The Knight’s Cross honours the significant achievements of Prof. Dr. habil. Marko Pantermöller as a promoter of Finnish-German cooperation and intermediary for the Finnish language and culture in Germany. In her address, Ambassador Ritva Koukku-Ronde highlighted that Professor Pantermöller is an important supporter of German-Finnish academic, social and cultural collaboration.
‘I am very grateful to the President of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, for this great honour. It is an expression of a profound recognition of both my academic achievements as well as my voluntary work. I was particularly delighted by the large number of guests from Germany and Finland who were at the award ceremony. The numerous organisations and institutions that they represent must receive my thanks for a productive collaboration,’ says Marko Pantermöller.
The awardee comes from Lübz (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). He started his studies of the Finnish language at the University of Greifswald at the beginning of the 1990s and also studied at the University of Helsinki and the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki. In 2002 he received his doctorate after completing his thesis on the integration of loanwords in the Finnish language. The topic of his habilitation was the Finnish abessive. Professor Pantermöller has been chair of Finnish Studies at the University of Greifswald since 2010.
Prof. Marko Pantermöller is the head of Greifswald’s Nordischer Klang Festival and Deputy Chairman of the cultural society Nordischer Klang. This annual festival presents music, literature, art, theatre, film and other cultural programmes from the North and is organised by the University’s Department of Finnish and Scandinavian Studies in collaboration with other cultural players in Greifswald. The festival has established itself as an important part of Greifswald’s cultural calendar and is well-known throughout the north of Germany. Finland was at the focus of the festival, in particular, during the Finnish anniversary year in 2017 and in 2014 when Finland was guest of honour at the Frankfurter Buchmesse. Furthermore, several artists from Greifswald’s partner town, Kotka, have been invited to the festival over the course of the years.
Prof. Pantermöller is also deputy chairman and managing director of the Hans-Werner-Richter-Stiftung, which organises an annual meeting of international authors in Greifswald, under the title “Young Literature in Europe” and also regularly invites young Finnish authors.
Alongside his academic career and his cultural contributions, Prof. Pantermöller is also the chairman of the German-Finnish Society Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, member of the advisory board of the Finnish Institute in Germany and on the panel of experts for the Finnish National Agency for Education, which addresses the teaching of the Finnish language abroad. He is also part of the editorial boards for publications made by the Finnish Language Society in Turku and the Helsinki Institute for the Languages of Finland, Kotus.
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