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
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
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
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
Poet and doctor whom Zhdanov forced on Estonia as puppet prime minister in June 1940, and who led the petition to join the Soviet Union
Born to a farming family near Viljandi, he studied medicine in Kiev and served as a military physician in the First World War and the Estonian War of Independence. He became a well-known poet and radical socialist under the pen name Johannes Barbarus. After the Soviet occupation of June 1940, Andrei Zhdanov forced President Konstantin Päts to appoint him prime minister of a communist-dominated puppet government, and he headed the delegation that delivered the petition to join the Soviet Union. He then chaired the Estonian SSR Supreme Soviet’s presidium, fled to Soviet Russia when the Germans came in 1941, and after returning in 1944 was investigated by the NKVD over his role in the War of Independence. He died in the presidential residence in Kadriorg, Tallinn, in November 1946, most probably by suicide, though murder has also been suggested.
Career timeline
1910–1914Studied medicine at the University of Kiev
1918–1920Military physician in the Estonian War of Independence
1940Puppet prime minister; led the delegation petitioning to join the USSR
1940–1946Chairman of the Estonian SSR Supreme Soviet’s presidium
The agronomist who pushed a sovereignty declaration through the Soviet system and led Estonia out of the empire
Lukyanov warned him of a ten-year sentence for 'anti-constitutional activity.' Rüütel stood his ground: 'We will convene the Supreme Council and put the Declaration of Independence to a vote,' inadvertently saying 'Independence' instead of 'Sovereignty,' as he later recalled.
An agricultural economist from the Estonian island of Saaremaa, Rüütel rose through the Soviet system: rector of the Estonian Agricultural Academy, Communist Party functionary, and finally chairman of the Presidium of the Estonian SSR Supreme Soviet in 1983. On 16 November 1988, defying Moscow's threat of imprisonment, he pushed the Estonian sovereignty declaration through the legislature, opening the first crack in the Soviet edifice; in 1990, as chairman of the Supreme Council, he declared Soviet rule illegal and initiated the transition to restored independence. After independence he was elected president in 2001 and served until 2006, steering Estonia into NATO and the European Union.
Career timeline
1949–1950Senior agronomist, Saaremaa Executive Committee agricultural department
1955–1957Teacher, Tartu School of Agricultural Mechanization
1957–1963Senior zootechnician and director, experimental farm of the Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Research Institute
1963–1969Director, Tartu Reference State Farm
1969–1977Rector, Estonian Academy of Agriculture
1977–1979Secretary for agriculture, Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia
1979–1983First Deputy Chairman, Council of Ministers of the Estonian SSR
1983–1990Chairman, Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR
1990–1992Chairman, Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia
The Estonian scientist who blocked phosphorite mining from inside the system
He stood out in TV debates by carrying a portfolio of documents and smoothly pulling out the relevant one to prove his point whenever opponents challenged him.
Estonian chemical physicist and politician. After studying oil-shale technology at Tallinn Polytechnic, he built the Soviet bloc's first NMR spectrometer and became a pioneer of high-resolution solid-state NMR spectroscopy. As a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, he led scientists in exposing the environmental and demographic dangers of planned phosphorite mines in 1987, providing the intellectual foundation for the 'Phosphorite War,' a catalyst for mass resistance and the independence movement. As a USSR People's Deputy, he unearthed and publicised the secret protocols of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, demolishing the legal basis for the Baltic annexation; after independence he served twice as a government minister.
Career timeline
1953Graduated from Tallinn Polytechnic, oil-shale technology
1956PhD in chemistry
1969DSc in physics and mathematics, USSR Institute of Chemical Physics
1972Elected Member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences
1975Full Academician, Estonian Academy of Sciences; board member until 2014
1980Founded and directed the Institute of Chemical and Biological Physics
1989–1991USSR People's Deputy; exposed the secret protocols of the Nazi-Soviet Pact
1990–1991Minister for Eastern Affairs, Republic of Estonia
1995–1996Minister of European Affairs, Republic of Estonia
