Antanas Purėnas (16 February 1881 – 5 November 1962) was a famous

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n organic chemist and politician.

Biography

Antanas was born in Tatkonys, Kupiškis,

(then Empire of Russia). After completing Liepaja gymnasium, he was studying in

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...

in 1902–1904 and in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

from which he graduated in 1912.

Scientific career

He was rector of Vytautas Magnus University from 1940 to 1941, and again from 1944 to 1946. Since 1951 he had been the professor of Kaunas Polytechnic Institute.

Politician career

Purėnas participated in

revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

held in 1905–1907, therefore he was prosecuted by the police. In 1918 he joined LSDP, Lithuanian teachers union and teachers association " Naujoji mokykla". In 1920 he was a delegate of LSDP in

Constituent Assembly of Lithuania The Constituent Assembly of Lithuania or Constituent Seimas () was the first parliament of the independent state of Lithuania to be elected in a direct, democratic, general, secret election. The Assembly assumed its duties on 15 May 1920 and was ...

, and chairman of the educational committee.

References

Lithuanian chemists Lithuanian politicians 1881 births 1962 deaths Soviet organic chemists Academic staff of the Kaunas University of Technology {{Lithuania-bio-stub