Lauri Vahtre (b. 1960) is an Estonian historian, writer and politician. He is active in popularising history.
As a student at the Tartu State University, he was an activist and one of the main members of the Noor-Tartu (Young-Tartu) student movement. In 1983, he was expelled from the university shortly before he would have defended his thesis. His exmatriculation was not directly connected with his activities in Noor-Tartu, as he had distanced himself from the movement for a long time before, with the aim of not causing it trouble. However, his intentions and exmatriculation did not spare the movement, and it was closed by its members in 1984.
Vahtre managed to complete his studies in 1984, however. Later, in 1988, he also gained a candidate degree from the Institute of History of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. From 1989 to 1992, he taught as a senior lecturer at the University of Tartu. He was a member of the Congress of Estonia, and from 1991 to 1992 was a member of the Constitutional Assembly.