Konstantin Päts

Konstantin Päts (born Feb. 11 [Feb. 23, New Style], 1874, Pärnu district, Estonia, Russian Empire—died Jan. 18, 1956, Kalinin [now Tver] oblast, Russia, U.S.S.R.) was an Estonian statesman who served as the last president of Estonia (1938–40) before its incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940.

Of peasant stock, Päts was educated in the law but began a career in journalism in 1901, when he founded the Estonian-language newspaper Teataja (“Announcer”), which reflected Päts’s socialistic leanings. In 1904 Päts became deputy mayor of Tallinn. During an Estonian rising in connection with the 1905 Russian Revolution, Päts, although he had called for restraint, was sentenced to death and had to flee Estonia. He was not able to return until 1910, at which time he served a brief prison term.

Active in the movement for Estonian independence after 1917, Päts became head of a provisional government when independence was declared in February 1918. Almost immediately, Päts was arrested by Estonia’s German occupiers, but he resumed his post after the November 1918 armistice.

In 1921–22, 1923, and 1932–33 Päts served as riigivanem (equivalent to president and prime minister) of Estonia. After a new constitution providing for a stronger executive was approved in a 1933 referendum, Päts learned of a planned coup d’état by the fascist “Vap” movement, which had sponsored the constitution. He arrested the leaders of the movement and assumed dictatorial powers. Päts’s authoritarian regime lasted until the Soviet Union occupied Estonia in June 1940. He was deported to the U.S.S.R. at the start of the occupation and died there.