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Rikke Marianne Helms (born 25 February 1948) is a Danish cultural worker and leader of the Danish Cultural Institute's office in Saint Petersburg.
Rikke Helms was born in 1948 in Skive, Denmark to Dr Peder Georg Helms (1920–2005), a physician, and Sara (née Tønnesen) Helms (1911–1999); she has two brothers. She spent most of her childhood in the eastern Greenland in connection with her parents work as physicians.
In 1966, she took the studentereksamen [ clarification needed ] at the Horsens Statsskole. In 1976, she was awarded cand.mag. in Russian and Danish language studies from the University of Copenhagen. Following a one-year study at the Leningrad State University, she worked as a travel guide for tourists and congresses in the former Soviet Union in the period 1970–75 during her years of studies.[ citation needed ]
From 1977 to 1985, she worked in Denmark's educational system. She returned in 1985 to the Soviet Union to work as a rector at the Moscow State University until 1990, when she was appointed as the first leader of the newly created Danish Cultural Institute's office in Riga, during a turbulent period when Latvia regained its independence. Helms held this position until 2003 when she was appointed as leader of the Danish Cultural Institute's office in Saint Petersburg. [ citation needed ]
Rikke Helms has been the recipient of several civilian awards for her work. In 1993 she was awarded the Ebbe Muncks Hæderspris. She was awarded the Order of the Three Stars, 3rd Class on 7 November 1994, and was the first foreigner after Latvia regained its independence to do so. [1] In 1996 Helms was awarded an honorary Doctorate by the Latvian Academy of Culture. In 2011 she was awarded the Order of the Dannebrog, 3rd Class.[ citation needed ]
Baltic Germans were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined as a geographically determined ethnic group. However, it is estimated that several thousand people with some form of (Baltic) German identity still reside in Latvia and Estonia.
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Tatyana Mamonova, is a founder of the modern Russian women's movement, an internationally renowned democratic women's leader, author, poet, journalist, videographer, artist, editor and public lecturer.
Vilhelms Purvītis was a landscape painter and educator who founded the Latvian Academy of Art and was its rector from 1919 to 1934.
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Ivande Kaija was the pen name of Antonija Lūkina, Latvian writer and feminist, who fought for the independence of Latvia. Through public works and writing, Kaija advocated Latvians to donate assets to the "Gold Fund" which became the gold reserve of the country in 1920. Her public service was honored when she was bestowed the Order of the Three Stars in 1926. Though many of her works were destroyed during the Soviet period, they have seen a resurgence in recent years.
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Olha Petrovna Kosach-Kryvyniuk was a Ukrainian writer, translator, and physician.
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