 2004. – Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford.
Since 2004, Prof. TG Ash is a columnist for The Guardian, a longtime contributor to the New York Review of Books, and his translations have been published in the Turkish daily Radikal, the Spanish daily El Pais, and other publications.
in 2005 Time magazine named Prof. Timothy Garton Ash as one of the hundred most influential people in the world: “Most historical works remain on the shelves. But the kind of story that TG Ash writes about is more likely to be on the table of decision makers around the world,” Time wrote about the historian.
Prof. TG Ash has received various awards for his activities – the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the George Orwell Prize, the Somerset Maugham Prize, the Premio Napoli, the Hoffmann von Fallersleben Prize for Political Texts, the David Watt Prize, etc.
The historian speaks out against conservative and populist leaders of EU countries, such as Viktor Orban in Hungary and Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland. He has expressed concern about V. Putin, D. Trump and “Brexit”, expressing a liberal attitude that supports Britain’s EU membership.
When he was presented with the Charlemagne Award in Germany in 2007, TG Ash was presented as an “influential Anglo-European and European Englishman” who not only makes efforts to keep the UK in the field of European values, but also makes a significant contribution to the creation of the concept of Europe itself.
