The University of Tartu has received an unexpected gift aimed at supporting the Estonian language. A Canadian-Estonian has left the university’s Institute of Estonian Language a donation of more than two million euros, Estonian public broadcaster ERR reports.
The impressive sum of money was left to the university by Kadri Rõuk, a teacher in Canada. The Canadian-Estonian died in 2021 aged 84 with no family or children to give her inheritance to.
Kadri Rõuk’s parents were Nikolai and Gerda Rõuk, who had studied at the University of Tartu in the first half of the 20th century before becoming refugees and leaving for to Germany in 1944. The couple later settled in Calgary, Canada and Nikolai helped fund and head the local Estonian Society.
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Virve Vihman, co-professor of psychology at the University of Tartu and head of the development of the institute, explained to ERR, how the institute planned to use the money. One goal would be to set up Kadri, Nikolai and Gerda Rõuk Scholarship Fund in order to help students studying Estonian and Finno-Ugric languages. «We will set up our own research fund to cover the various studies that would otherwise have been difficult to fund, and we will also set up a mobility fund to be able to attend conferences. These opportunities would otherwise be very limited. And we are also thinking about how to make our rooms more comfortable and prettier,» Vihman outlined.
University of Tartu awarded EUR 2 m by teacher from exiled family
