Professor Pauls Galenieks in Political Crossroads and Crossfires

Professor Pauls Galenieks in Political Crossroads and Crossfires

Aleksis Dreimanis During the time of Latvian independence, Pauls Galenieks was a well known and respected apolitical scientist, a botanist and a popular writer, teaching both at the University of Latvia and Latvian Academy of Agriculture. At the beginning of the first Soviet occupation in 1940 the occupants exploited him by making him chairman of the so called People’s Saeima (semi-parliament) to lead the pre-arranged incorporation of Latvia into the Soviet Union. During the German occupation, P. Galenieks lost his faculty positions, was arrested and put on trial twice, but the sentences given by the court were relatively light. During the second Soviet occupation of Latvia, although P. Galenieks was re-instated in his faculty positions, he was considered politically unreliable. Twice he was accused in newspaper articles and once by the Council of the Faculty of Biology at the Latvian State University of deviating seriously from the official Soviet policy in his teaching. For this he had to apologize and to mend his ways in the future. At the same time he secretly continued to carry food to his son Imants, who was hiding in the forest of Baldone for 11 years. The details of the above story were communicated to the author during the 1990ies by Imants, his former student.