Prof. Dr. Kaisa Häkkinen was born in Kouvola, Finland, in 1950. For several decades, she has been one of the most productive and societally perceived Finnish Linguists. Until 2015, she was the University of Turku’s chair of Finnish Language. In her key fields of research, the study of the oldest and older Finnish language as well as the etymological recording of Finnish words, she has held an internationally leading position for a long time. At the same time, the title will be bestowed to an outstanding university teacher, whose didactic textbooks also play an essential role in educating students of the Finnish language at the University of Greifswald. Besides contributing to the field of linguistic research, Prof. Dr. Kaisa Häkkinen has popularised academic findings in a unique way. With hundreds of contributions (e.g. articles, columns, and film productions as well as productions for radio and television broadcasts), she has been fulfilling her societal educational task – which she understands as an ethical obligation – as an academic. Due to her remarkable contributions to academia and society, Kaisa Häkkinen was chosen as the professor of the year in a Finland-wide and interdisciplinary contest run by the Finnish Union of University Professors (Professoriliitto).
To this day, Prof. Dr. Kaisa Häkkinen’s has published more than 750 pieces of writing. Häkkinen’s main research interests include the historical morphology and phonetics, the external history of language, etymology, lexicology, and science history. The large interdisciplinary impact of her research can be seen by considering her cooperation with numerous experts from other academic and scientific fields. Kaisa Häkkinen not only successfully published works with researchers from other philologies, but also together with researchers from fields such as history, church history, theology, botany, zoology, and medicine. She has received many prizes and awards for her publications. In December 2020, the future honorary doctor of the University of Greifswald was awarded the highest Finnish academic honorary title, Academician of Science (Tieteen Akateemikko), by the Finnish President.
As the Faculty of Arts and Humanities emphasises in its decision, this remarkable anniversary provides an excellent occasion to bestow the title of honorary doctor to a Finnish academic. In 1921, the first Teaching Unit for the Finnish Language in the entire German-speaking world was established at the University of Greifswald. In 1976, the first German Chair of Finnish Studies followed. However, Greifswald’s pioneering role in the field of Finnish Studies was established much earlier. Among other things, this is due to Greifswald’s historian Friedrich Rüh, who was the first person to compose an encompassing work on Finnish History, which became a textbook even in Finland. Apart from an international autumn school on Finnish Studies, an academic conference of Finnish teachers from the German-speaking world will mark the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the University’s Teaching Unit for the Finnish Language this autumn.
Further Information
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www.ifs.uni-greifswald.de/pantermoeller/ [de]
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Contact at the University of Greifswald
Prof. Dr. Marko Pantermöller
Department of Finnish and Scandinavian Studies
Chair of Finnish Studies
Ernst-Lohmeyer-Platz 3, 17489 Greifswald
Tel.: +49 03834 420 3611
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