Konstantin Päts

Konstantin Pats (. * 11 Februarjul / February 23 1874greg in Tahkuranna, Estonia, . † January 18, 1956 in Kalinin (now Tver ), then Russian SFSR ) was Estonian politician, first Prime Minister of Estonia, multiple Riigivanem ( " Reich elder" ) and in the 1930s, authoritarian reigning head of state in Estonia.

In addition to his political activities Pats worked in the insurance and banking sector, and published a series of writings on different areas.

Commitment to 1919

Pats, who graduated in 1898 to study law at the University of Tartu ( Dorpat ), was used in the subsequent period to 1899 in the Russian army ( in Pskov ). 1901 to 1905 was editor of the newspaper Pats Teataja ( = Gazette ) in Tallinn. In 1905 Pats on the (bourgeois) revolution part and then went to the Swiss ( 1905-1906 ) before the prosecution, then Finnish exile. In 1909 he returned to the Russian Empire and joined his nine-month sentence in a prison in St. Petersburg. From 1911 to 1916 served Pats, who had brought out an Estonian newspaper in St. Petersburg, as editor of the Tallinna Teataja. After another military service (1916-1917), this time in Tallinn, Pats 1917 Speaker of the top Command of the Estonian military in Tallinn. From 1917 to 1918 Pats spokesman of the Estonian Province Assembly ( Eesti Maanõukogu ). From July to November 1918, he was interned by the Germans in Poland. After his return to the now newly independent Estonia Pats was appointed prime minister, interior minister and defense minister of the provisional government.

Political career in the first Estonian Republic

Konstantin Pats was from 1919 to 1920 a member of the Constituent Assembly ( Asutav Kogu ), from 1920 to 1934 and 1937 Member of the Estonian Reichstag (IV Riigikogu ). Between 1920 and 1934, Konstantin Pats multiply the office of the elders ( Riigivanem ), ie head of state, held: From January 1921 to November 1922, August 1923-March 1924, February 1931 to February 1932, November 1932 to May 1933 and from October 1933 to January 1934.

Pats was party leader of the federation of farmers, in the 1920s the strongest political force in Estonia grew.

After the coup of March 12, 1934 Pats established an authoritarian rule by declaring the state of emergency. He probably wanted to forestall the imminent victory of the quasi- fascist party EVL. During the next four years he reigned as Estonia Riigihoidja ( Reich Protector ). 1938 Pats was elected president.

Unlike his counterparts in Latvia and Lithuania, however, Pats eliminated the democratic order is not complete. In the population of the Premier was popular because of its proximity to the people and his shrewdness.

Under Soviet rule

After the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union in June 1940 Pats was jailed at the age of 66 years by the Soviets and deported to the Soviet city of Ufa in the Urals. For a nearly 16 -year ordeal began by Soviet prisons, camps and psychiatric hospitals without ever had been raised against him. Despite everything, he remained unbowed, as evidenced by three dating from the 1950s, letters that were smuggled 20 years after his death abroad.

Pats died in 1956 in a psychiatric hospital in Kalinin Oblast in the Russian Buraschewo ( current and pre-Soviet name: Tver ). The mortal remains of Pats were transferred to Estonia in 1990, his tomb is located in the forest cemetery west of Tallinn, where Lennart Meri and other important people were buried. Regardless of the revolution of 1934 is in Estonian folk a great devotion for the first head of state of the State.