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Karlis Ulmanis
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Karlis Vilhelms Augusts Ulmanis (September 4, 1877 in Berze, Latvia — September 20, 1942 in Krasnovodsk prison, Soviet Union) was a prominent Latvian politician in pre-World War II Latvia during the Latvian period of independence from 1918 to 1940.
nis studied agriculture at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and at Leipzig University, Germany, and then worked in Latvia as a writer, lecturer, and manager in agricultural positions.
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Karlis Vilhelms Augusts Ulmanis (September 4, 1877 in Berze, Latvia — September 20, 1942 in Krasnovodsk prison, Soviet Union) was a prominent Latvian politician in pre-World War II Latvia during the Latvian period of independence from 1918 to 1940.
Education and early career
Ulmanis studied agriculture at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and at Leipzig University, Germany, and then worked in Latvia as a writer, lecturer, and manager in agricultural positions. He was politically active during the 1905 Revolution, was briefly imprisoned in Pskov, and subsequently fled Latvia to avoid incarceration by the Russian authorities. During this period of exile, Ulmanis studied at the University of Nebraska in the United States, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture. After working briefly at that university as a lecturer, Ulmanis moved to Houston, Texas, where he had purchased a dairy business.
Ulmanis returned to Latvia from exile in 1913, after being informed that it was safe to return due to the declaration of a general amnesty by the Russian tsar. This safety was shortlived as World War I broke out one year later.
Political career in democratic Latvia
In the aftermath of the war, Ulmanis was one of the principal founders of the Latvian People's Council (Tautas Padome), which proclaimed Latvia's independence from Russia on November 18, 1918. A constitutional convention established Latvia as a parliamentary democracy in 1920. Ulmanis was the first Prime Minister of a Latvia which had become independent for the first time in 700 years. He also served as Prime Minister in several subsequent Latvian government administrations during the period of Latvian independence from 1918 to 1940. In addition, he founded the Latvian Farmers' Union, one of the two most prominent political parties in Latvia at that time.
Authoritarian régime
On May 15, 1934, ostensibly to protect the country from a coup by right-wing extremists known as the Legion, led by Lt. Col. Voldemars Ozols, Ulmanis as Prime Minister dissolved the Saeima (Parliament) and established executive non-parliamentary authoritarian rule. Several officers from the Army and units of the national guard loyal to Ulmanis moved against key government offices, communications and transportation facilities. Many elected officials were illegally detained, as were any military officers that resisted the coup d’etat.
All political parties, including his own "Farmers' Union", were outlawed. Part of the constitution of the Latvian Republic and civil liberties were suspended. All newspapers owned by political parties or organisations were closed. Some 2,000 Social Democrats were initially detained by the authorities, including most of the Social Democratic members of the disbanded Saeima, as were members of various right-wing radical organisations, such as Perkonkrusts. In all, 369 Social Democrats, 95 members of Perkonkrusts, pro-Nazi activists from the Baltic German community, and a handful of politicians from other parties were interned in a prison camp established in the Karosta district of Liepaja. After several Social Democrats, such as Bruno Kalninš, had been cleared of weapons charges by the courts, most of those imprisoned began to be released over time. Those convicted by the courts of treasonous acts, such as Gustavs Celminš, remained behind bars for the duration of their sentences, three years in the case of Celminš.
The incumbent President Alberts Kviesis served out the rest of his term until 1936, after which Ulmanis merged the office of President and Prime Minister, a move considered unconstitutional. In the absence of Parliament, laws continued to be promulgated by the Cabinet of Ministers.
Ulmanis was a popular leader, especially among the farmers, during whose leadership Latvia recorded major economic achievements. During Ulmanis' rule, education was strongly emphasized and literacy rates in Latvia reached high levels. Due to an application of the economics of comparative advantage, the United Kingdom and Germany became Latvia's major trade partners, while trade with the USSR was reduced. The economy, especially the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, were micromanaged to an extreme degree. Ulmanis nationalised many industries. State interference in the economy was second only to the Soviet Union. This resulted in rapid economic growth, during which Latvia attained a very high standard of living. At a time when most of the world's economy was suffering, Latvia could point to increases in both gross national product (GNP) and in exports of Latvian goods overseas. This, however, came at the cost of liberty and civil rights.
Ulmanis was a Latvian nationalist, who espoused the slogan "Latvia for Latvians" and held that every ethnic community in Latvia should develop its own authentic national culture, instead of assimilating. The policy of Ulmanis, even before his access to power, was openly directed toward eliminating the minority groups from economic life and of giving Latvians access to all positions in the national economy - sometimes referred to as Lettization. According to some estimates, about 90% of the banks and credit establishments in Latvia were in Latvian hands in 1939, as against 20% in 1933. Birznieks, the Minister of Agriculture, in a speech delivered in Ventspils on January 26, 1936, said:
As the result, the economic share of minorities - Germans, Jews, Russians, Lithuanians - declined. However, Ulmanis didn't allow any physical violence or unlawful acts towards minorities and dealt harshly with right- and left- wing extremists, and with both Nazi and Communist sympathisers. Between 1920 and 1938, many Jews, escaping Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, found refuge in Latvia.
Later life and death
In 1939, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR signed a non-aggression agreement, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which contained a secret addendum (revealed only in 1945), dividing Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. Latvia was thereby assigned to the Soviet sphere. Following a Soviet ultimatum in 1939, Ulmanis had to allow Soviet military bases in Latvia, and in June 1940, Latvia was completely occupied by the Soviet Union. Ulmanis ordered Latvians to show no resistance to the Soviet Army. The phrase "I will remain in my place and you remain in your places" from his radio speech on this occasion is still famous, and is credited for having saved lives to resist the Soviets in the future.
On July 21, 1940 Ulmanis was forced to resign and asked the Soviet government for a pension and to allow him to emigrate to Switzerland. Instead, he ended up in Stavropol in the present Russia, where he worked in his original profession for a year. In July 1941, he was imprisoned. A year later, as German armies were closing in on Stavropol, he and other inmates were evacuated to a prison in Krasnovodsk in the present Turkmenistan. On the way there, he contracted dysentery and soon died on 20 September 1942. Ulmanis had no wife or children, as he used to say that he was married to Latvia.
Later assessments
Karlis Ulmanis's legacy for Latvia and Latvians is a complex one.
In the postwar Latvian SSR the Soviet régime labelled Ulmanis a fascist, indistinguishable from the Nazis, accusing him of corruption and of bloody repressions against the Latvian worker. Ulmanis, in fact, had outlawed the fascist party and imprisoned its leader, Gustavs Celminš.
Amongst the postwar Latvian émigrés in exile, Ulmanis was idealised by many of those who viewed his 6-year authoritiarian rule as a Golden Age of the Latvian nation. Some traditions created by Ulmanis, such as the "Draudzigais aicinajums" (charitable donations to one's former school), continued to be upheld.
In independent Latvia today Ulmanis remains a popular, if also controversial figure. Many Latvians view him as a symbol of Latvia's independence in pre-World War II Latvia, particularly in his early role as prime minister during the country's formative years. Others credit Ulmanis for the rise of ethnic Latvians' economic prosperity during the 1930s. Others think that someone who disbanded Parliament and adopted authoritarian rule cannot be regarded as a positive figure, even if that rule was in some terms a prosperous one.
One sign that Ulmanis was still very popular in Latvia during the first years of regained independence was the election of his grand-nephew Guntis Ulmanis as President of Latvia in 1993.
One of the major traffic routes in Riga, the capital of Latvia, is named after him (K.Ulmana gatve).
In recent years, a monument of Ulmanis was also unveiled in a park in the city centre.
See also
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