Academic CentrePatron Helmut Winter (1935–2004) was born in Stralsund, Germany. Literary scholar, writer, critic, philanthropist, art and music lover and connoisseur, passionate pianist. In 2001 and 2002 he worked at the University of Latvia Faculty of Humanities. In 2004, he received the honorary doctorate of the University of Latvia.
H. Winter studied at the University of Greifswald (Universität Greifswald) and the Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin), attended the Bonn Seminar (Studienseminar Bonn), and received his doctorate from the Giessen University (Universität Gießen). He worked as a Professor of German Literature at universities and other higher education institutions of Bristol, New York, Buenos Aires, Ceylon and others. During the last years of his life, Winter was a visiting lecturer at the University of Latvia, working in the Department of Germanic Studies at the Faculty of Modern Languages (at present – the Faculty of Humanities) and at the Department of Literature and Culture.
For 35 years, the professor worked for the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, where he wrote a column on English literature, giving readers an insight into the world of literature. Winter began his work in this newspaper as a young academic, comparing the image of India in the works of E. M. Forster and Herman Hesse. He acted as an English literary commentator, writing in his column about Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Mansfield, Trollope, Steinbeck, Lessing, Pinter and many other authors and their works. He also regularly wrote literary reviews for the newspapers Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Support
In 2006, H. Winter's significant donation of 5 122 copies of books significantly enriched the collections of the UL Library with outstanding publications.
The gift included publications in a variety of disciplines, with particularly rich selection of printed literature science volumes in English and German, as well as English, American and German fiction in English and German languages.
We greatly appreciate the generous support to education and development!