Estonian prime minister who concluded the Treaty of Tartu, publisher of Postimees
As Soviet forces occupied Estonia in June 1940, he urged President Päts to offer at least symbolic armed resistance.
Leader of Estonia's liberal national movement through the newspaper Postimees, he was prime minister in 1919 and 1920 and concluded the Treaty of Tartu. Pushed out for opposing Päts's authoritarian regime in 1934, he was arrested after the Soviet occupation of 1940 and disappeared.
Career timeline
- 1896Editor and publisher of Postimees, turning it into the organ of the national movement
- 1906Member of the First Russian State Duma; signed the Vyborg Appeal
- 1917Member of the Estonian Provincial Assembly (Maapäev)
- 1919–1920Prime Minister; concluded the Treaty of Tartu
- 1923–1925Speaker (President) of the Riigikogu
- 1927–1928State Elder
- 1931–1932Minister of Foreign Affairs
- 1933State Elder (final government)
Head of Estonia's government in the independence war, later dictator of the 'era of silence'
"The greatest thing we have accomplished is the creation of the Estonian state," he said in his June 1940 Victory Day speech under Soviet pressure.
Led Estonia's declaration of independence in February 1918 and held the country together as head of the provisional government in the first winter of the independence war. In 1934 he built the authoritarian 'era of silence' with Laidoner; deported by the Soviets in 1940, he died in custody in 1956.
Career timeline
- 1905Became deputy mayor of Tallinn
- 1917Chairman of the provisional government of the Autonomous Governorate
- 1918Salvation Committee member; led the independence declaration as head of the provisional government
- 1921–1924Served twice as State Elder (de facto premier)
- 1934Self-coup with Laidoner establishing authoritarian rule
- 1938Elected first President of Estonia
Commander-in-chief of Estonia's war of independence
Launching the counteroffensive on 3 January 1919, he drove the 1st Division 200 kilometres east within eleven days, retaking Tartu and Narva.
Commander-in-chief of the Estonian army from December 1918, he led the counteroffensive of January 1919 and the battle of Cēsis in June. He propped up Päts's emergency regime in 1934 and, deported by the Soviets in 1940, died in Vladimir prison in 1953.
Career timeline
- 1901Joined the Imperial Russian Army
- 1917–1918Commander of the 1st Estonian Division
- 1918Appointed commander-in-chief of the Estonian Armed Forces
- 1918–1920Led victory in the War of Independence
- 1920–1929Member of parliament (Riigikogu)
- 1934–1940Commander-in-chief of the armed forces
- 1939Promoted to general
Bolshevik who led the underground communist party in independent Estonia and was executed
A Cheka investigator on the Lockhart conspiracy and Kaplan affair, he was arrested after the May Day demonstration of 1922 and shot that same night in a forest by Lake Ülemiste.
The Bolshevik who led the October Revolution in Estonia in 1917, he directed the underground communist party in the independent republic until his arrest and execution in Tallinn in 1922.
Career timeline
- 1905Began revolutionary activity in a Marxist students' circle in Arensburg (Kuressaare)
- 1906Moved to St Petersburg and joined the RSDLP (Bolsheviks)
- 1906–1913Party work in St Petersburg and Revel (Tallinn); helped publish the Estonian-language paper Kiir
- 1917Deputy chairman of the Estland Military Revolutionary Committee; head of the administrative department of the Soviet ExecutComm
- 1918Investigator for the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal and Cheka; member of the All-Russian Central ExecutComm
- 1918–1922Led the underground Estonian Communist Party; Central Committee and Politburo member
- 1922Arrested 3 May and shot the following night
Law professor and Estonia’s last constitutional prime minister who, acting as president, formed the Tief government in 1944
Born in Kirbla Parish in the Governorate of Estonia, he studied law at St Petersburg University and taught Roman and Estonian law at the University of Tartu until 1944. Editor-in-chief of Postimees and speaker of the lower chamber, he was prime minister from 1939 until Soviet troops entered Estonia in June 1940; after President Konstantin Päts was arrested by the Soviets he became, under the constitution, prime minister in the duties of the president. On 29 July 1941 he asked the Germans to let him form an independent government and was refused, and he declined to head the Self-Administration. On 7 February 1944 he appealed by radio for men to answer the call-up, and 38,000 registered. In June he appointed Otto Tief deputy prime minister, and in September, as the Germans withdrew, formed the Tief government. He then reached Sweden, where he died of gastric cancer in January 1945.
Career timeline
- 1938–1939Speaker of the lower chamber
- 1939–1940Prime minister of Estonia
- 1940–1945Prime minister in the duties of the president
- 1944Backed the call-up; formed the Tief government
Estonian Vaps politician who headed the collaborationist Estonian Self-Administration under German occupation in 1941–1944
Born at Tuhala in Harju County, he studied in Berlin, Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz and took doctorates in geophysics (1927) and constitutional law (1930). After standing twice for parliament he joined the Vaps movement as its propaganda chief; sentenced in 1935 to twenty years’ hard labour, he was amnestied in 1938, went to Germany and took German citizenship. In May 1941 he founded the Estonian Liberation Committee in Helsinki, and returning with the German army that year he headed the Estonian Self-Administration from 1941 to 1944. In 1944 he fled to Austria, where the Western Allies cleared him of Nazi crimes and he later advised the Austrian government. In the 1990s Estonia’s International Commission named him among the Estonians chiefly responsible for crimes committed by Estonian police and SS units.
Career timeline
- 1927–1930Doctorates in geophysics (Innsbruck) and constitutional law (Graz)
- 1935Sentenced to twenty years’ hard labour as a Vaps leader
- 1941Founded the Estonian Liberation Committee in Helsinki
- 1941–1944Head of the Estonian Self-Administration
- 1944Fled to Austria
