Eugenija Šimkūnaitė: Recipes of Life

Eugenija Šimkūnaitė - habilitated doctor of natural sciences (1993), herbalist, versatile personality, expert of Lithuanian nature and traditions, master of the word. She was called Doctor – and not only because of her science degree. Her parents, pharmacist Pranas Šimkūnas and merciful nurse Olga Lebedeva, met in Novorossiysk (Russia), there on 11th of March in 1920 their daughter Eugenija was born. Few years later family returned to Lithuania and settled in Tauragnai town (Utena district). The father established a pharmacy and Eugenija began to get used to working there and collecting herbs from the age of six.
Eugenija was a child of nature. Therefore, her aunts, old herbalists, and other elders of the town, who knew healing herbs very well and knew how to prepare them, taught Eugenija from the young age. They told her secrets of nature, taught spells and incantations, taught to understand ancient songs and tales, to heal people with herbs.
E. Šimkūnaitė graduated from Pharmacy Department in Faculty of Medicine at Vytautas Magnus University. Already during her studies, she knew that she would work as a researcher. This was also encouraged by her parents, who were very educated and who have travelled and seen the world.
The biggest and constant love of E. Šimkūnaitė was herbs. She dedicated her life to cognition, research and multiplication of herbs. She also paid great attention to folk medicine, tales, folk songs and stories. For Eugenija, they were the wisdom of our ancestors and a reflection of the living reality.
She gained a lot of experience and was happy to share it with public: gave lectures, wrote articles (has written more than 800), spoke on the radio and television. Halls full of fans of her talent, word and personality gathered to listen to the Doctor. And people could listen for her for hours. Eugenija helped unselfishly for everyone who needed her help – with bundle of herbs or advice. She has never taken any money for prescriptions, written by hundreds, for herbs or for treatment. She was sincere and straightforward, not looking for a word in her pocket and not sparing her knowledge. That is why she was so loved.
“If we would believe, that we come to this earth to change it and leave it even more beautiful, and it would be easier for those around us to live because of our presence nearby, then the life of habilitated doctor Eugenija Šimkūnaitė would be the real example of that.” (Birutė Karnickienė, Chairwoman of Eugenija Šimkūnaitė Charity and Support Foundation). „If there would be a possibility to repeat everything, then most probably, even knowing the results, I would repeat everything as it was. And there were a lot – I was both shot and caught, I was drowned and burned, and I was rolling down the hills. But it wasn’t too bad. It was bearable”, - said E. Šimkūnaitė about her life.
In the 1997, Eugenija Šimkūnaitė Charity and Support Foundation was established, the purpose of which is to support students studying pharmacy and herbal medicine, and work in the field of herbal research; the school in Tauragnai is named after her; in the 1999, E. Šimkūnaitė Memorial Apartment Museum was opened in Vilnius, Erfurto str. 4; in the 2012, the garden of E. Šimkūnaitė‘s favorite plants, cherries, was started to plant in Tauragnai; in the 2013, a memorial stone was unveiled in Vilnius, Erfurto str. 1 (sculptor Jonas Gencevičius).

Written by Bronislava Juknevičienė, Local Lore Museum of Utena