Lennart Meri

Lennart Georg Meri (29 March 1929 – 14 March 2006) was an Estonian politician, writer, and film director. From 1992 to 2001, he was Estonia's second president. Meri was a key figure in the fight to reclaim Estonia's independence from the Soviet Union. Meri's most well-known piece is possibly Hbevalge, which translates as Silver White and was published in 1976. It reconstructs Estonia's and the Baltic Sea region's past. Meri, like in his other works, combines documentary sources and scientific investigation with his imagination. Meri says, "If geography is language, maps are imagery." Hbevalge is based on a wide range of old maritime sources, and it painstakingly reveals the legend of Ultima Thule. The term was given to the most northerly land in classical times, which was said to be six days' travel from Britain. Several other locations have been proposed, including the Shetland Islands, Iceland, and Norway.

After more than two decades of refusals, the Soviet administration eventually granted Lennart Meri permission to travel beyond the Iron Curtain in the late 1970s, and Meri consistently used the chances available to him in Finland to remind the free world of Estonia's existence. He formed tight bonds with politicians, journalists, and Estonians who had fled the occupation. He was the first Estonian to publicly denounce the Soviet proposal to mine phosphorite in Estonia (dubbed the Phosphorite War), which would have rendered a section of the country uninhabitable. He also met with American and European heads of state and foreign ministers, and he was the first Eastern European guest to deliver a speech at NATO Headquarters in Brussels.