Lennart Meri, Requiescat in pace.

Heroes walk among us, kiddies. But their ranks are thinning.

The former Estonian president, Lennart Meri, whose relentless struggle against Communist oppression helped this Baltic nation break free from the Soviet Union in 1991, has died, the office of the president said Tuesday. He was 76.

A survivor of a Soviet labor camp in Siberia, Meri became Estonia's first president after the country regained independence, serving from 1992 to 2001. He died early Tuesday morning at a hospital in Tallinn after a long illness, the office said.

Among ordinary Estonians, Meri, also a writer and film director, was a beloved, charismatic father figure, whose dry humor and sharp wit only added to his charm. Government officials, however, were often wary of him because of his scathing attacks on unethical practices and corrupt civil servants.

Meri was widely credited for remaining tough on President Boris Yeltsin of Russia in negotiations on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Estonia in 1994.

Born in Tallinn on March 29, 1929, Meri and his family were deported to Siberia after Soviet troops invaded Estonia during World War II - a fate shared by tens of thousands of people in Estonia and in its Baltic neighbors, Latvia and Lithuania.

The family returned to Estonia, where Meri studied history at the University of Tartu and worked as a theater dramatist and a producer of radio plays and films.

They were fortunate. Tens of millions died.

Among his best-known films is the 1977 documentary "The Winds of the Milky Way," describing the lives of the Finno-Ugric people - a term used to describe the original inhabitants of the European and Eurasian north - which won a silver medal at the New York Film Festival but was banned in the Soviet Union for its culturally sensitive content.

Meri was one of the leaders of the Baltic country's independence movement, known as the "singing revolution."

Isn't it sad and amazing how quickly we put the Cold War behind us? Thank God we won, kiddies. Thank God.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Estonians protested against Soviet rule by singing nationalistic songs at music festivals. Meri often urged the crowds to peacefully resist Moscow's rule.

In March 1990, the Soviet republic of Estonia declared that it was on the path toward independence and held free elections, after which Meri was appointed foreign minister.

Following the failed Kremlin coup that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Estonia declared independence in August 1991. (Thanks to the International Herald Tribune for this obituary.)