Liina Lukas

Liina Lukas (born 5 August 1970) is an Estonian literary scholar and translator.^[3][1] She is Professor of comparative literature at the University of Tartu.^[3][1] Her research focuses on literary relations in the multilingual Baltic cultural space from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, especially Baltic German literature and Estonian–German literary contacts.^[1][11]

Lukas received her BA (1995), MA (1998) and PhD (2006) from the University of Tartu.^[1] Her doctoral dissertation, Baltisaksa kirjandusväli 1890–1918, examined the Baltic German literary field at the turn of the 20th century.^[2][4] She also undertook advanced study in German studies at the University of Vienna and the University of Göttingen.^[1]

Since 1998 Lukas has worked at the University of Tartu and has also been affiliated with the Under and Tuglas Literature Centre (Estonian Academy of Sciences).^[1] According to the university profile, she became a docent in 2006 and served as associate professor (docent) of world literature from 2008 to 2021; from 1 February 2021 she has held the chair as Professor of Comparative Literature.^[1]

Her inaugural lecture as professor (Rahvalaulud kui maailmakirjandus / Folk songs as world literature) is published via the university’s video portal UTTV.^[12]

Lukas’s work centres on cultural transfer and literary relations in the Baltic region, with an emphasis on multilingual literary history and Baltic German writing.^[1] Since 2001 she has organised international symposia on Baltic written/literary culture, connected to long-running international cooperation in Baltic literary history.^[1]

She is editor-in-chief of the planned multi-volume scholarly series Balti kirjakultuuri ajalugu (History of Baltic written/literary culture), whose first volume (Keskused ja kandjad / Centres and bearers) appeared in 2021.^[1][5][13] The series and related research have also been presented internationally as a Baltic Historical Commission–linked project led by Lukas.^[14]

The University of Tartu profile also credits Lukas with leading the digital text repository of older Estonian literature EEVA for two decades.^[1]

• Lukas, Liina. Baltisaksa kirjandusväli 1890–1918. (Collegium litterarum 20). Tallinn/Tartu: Under and Tuglas Literature Centre; University of Tartu, 2006.^[4][2]
• (Ed., with others) Balti kirjakultuuri ajalugu I: Keskused ja kandjad (History of Baltic written culture I: Centres and bearers). University of Tartu Press, 2021.^[5]
• (Ed., with Vahur Aabrams and Susanna Rennik) Nõmmeroosike. Goethe luule eesti keeles (anthology of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Estonian translation). University of Tartu Press, 2021.^[6][15]
• (Ed., with Michael Schwidtal and Jaan Undusk) Politische Dimensionen der deutschbaltischen literarischen Kultur (Schriften der Baltischen Historischen Kommission 22). Berlin/Münster: LIT Verlag, 2018.^[16][17]
• (Ed., with Silke Pasewalck, Vinzenz Hoppe and Kaspar Renner) Medien der Aufklärung – Aufklärung der Medien. Die baltische Aufklärung im europäischen Kontext. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2021.^[18]
• (Ed., with Eva Piirimäe and Johannes Schmidt) Herder on Empathy and Sympathy / Einfühlung und Sympathie im Denken Herders. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2020.^[19]

• Lukas, Liina. “Estonian Folklore as a Source of Baltic-German Poetry.” Journal of Baltic Studies (2011).^[20]
• Lukas, Liina. “Maailmakirjanduse mõõtmisest meil ja mujal / Conceptualizations of World Literature in Estonia and Elsewhere.” Methis. Studia humaniora Estonica (2016).^[21]

In 2012 Lukas received the Vilis Vītols Article Prize of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS) for the previous year’s best article in the Journal of Baltic Studies.^[8][9]

In 2005 she received an honourable mention (Ära märgitud) in the annual awards of the journal Keel ja Kirjandus.^[22]

In 2016 she was awarded the University of Tartu Badge of Distinction (Tartu Ülikooli aumärk).^[10]

In 2022 she was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Niedersächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen).^[23]

Lukas has appeared in Estonian cultural media discussing literary history and translation, including interviews connected to Goethe translation projects and Baltic literary culture.^[24][11]

• Media related to Liina Lukas at Wikimedia Commons
• University of Tartu employee page
• University of Tartu profile (Institute of Cultural Research)
• Under and Tuglas Literature Centre: History of Baltic literary culture (project page)