Viktoras Bachmetjevas

Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) is widely considered one of the 20^th century’s most important ethical thinkers. He influenced thinkers including Jacques Derrida and Simon Critchley, and affected contemporary ethical debates. Levinas’s significance to Lithuania is strengthened by the fact that he was born and went to school in Kaunas. He left for France, but his parents and two brothers remained in Lithuania and tragically perished there during the Holocaust. Levinas remembered his Lithuanian childhood fondly, but remains largely unknown in his home country.