Antanas Venclova

Antanas Venclova (7 January 1906 – 28 June 1971[1]) was a Soviet and Lithuanian politician, poet, journalist and translator.

Born in Trempiniai in Suwałki Governorate, Venclova studied Lithuanian, Russian and French at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas.

Before the outbreak of World War II, he worked as a teacher and was the editor of the procommunist journals Trečias frontas (Third Front) and Prošvaistė.Following the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940, he was briefly appointed as Minister of Education of the Lithuanian SSR.

He was elected as a representative to the "People's Seimas" and went to Moscow as part of the delegation requesting that Lithuania be incorporated into the Soviet Union.

[2] His son, the poet Tomas Venclova, was a prominent dissident.