Antanas Venclova ( January 7 1906 [O.S. December 26, 1905] in Trempiniai – June 28, 1971 in Vilnius, USSR) was a Lithuanian and Soviet politician, poet, journalist and translator.

Early life

He studied Lithuanian, Russian and French at the Vytautas Magnus University, in Kaunas. In 1936, Venclova visited the USSR, and became fascinated with the Soviet system and its culture. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, he worked as a teacher, and was the editor of the procommunist journals, Trečias frontas (Third Front), and Prošvaistė.

Politician

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 USSR. After the German invasion of the U.S.S.R. in 1941, he retreated with the Red Army and remained in Soviet Russia during the Nazi occupation, returning to Lithuania in 1944.

In the following years, he faithfully served the Soviet government.

In 1947, he received the Stalin Prize. Venclova wrote the original words for the anthem of Lithuanian SSR, and translated the lyrics of the Soviet anthem into Lithuanian. After Joseph Stalin's death, the second stanza of the L.S.S.R. lyrics were changed by Vacys Reimeris to remove any mention of Stalin. Between 1954 and 1959, he was Chairman of the Lithuanian Writer's Union.

Family

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