Former President of Lithuania Dies

Lithuania is in mourning: Algirdas Brazauskas, the first president of Lithuania elected after its separation from Russia, died last Saturday at the age of 77 after a serious battle with cancer. As the first president of the young Lithuanian state, the charismatic politician is sure to have a place in Lithuania’s history books.

Algirdas Brazauskas: From Soviet Communist Party Official to Head of State of Lithuania

Algirdas Brazauskas, who came from a family of civil servants based in Rokiškis (northern Lithuania), began his political career as a Communist Party official during the Soviet era. An academic with qualifications in national economics and civil engineering, he rose to the top of the Communist Party in Lithuania in 1988 and advocated for the Baltic regions of the Soviet Union to have an autonomous status vis-à-vis the government in Moscow. He co-founded the Lietuvos demokratinės darbo partija (LDDP), which merged with the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (LSDP) in 2001 and has been known by that name ever since. In the first government following Lithuania’s time as part of the Soviet Union, Algirdas Brazauskas initially served as deputy prime minister, before serving as president from 1992 to 1998.