Lennart Meri (1929?2006) was a traveller, writer and documentary filmmaker, and Estonian president from 1992 to 2001. His father being a diplomat, he was schooled in Paris and Berlin. When the Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1940, his family was first imprisoned, then deported to Siberia; they survived against all odds, and returned after the Second World War. Meri strove relentlessly to articulate and defend Soviet-occupied Estonia's interests, and worked to restore the nation's sovereignty. His ten books and six ethnological films had an impact echoing across the Iron Curtain. On publication in 1976, Silverwhite quickly became a popular and central work of Estonian literature.