Lennart Georg Meri was born in 1929 in Estonia. In 1941, the Soviets deported the family to Siberia. His cousin Arnold Meri was a hero in the Soviet Union at the time, and made a return possible. Dr Meri got his degree and became a historian. He was not allowed to teach. From 1953 to 1961, Dr Meri was a playwright, screenwriter and director of radio plays. He also wrote a small number of books, culminating in the novel Silver White in 1976. In 1978, he released the film ‘Winds of the Galaxy’. This film was banned by the Soviet Union, but in New York he received an award for it.

Dr Meri translated works by Erich Maria Remarque, Graham Greene and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. In Estonia, he became one of the leaders of the Singing Revolution. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Dr Meri went to work abroad in 1990. In 1992, he became ambassador to Finland and later that year president of Estonia. As president, he ensured Estonia's membership of the European Union and NATO. In 1962, Dr Meri was re-elected. He died in 2006 in Talinn, Estonia.