Pastor and writer who headed Latvia's pro-German government of 1919
"Not clever speeches or treaties but force decides a nation's fate," he declared at his 1924 treason trial.
A leading Latvian novelist and Lutheran pastor, he headed the pro-German government backed by von der Goltz after the Liepāja coup of 1919. His regime fell after Cēsis, he fled to Germany and, returning in 1924, was tried for treason and expelled.
Career timeline
1890–1899Studied theology at the University of Dorpat (Tartu)
1903–1906Edited and published the journal Austrums in Cēsis
1906–1918Lutheran pastor in the Matīši, Kalsnava and Vietalva parishes
1917Co-founded the Latvian Farmers' Union, member of its board
1919.05–06Prime Minister of the pro-German provisional government
1924Convicted of treason, then expelled by presidential pardon
1926–1930Pastor of a German congregation in Altstadt, East Prussia
Latvia's prime minister in the war of independence, later dictator after the 1934 coup
On the day of the occupation his radio address ordered no resistance: "I will remain in my place and you remain in yours."
Prime minister of Latvia's provisional government from November 1918, he survived the Soviet army, a German coup and Bermondt's army in turn and led the Riga peace and land reform of 1920. He set up a dictatorship by coup in 1934 and, deported by the Soviets in 1940, died in prison in 1942.
Career timeline
1918.11First prime minister of Latvia's provisional government
1920Led the Riga peace treaty and land reform
1918–1934Farmers' Union leader; prime minister and foreign minister several times
1934.05Bloodless coup with army and Aizsargi backing
1936.04Also state president, styled himself leader of the people
1939.10Signed treaty allowing Soviet bases
1940.07Forced from office and deported after Soviet occupation
Latvia's first foreign minister, who won international recognition for its independence
One of the most influential statesmen and diplomats of the early Latvian Republic. As its first foreign minister he drove the 1920 peace treaty with Soviet Russia, de jure recognition and League of Nations admission; he died in a car crash in 1925.
Latvia's first foreign minister, he won de facto British recognition in 1918, the Riga peace of 1920, and de jure Allied recognition and League membership in 1921. He also served as prime minister and died in a road accident in 1925 at thirty-eight.
Career timeline
1917Co-founder of the Latvian Farmers' Union; head of the Vidzeme Land Council's financial division
1918Appointed Latvia's first foreign minister
1920Concluded the Riga peace treaty with Soviet Russia
1921Secured de jure Allied recognition and League of Nations membership
Latvian foreign minister who signed the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty in 1939 and was deported to the Soviet Union in 1940
Born in Riga to an Estonian trader and a Baltic German mother, he served in the Estonian Army during the Latvian War of Independence. He joined the Latvian foreign ministry in 1920, became its general secretary in 1933, ran the ministry de facto after Kārlis Ulmanis’s coup of 1934 and was foreign minister from 1936 to 1940; he was also active on the Council of the League of Nations. In June 1939 he signed the German–Latvian Non-Aggression Pact and on 5 October 1939 the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty. After the Soviet occupation he and his family were deported to Voronezh in July 1940 in the presence of the interior minister Vilis Lācis; he was arrested in June 1941 and in 1952 sentenced to 25 years. Released in 1954, he returned to Latvia in 1958, wrote against the Latvian diaspora organisations and died in Riga in 1967.
Career timeline
1920Joined the Latvian foreign ministry
1933General secretary of the foreign ministry
1936–1940Minister of foreign affairs
1939Signed the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty
Architect of Soviet Marxist legal theory who defined law as class relations
'Law is a system, an order of social relations which corresponds to the interests of the ruling class and is maintained by the organized power of this class, the state.' (The Revolutionary Role of Law and the State)
Latvian jurist and revolutionary. Born 14 (26) July 1865 in Koknese volost, Riga district, Livonia province, he died in Moscow on 25 January 1932 and his ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall. With Rainis he led the Latvian Marxist 'New Current' and the newspaper Dienas Lapa, was arrested in 1897 and after seven months' imprisonment exiled for five years to Vyatka province. As People's Commissar of Justice after October he co-authored Decree on Courts No. 1, laying the foundation of Soviet justice, headed the Latvian Soviet government (1918–1920) and served as first chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Court from 1923 until his death.
