Ingė Lukšaitė (born 1940) is a Lithuanian cultural historian and university professor. She specializes in the history of the Reformation in Lithuania. She worked at the Lithuanian Institute of History for over four decades.

Biography

Lukšaitė was born on 2 February 1940 in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

to the family of banker and cultural historian Meilė Lukšienė. She studied at the National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art before enrolling at

Vilnius University Vilnius University ( Lithuanian: ''Vilniaus universitetas'') is a public research university, which is the first and largest university in Lithuania, as well as one of the oldest and most prominent higher education institutions in Central and Ea ...

to study history. She graduated in 1962 and worked as a teacher in Trakų Vokė until 1964 when she became an

aspirant Aspirant is usually an officer cadet rank used in armies, navies and air forces. In Western Christianity, an aspirant is the first stage in becoming a monastic. Religious use In Western Christianity, the term is also used in reference to rel ...

(doctoral student) at the Lithuanian Institute of History. She worked at the Lithuanian Institute of History from 1967 to her retirement in 2009. She also lectured at the

Vilnius Academy of Arts The Vilnius Academy of Arts (, previously ''State Art Institute of Lithuania'') in Vilnius, Lithuania, grants a variety of degrees in the arts. History The Academy traces its roots back to the creation of the Architecture Department at Viln ...

(1985–1990),

Vytautas Magnus University Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) (, VDU) is a public university in Kaunas, Lithuania. The university was founded in 1922 during the interwar period as an alternate national university. Initially it was known as the University of Lithuania, but ...

(1995–2002), and

(2001–2007). From October 2003 to early 2008, she was deputy chair of the and coordinated the establishment of the Lithuanian research database Lituanistika in 2006–2008.

Works

In total, Lukšaitė has published more than 180 works – books, academic articles, and other publications. Her

bibliography Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliograph ...

was compiled and published in 2010. In 1971, she defended her thesis on the

Lithuanian language Lithuanian (, ) is an East Baltic languages, East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic languages, Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of t ...

during the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

in the 17th century and became a

Candidate of Sciences A Candidate of Sciences is a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD-equivalent academic research degree in all the post-Soviet countries with the exception of Ukraine, and until the 1990s it was also awarded in Central and Eastern European countries. It is ...

. The thesis was published as a separate book in 1970. In 2000, she defended her monograph on the Reformation in the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

and

Lithuania Minor Lithuania Minor (; ; ) or Prussian Lithuania (; ; ) is one of five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. It is a historical region of Prussia, where Prussian Lithuanians (or Lietuvininkai) lived, now located in Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Obla ...

in the 16th and 17th centuries and was awarded Dr. habil. The monograph sold out quickly and Lukšaitė received the for the book. The monograph was translated to German in 2017. A shortened Lithuanian version for the general public was also published in 2017. In this work, Lukšienė did not follow Polish historiography and was the first to separate the Reformation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the Reformation in Poland and link it to the Reformetion in Lithuania Minor. She also published monographs on the Lithuanian publicists on the issue of peasants (1976), radical trends of Reformation in Lithuania (1980), features of the Lithuanian cultural history (with Juozas Jurginis, 1981), 5th volume of the ''

History of Lithuania History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

'' covering 1529–1588 (with

Jūratė Kiaupienė Jūratė Kiaupienė (born December 23, 1947, in Vilnius) is a Lithuanian historian, professor, Habilitated Doctor. Education In 1969 Jūratė Kiaupienė finished her studies in History department of Vilnius University and obtain historian speci ...

, 2013). At the Lithuanian Institute of History, she headed the program on publishing historical Lithuanian texts in 1998–2009. She prepared several publications of historical sources, including an anthology of texts on the education in Lithuania in the 13th to 16th centuries (with others; 1994), selected works of Andreas Volanus (with Marcelinas Ročka; 1996), ''Deliciae Prussicae'' by Matthäus Prätorius (with others; 4 volumes in 1999–2011), and documents on the visitation of Lutheran churches in

Klaipėda Klaipėda ( ; ) is a city in Lithuania on the Baltic Sea coast. It is the List of cities in Lithuania, third-largest city in Lithuania, the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, fifth-largest city in the Baltic States, and the capi ...

in 1676–1685 (2009). Lukšaitė served on the editorial board of academic journals ''Lietuvos istorijos metraštis'', ''Knygotyra'', and book series ''Senoji lietuvių literatūra''.

Awards

Lukšienė received the following awards: * 1997:

Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas The Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas is the Lithuanian Presidential Award which was re-instituted to honour the citizens of Lithuania for outstanding performance in civil and public offices. Foreign nationals may also be awarded this O ...

(Knight's Cross) * 1999: * 2002: * 2017:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Luksaite, Inge 1940 births Living people 20th-century Lithuanian historians 21st-century Lithuanian historians Lithuanian women historians Cultural historians Reformation historians Vilnius University alumni Academic staff of the Vilnius Academy of Arts Academic staff of Vytautas Magnus University Academic staff of Klaipėda University Recipients of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas