Irena Veisaite Memorial Lecture

The Irena Veisaitė Memorial Lecture is a new tradition initiated by the Open Lithuania Foundation (OLF) to honour the life and legacy of Irena Veisaitė (1928–2020), a scholar and humanist, a Holocaust survivor, and one of the founders of the Open Lithuania Foundation.

Each year, a distinguished international thinker will be invited to Vilnius to share insights on the future of democracy, human rights, and culture.

The inaugural lecture will be delivered by Professor Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian writer, political ethicist, and former President and Rector of Central European University. His Canadian roots lend particular symbolic meaning to this occasion, linking Canada with one of Lithuania’s most important emerging civic and intellectual traditions.

The organisational partners of the lecture are Vilnius University and the Embassy of Canada to Lithuania.

“We cannot change the world, but we can save our souls and refuse to take part in evil.”

 — Irena Veisaitė (1928–2020), human rights advocate and founding chair of the Open Lithuania Foundation

Irena Veisaitė was among the most influential public intellectuals of modern Lithuania. Her life linked scholarship with civic responsibility and helped shape the moral language of the country’s transformation into democracy. Colleagues and friends often described her as the “spiritus movens” in building an open society in Lithuania in the 1990s and beyond.

Irena was a beacon of tolerance and dialogue. She believed in steady work and patience, in forgiveness and rebuilding. She viewed honest engagement and reconciliation with the Holocaust and with Soviet repression as essential preconditions for freedom. Her work and legacy transcended national borders, and her contributions were recognized both at home and abroad. Her accolades included:

• The Goethe Medal in 2012 for strengthening German-Lithuanian cultural exchange
• The Lithuanian Government Culture and Arts Prize in 2015
• The Commander Grand Cross of the Order for Merits to Lithuania in 2018
• The Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2020

Irena’s loved ones, friends, and colleagues carry her legacy forward. It lives in classrooms, on stages, and within civic organizations. It also lives in OLF’s present-day programs that strengthen human rights and nurture an open and democratic civil society.

IRENA’S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Irena Veisaitė belongs to the group of Central European intellectuals whose personal histories mirrored the ruptures of their century. Born in Kaunas in 1928 to a Jewish family, she was raised as a patriot of Lithuania. She attended a Yiddish elementary school and spoke Lithuanian, Russian, and German at home. However, as a little girl and a young woman, she soon faced the most terrible events in 20th-century Lithuanian history: the first Soviet occupation, World War II, the Nazi occupation, and the Holocaust. Irena survived the Holocaust, losing almost all her relatives including her mother. Irena was rescued and sheltered in 1944 by Stefanija Ladigienė, who two years later was deported to Siberia (and was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1992).

Irena had every reason to seek revenge, but she chose a path of forgiveness:

“I understood that evil breeds evil. I wanted to create good.”

“To forgive and to build the future is the duty of the living.”

During the Soviet occupation, Irena earned a doctorate degree on the poetry of Heinrich Heine in Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad) and taught courses specializing on Early Modern Literature (her favorites were Goether, Shiller, and Cervantes) at Lithuanian universities for over four decades. She, and the ideas of enlightenment that she taught, inspired generations of students to think freely and live ethically. In addition to her work as an active scholar, she was also a theatre critic who viewed culture as an ethical practice and a space for dialogue rather than as mere entertainment.

DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATION AND OPEN LITHUANIA FOUNDATION

After the restoration of Lithuania’s independence, Irena Veisaitė became the founding chair of the Open Lithuania Foundation (Atviros Lietuvos Fondas), one of the first civic organizations in the post-Soviet region supported by George Soros’s Open Society Network. Veisaitė’s leadership gave the foundation a distinctive moral voice, combining intellectual openness with compassion, tolerance, and civic courage.

Under her guidance, the Foundation played a crucial role in Lithuania’s development after the fall of the Soviet Union, introducing open society ideas and supporting education, free media, human rights, and dialogue among communities. The foundation nurtured civil society organizations that remain active today and open the world to thousands of students and representatives of academia.

“Freedom is not determined solely by external conditions or political systems, though their importance should not be dismissed. Its essence lies within the human soul, within the heart.”

“You can replace a government or a flag in a single night, but changing people’s mindset takes much longer.”

Michael Ignatieff is one of the world’s leading liberal thinkers – a historian, essayist, and public intellectual who has spent decades examining how people search for dignity and decency in turbulent times. As President and Rector of the Central European University (CEU) from 2016 to 2021, he guided the university through a landmark battle for academic freedom after Hungary’s government sought to curb its independence. His leadership turned CEU into a global symbol of civic courage and the defense of truth – values central to both the Open Society Foundations and to Veisaitė’s vision of a humane and open Lithuania.

His acclaimed books – The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World (2017), On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times (2021), The Warrior’s Honor, and Blood and Belonging – explore how compassion, forgiveness, and trust help societies heal and hold together. These themes echo Veisaitė’s own conviction that reconciliation is the foundation of freedom.

A former Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Member of Parliament, Ignatieff has taught at Harvard, Cambridge, Toronto, and CEU Vienna. Like Irena Veisaitė – who inspired generations of Lithuanian students even under Soviet censorship – he views teaching as a moral act: a way to awaken critical thought and civic responsibility. For both, the classroom has always been a space of quiet resistance and hope.

A recipient of the Dan David Prize for his defense of democracy and human rights, Ignatieff continues to speak and write on how liberal societies can withstand growing political and cultural authoritarianism. His Vilnius lecture will explore how new authoritarian currents in Europe and North America challenge the moral foundations of democracy – reshaping truth, culture, and civic trust – and what virtues citizens and institutions must rediscover to keep societies open and humane.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS & ESSAYS

Ignatieff’s recent writing connects politics with moral experience and continues to spark international discussion:

• “How a University Fights an Authoritarian Regime,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (March 2025) – on how universities can resist political pressure by rallying communities and reframing attacks on freedom as threats to the public good.
• “Canada, Trump and the New World Order,” Financial Times / michaelignatieff.ca (January 2025) – exploring the cross-border impact of populism and shifting global power.
• “The Adults in the Room: Cold War Liberalism Revisited,” Liberties Journal (2025) – revisiting mid-century liberal thinkers and the tension between moral ideals and political realism.
• “The Cost of Betrayal: The Price to Pay When Trust Is Destroyed,” CEU Research / Substack (March 2025) – on the collapse of trust as democracy’s deepest wound.
• “When Democracy Is on the Ballot,” Journal of Democracy (July 2024) — arguing that today’s democratic crises stem not only from leaders but from institutions losing moral credibility.
• Ongoing commentary for Project Syndicate (2024–25), including “The Threat to American Hegemony Is Real,” reflecting on shifting world order and the resilience of liberal values.