Academic Centre
Visvaldis Varnesis Klīve (23.09.1931-17.03.2003) was born in Riga, but then emigrated to continue his studies in Germany and the USA, where he received a PhD degree in philosophy of religion and religious history from Columbia University. The professor not only worked in the USA, but also in India, at Sri Venkateshwara, Utkala and other universities. V.V. Klive was an active participant in Latvian organizations in the USA, e.g., was a president of the American Latvian Association and a chairman of the Latvian Culture Foundation.
Since 1990 the activities of V.V. Klive became related to Latvia again and as an ordained pastor of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, he served in Latvian Evangelical Lutheran parish in Vecumnieki, Bauska district. In 1993 V.V. Klīve actively worked at the first reconstituted Parliament of Latvia and assisted in the formation the first government.
In 1995 V.V. Klive was elected professor at the University of Latvia where he professionalized in philosophical thought of contemporary India. Professor V.V. Klive established there some new study courses: “Modern Indian religious and philosophical thought”, “Contemporary African religions and thought” and “Existentialism and religion”. In 1996 the prominent scholar of UL was awarded the Order of Three Stars.
The collection of V.V. Klive’s is set up according to his own system and it was donated to the Library of the Faculty of Theology of UL in 2007 by his widow Vija Klive. The collection contains books on culturology, philosophy, ethics and Christian theology. It also includes exclusive items on the religions of the subcontinent of India, such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and others, as well as theory and philosophy of Buddhism. In total there are more than 800 items in this collection. List of the editions included in the collection is available here.
