Justas Paleckis Lithuanian journalist, writer Date of Birth: 22.02.1899 Country: Lithuania

Biography of Justas Ignovich Paletskis

Justas Ignovich Paletskis was a Lithuanian journalist, writer, and Soviet state and public figure. He was born into a blacksmith's family. He worked as a laborer from 1915 and later became a clerk in Riga. In 1922, he became a teacher. Paletskis was the founder and editor of a Lithuanian newspaper in Riga and also contributed to various Lithuanian periodicals. He served as the director of the Lithuanian Telegraph Agency "Elta." He studied at the Lithuanian University of Kaunas from 1926 to 1928. Paletskis was married to Genovaite Paletskene and had five children: sons Vilnius Paletskis and Justas Vincas Paletskis, and daughters Sigita, Geruta, and Vita. He also had ten grandchildren.

After the Soviet troops entered Lithuania on June 15, 1940, Paletskis served as the Chairman of the "People's Government" from June 17 to June 24. Following the elections to the People's Seimas, which declared the establishment of the Lithuanian SSR, he became the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR from August 1940 to April 1967.

During the Nazi Germany's aggression against the Soviet Union, Paletskis was evacuated. From 1941 to 1966, he served as the Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. From 1966 to 1970, he was the Chairman of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He represented the Soviet Union in the Inter-Parliamentary Union and from 1966 to 1970, he was the First Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Parliamentary Group. He was a delegate to the XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, and XXIII Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where he was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee.

Paletskis was a member of the Central Committee and the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party from 1940 to 1966. He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from the first to the eighth convocations. He became a personal pensioner in 1970. Paletskis started publishing his works in 1919. He was the author of many poetry collections, essays, stories, memoirs, and the documentary novel "The Last Tsar" (1937-1938). He also translated works of Latvian writers into Lithuanian, wrote books on public affairs, and brochures. His works were translated into German, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. Paletskis was honored as a Hero of Socialist Labor in 1969 and awarded with six Orders of Lenin, the Order of Friendship of Peoples, the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, and several medals.