Career timeline
1883–1888Graduated Riga Gymnasium and St. Petersburg University law faculty; became sworn attorney's assistant
1888–1897Led Latvian Marxist 'New Current' movement and newspaper Dienas Lapa with Rainis
1897–1903Arrested, 7 months imprisonment then 5 years exile in Vyatka; co-authored satirical collection Little Gadflies
1906Joined RSDLP; chaired unification congress of Latvian SD Party, which became territorial part of RSDLP
1917.10–11Liaison with Latvian Riflemen at Smolny; chaired Petrograd MRC investigative commission; as People's Commissar of Justice co-authored Decree on Courts No. 1
1918–1920RSFSR People's Commissar of Justice and deputy Narkom of Foreign Affairs; head of Latvian Soviet government (Dec 1918–Jan 1920)
1923–1932First chairman of RSFSR Supreme Court; chairman, Comintern International Control Commission (1924); editor-in-chief, Encyclopedia of State and Law (1925–1927); director, Institute of Soviet Law (1931)
Pastor and writer who headed Latvia's pro-German government of 1919
"Not clever speeches or treaties but force decides a nation's fate," he declared at his 1924 treason trial.
A leading Latvian novelist and Lutheran pastor, he headed the pro-German government backed by von der Goltz after the Liepāja coup of 1919. His regime fell after Cēsis, he fled to Germany and, returning in 1924, was tried for treason and expelled.
Career timeline
1890–1899Studied theology at the University of Dorpat (Tartu)
1903–1906Edited and published the journal Austrums in Cēsis
1906–1918Lutheran pastor in the Matīši, Kalsnava and Vietalva parishes
1917Co-founded the Latvian Farmers' Union, member of its board
1919.05–06Prime Minister of the pro-German provisional government
1924Convicted of treason, then expelled by presidential pardon
1926–1930Pastor of a German congregation in Altstadt, East Prussia
Microbiologist who headed the puppet government chosen by the Soviet embassy in 1940 and requested Latvia’s incorporation into the USSR
Born the son of a tenant on a manor in Mazsalaca, Livonia, he studied at the Tartu Veterinary Institute, took part in the revolution of 1905 and emigrated to Switzerland, working at a tuberculosis institute in Davos. He served as a military veterinarian in the Serbian army in the First World War and as a captain in the veterinary units of the Latvian War of Independence. In 1919 he founded a Microbiology Institute at the University of Latvia, and in 1923 he defended the first doctoral thesis in Latvia; politically he supported social democracy. In June 1940 the Soviet embassy offered him the leadership of the new puppet government; as prime minister, and from 21 July acting president, he requested Latvia’s incorporation into the Soviet Union. He chaired the Latvian SSR Supreme Soviet’s presidium in 1940–1952, joined the Communist Party in 1941 and died in Riga in 1963.
Career timeline
1893–1901Tartu Veterinary Institute
1911Assistant at the tuberculosis institute in Davos
1919Founded the Microbiology Institute at the University of Latvia
1940Puppet prime minister and acting president
1940–1952Chairman of the Latvian SSR Supreme Soviet’s presidium
The Red Army's first commander-in-chief: an Imperial colonel who built the revolutionary armed forces
When Left SR rebels seized central Moscow in July 1918, Vatsetis's Latvian riflemen subdued them with pre-dawn artillery. The Bolshevik government owed its survival that morning to his division.
Known in Latvian as Jukums Vācietis and in Russia as Ioakim Ioakimovich Vatsetis (Иоаким Иоакимович Вацетис). Born to a landless Latvian peasant, he became a tsarist officer and then, after the Revolution, the Soviet Republic's first commander-in-chief of all armed forces, forging the embryonic Red Army. In July 1918 his Latvian Rifle Division suppressed the Left SR armed uprising in Moscow, saving the Bolshevik government at a moment of extreme peril, and he then led the Eastern Front to check the White advance. A non-party military specialist who worked closely with Trotsky and Lenin, he was arrested on suspicion of treason in 1919, removed from command, and spent the rest of his career as a military scholar and professor. Swept up in the Great Terror, he was shot in 1938 and rehabilitated in 1957.
Career timeline
1891–1917Served in the Imperial Army; colonel commanding a Latvian Rifle Regiment in WWI
1917–1918Sided with the Bolsheviks after October; commander of 12th Army, then Latvian Rifle Division
1918.07Commanded the suppression of the Left SR uprising in Moscow
1918.07–09Commander of the Eastern Front
1918.09–1919.07First Commander-in-Chief of all Armed Forces of the RSFSR
1919–1937Taught at the Red Army Military Academy; professor (1927); Komandarm 2nd rank (1935)
