30 Facts About Lennart Meri

Lennart Meri was the country's foreign minister from 1990 to 1992 and President of Estonia from 1992 to 2001.

Lennart Meri was born in Tallinn, a son of the Estonian diplomat and later Shakespeare translator Georg Lennart Meri, and Estonian Swedish mother Alice-Brigitta Engmann.

In 1941, the Lennart Meri family was deported to Siberia along with thousands of other Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians sharing the same fate.

At the age of twelve, Lennart Meri worked as a lumberman in Siberia.

Lennart Meri worked as a potato peeler and a rafter to support his family.

Whilst in exile, Lennart Meri grew interested in the other Finno-Ugric languages that he heard around him, the language family of which his native Estonian is a part.

Already as a student, Lennart Meri had been able to earn his living with his writing, after his father had been arrested by the Soviet authorities for the third time.

In 1986, Lennart Meri was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Helsinki University.

Lennart Meri became a member of the Estonian Writers' Union in 1963.

Lennart Meri did not underestimate the drawbacks of mass tourism but concluded that "science will liberate us from the chains of big cities and lead us back to nature".

Lennart Meri's best known work is perhaps Hobevalge, which translates into Silver White and was published in 1976.

Lennart Meri founded the non-governmental Estonian Institute in 1988 to promote cultural contacts with the West and to send Estonian students to study abroad.

Lennart Meri appeared in the documentary film The Singing Revolution as an interviewee discussing the collapse of the Soviet regime.

Lennart Meri established close relationships with politicians, journalists and Estonians who had fled from the occupation.

Lennart Meri was the first Estonian to publicize abroad the protests against the Soviet plan of mining phosphorite in Estonia, which would have rendered a portion of the country uninhabitable.

Lennart Meri's speech Do Estonians Have Hope focused on the existential problems of the nation and had strong repercussions abroad.

In 1988, Lennart Meri became a founding member of the Estonian Popular Front, which cooperated with its counterparts in Latvia and Lithuania.

Lennart Meri developed around him a group of well educated young people, many English speaking, to establish an open communication channel to the West, and at the same time to represent Estonia more widely on the international scene.

Lennart Meri participated in the CSCE Conferences in Copenhagen, New York, Paris, Berlin and Moscow, and the foundation conference of the Council of the Baltic Sea Countries.

Lennart Meri had several meetings with American and European Heads of State and Foreign Ministers, and was the first Eastern European guest to give a presentation at NATO Headquarters in Brussels.

Lennart Meri was sworn in as the President on 6 October 1992.

Lennart Meri made public remarks against the Karaganov Doctrine on 25 February 1994 in a festival speech to the good Hamburgers, who descended from the trade barons of the Hanseatic League.

In 1998, Lennart Meri was given the complementary award and titled the Year's Press Friend.

In 1999, Lennart Meri was given the Press Friend award.

Lennart Meri was engaged in the work for the human rights of German refugees from Central and Eastern Europe and other victims of ethnic cleansing in Europe, and was a member of the jury of the Franz Werfel Human Rights Award, which was awarded by the Centre Against Expulsions.

Lennart Meri was survived by three children: sons Mart Meri was born on in 1959 and and Kristjan Meri, and five grandchildren.

Lennart Meri was chosen the European of the Year in 1998 by French newspaper La Vie.

Lennart Meri's funeral was attended by former Swedish premier Carl Bildt, among other figures.

Lennart Meri was buried at Forest Cemetery in the Tallinn district of Pirita.

Lennart Meri was one of the most popularly respected presidents in Estonian history.