Mantas Adomenas

Dr. Mantas Adomėnas (b. 1972) is a Classical scholar, politician, translator, and a writer. Educated as a Classicist at Vilnius University. He wrote his doctorate on Plato and the Presocratic philosophers at Cambridge University, where he also was a Fellow at Gonville & Caius College. For three consecutive terms (2008-2020) served as a Member of Parliament at the Lithuanian Seimas where he was one of the architects of the Lithuanian higher education reform, author of strategy for relations with diaspora, as well as a consistent supporter of fight for democracy and human rights in Russia, Belarus, China, and Hong Kong. In 2021-2023 he served as Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs of Lithuania. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology, teaches Classics at Vilnius University, and in 2024 assumed duties as the Secretary General of the Community of Democracies, an intergovernmental organisation.

Mantas Adomėnas writes and publishes essays and scholarly articles on topics ranging from Classics and architecture to political philosophy and current affairs. His first novel, “Moneta & labirintas” (The Coin and the Labyrinth), an intellectual spy thriller, was published in 2023 and was awarded prestigious Book of the Year Award. He served as a Private in the Lithuanian Army Volunteer Corps in 2015-2018. He has been decorated with the Presidential Order of Excellence of Georgia (2013) and received Friendship Medal of Diplomacy of Taiwan (2024). In 2024 he was declared by the Russian MFA to be one of the top-5 enemies of Russia in Lithuania. His hobbies are travelling, horse-riding, croquet, and Baroque.