Vaira Vike-Freiberga

When Vaira Vike-Freiberga was a small child, her family was forced to flee the Soviet occupation of their native Latvia, and she began school in a refugee camp in Germany. After World War II, her family moved to Morocco and young Vaira completed high school in Casablanca, far from her captive homeland. As a Professor of Psychology at the University of Montreal, she became a leader in her profession, serving as President of the Canadian Psychological Association, of the Social Science Federation of Canada, and of the French branch of the Royal Society of Canada. Despite this success, she never forgot the land of her birth. She remained active in the expatriate community and worked tirelessly to preserve the endangered heritage of Latvian folksong. When her country once again won independence from the Soviet Union, Dr. Vike-Freiberga's work was honored with the Grand Medal of Latvia's Academy of Sciences.Dr. Vike-Freiberga finally returned to live in Latvia in 1998, and within a year was sworn in as President, the first female head of state in the former Eastern Bloc. Driven from her country by war, the refugee child had returned at last from a lifetime of exile to become president of her beloved homeland.