Andrejs Plakans

Andrejs Plakans (December 31, 1940 – July 4, 2024) was a Latvian-American historian.

Early life and education Andrejs Plakans was born during the World War II on December 31, 1940, in Riga, Latvian SSR, USSR as the second son of Alfrēds and Klāra (Ozola) Plakans. In July 1944, fleeing the re-occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union, the Plakans family went into exile, living out the rest of WWII in Reichenberg in the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia. After the war, the family moved farther west, spending the next six years in displaced persons’ (DP) camps in the American occupation zone in Germany. In 1951, they emigrated to the United States, settling in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Andrejs Plakans graduated from J.P. McCaskey High School (1959), received a B.A. in history and political science from Franklin & Marshall College (1963), and a M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Harvard University (1969).

Andrejs Plakans was awarded foreign membership status by the Latvian Academy of Sciences (1990), an honorary Ph.D. from Umeå University in Sweden (1999),

Death Plakans died on July 4, 2024, at the age of 83.