The President of the Republic of Moldova was born on 27 January 1940 in the village of Radulenii Vechi, the district of Floresti, in the family of Kiril and Paraskovia Lucinschi.

He graduated from the historico-philological faculty of the Moldovan State University. In 1977 he defended his Ph. D. thesis.

In 1960-1978 Petru Lucinschi occupied different posts in the state and Communist party bodies of the Republic of Moldova. From 1978 up to 1989 he was the high-ranking official of the Cental Committee of CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) and Secretary of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Tajikistan.

Non-confrontational by nature, being inclined to compromises, he has excellent organizer qualities. Responding to appeals of participants of meetings and demostrations, taken place in Kishinev in 1989, he returned to Moldova, where Petru Lucinschi occupied the highest possible post at that time - the First Secretary of Communist Party of Moldova.

In 1991 at the suggestion of M. Gorbachev, he moved to Moscow, to the central body of CPSU and took up a post of the Secretary of CPSU. After the events in August, 1991, he became the senior staff scientist of the Institue of Socio-political Investigations of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, the executive director of the Fund of Development of Social Studies.

In 1992 he was appointed Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Republic of Moldova in Russian Federation.

On the special meeting of Parliament on 4 February 1993, Petru Lucinschi was elected to be the speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova by the overwhelming majority of MPs. On 29 March 1994 he was elected the Chairman of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova.

On 1 December 1996, Petru Luchinschi was elected the President of the Republic of Moldova.