Other events in Baltic States

Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite on Monday confers a state award upon prominent poet, publicist, essayist and translator Tomas Venclova, informs LETA/BNS.

Venclova will receive the Grand Cross of Commander of the Order For Merits to Lithuania for his outstanding merits to the Lithuanian state. The decree on the award was signed last week.

Venclova, who is celebrating his 80-year anniversary on Monday, has received state awards in the past in 1995 and in 1999, he has also been awarded the National Culture and Arts Prize, is a honorary citizen of Vilnius and the winner of the international poetry festival Poetry Spring 2017.

Born in 1937, Venclova emigrated to the United States in 1977 and defended a doctoral degree at the Yale University in 1985 before starting to work at the university. The literature scientist and active critic of the society has published dozens of poetry and essay books, translating literature from the Russian, English and Polish languages.

He was in close contact with Nobel Prize winners in literature Czeslaw Milosz and Josif Brodski.