Estonian government-in-exile

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Estonian government-in-exile existed for nearly five decades, maintaining the legal continuity of a nation that had been swallowed by the Soviet Union. On the 8th of October 1992, a man named Heinrich Mark handed over his credentials to incoming Estonian president Lennart Meri in a ceremony that formally ended the exile government's work. Meri thanked the exile government for being keepers of the legal continuity of the Estonian state. It was a quiet conclusion to one of the longer-running constitutional dramas of the twentieth century. How had this government survived? Who kept it alive through occupation, flight, imprisonment, and death? And what did it actually do for nearly half a century of exile?

• 2. The Occupation Begins

  ›

  Soviet Armed Forces crossed into Estonia on the 16th and the 17th of June 1940. President Konstantin Päts was arrested and deported to the Soviet Union, where he died in prison in 1956. The sweep was broad: eight former heads of state and thirty-eight ministers were either deported or executed. Those who survived went underground.

  On the 14th and the 15th of July 1940, sham elections were held for what was called a "People's Riigikogu." Voters were presented with a single list dominated by communists. The election is now considered illegal and unconstitutional; it was conducted under an electoral law that the upper chamber of parliament had never approved, as required by the Estonian constitution. That upper house had been dissolved shortly after the occupation and was never reconvened.

  The "People's Riigikogu" met on the 21st of July with one item of business: a resolution declaring Estonia a Soviet republic and petitioning to join the Soviet Union. It passed unanimously. Päts was forced to resign on either that day or the next. Under Section 46 of the Estonian constitution, Johannes Vares, who had been serving as prime minister of a Communist-dominated puppet government since June, assumed the president's powers and presided over the final stages of the takeover. Estonia was formally incorporated into the Soviet Union on the 9th of August 1940.

  Jüri Uluots, the last constitutional prime minister at the time of the Soviet occupation, argued that Vares' appointment had been illegitimate. He maintained that he himself was the rightful acting head of state following Päts' removal. Uluots tried to appoint a new Estonian government in July 1941 at the start of the German occupation, but German authorities refused to recognize Estonia as a sovereign state.

• 3. The September Attempt

  ›

  In June 1942, political leaders who had survived Soviet repression held a secret meeting inside occupied Estonia to discuss how to preserve the republic's continuity. On the 6th of January 1943, a follow-up meeting was held at the Estonian foreign delegation in Stockholm. Those present concluded that Uluots must continue to fulfill his responsibilities as prime minister, since he was the last legitimate holder of the post under the constitution.

  On the 20th of April 1944, the Electoral Committee of the Republic of Estonia held a clandestine meeting in Tallinn. The participants included Uluots himself, Johan Holberg as the substitute for commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Otto Pukk as chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, Alfred Maurer as second deputy vice-chairman of the National Council, and Mihkel Klaassen as a justice of the Supreme Court. They determined that Vares' appointment had been illegal and that Uluots had ascended as prime minister in duties of the president from the 21st of June 1940 onwards.

  On the 21st of June 1944, Uluots appointed Otto Tief as deputy prime minister. By September, Uluots was suffering from cancer. On the 18th of September 1944, he named Tief acting prime minister and appointed a government of eleven members. Two days later, Uluots departed for Sweden.

  Tief moved quickly. As the Germans began to withdraw, his government declared the legitimate Estonian government restored. Estonian forces seized the government buildings in Toompea on the 21st of September and ordered German forces to leave. The Estonian tricolour was raised in the Pikk Hermann flag tower, replacing the German flag. But the hold was brief. Estonian military units led by Johan Pitka clashed with both Germans and Soviets. On the 22nd of September, Soviet forces took control of Tallinn and hauled down the Estonian flag.

• 4. Flight and Capture

  ›

  Tief's government fled Tallinn. The last meeting of its members took place in the village of Põgari on the 22nd of September 1944. A boat was supposed to rendezvous and carry them across the Baltic, but it developed engine trouble and never arrived in time. Most of the government's members and officials were caught by the advancing Soviets and were jailed, deported, or executed.

  Tief himself managed to survive a decade of imprisonment in Siberia and eventually died back in Estonia in 1976. Only Kaarel Liidak, the minister of agriculture, died in hiding; he was not captured, but he did not survive long, dying on the 16th of January 1945.

  After Uluots died on the 9th of January 1945, August Rei stepped into the role of acting head of state as the most senior surviving member of the government. Rei had a significant background for this position. He had been the last Estonian envoy in Moscow before the Soviet annexation and had escaped from Moscow through Riga to Stockholm in June 1940. He was now supported by the surviving members of the Tief government who had made it to Sweden.

• 5. Exile in Oslo

  ›

  Rei waited years before making a formal declaration. On the 12th of January 1953, he declared an official Estonian government-in-exile in Oslo, Norway. The choice of Oslo rather than Stockholm was deliberate. Sweden had bans on such political activity; Norway did not.

  Almost immediately, a rival claim emerged. Alfred Maurer, who had been second deputy chairman of the National Council of Estonia before 1940, led a group that believed a president should be elected through a representative body. On the 3rd of March 1953, in Augustdorf, Germany, Maurer was elected Acting President of the Republic in exile. His line of succession had more support within the exile community. But Maurer never appointed a new government, stating that Tief's government remained in office and no new one was needed. When Maurer died on the 20th of September 1954, a year and a half after his election, his line became extinct. The Rei government remained the sole claimant to legitimacy.

  From 1953 to 1992, five governments-in-exile were formed in succession. The position of acting head of government passed from leader to leader as each died. Johannes Sikkar served first, from the 12th of January 1953 until his death on the 22nd of August 1960. Tõnis Kint followed, then Aleksander Warma, then Kint again. Heinrich Mark took the position on the 8th of May 1971 and held it until the 1st of March 1990, the longest single tenure. Enno Penno served last, until the formal handover to Lennart Meri on the 15th of September 1992.

• 6. Diplomacy and Symbolic Weight

  ›

  Of the three Baltic states, only Estonia established a formal government-in-exile. Latvia and Lithuania instead vested sovereign authority in their diplomatic legations. For Estonia too, the legations did the practical work: issuing passports, conducting diplomacy, handling daily matters of state. Estonia's primary legation was the Consulate General in New York City.

  Under the American Stimson Doctrine, the United States never recognized the legitimacy of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. This gave the exile government a degree of international standing. But because actual diplomatic authority flowed through the New York consulate, the Oslo-based government's role was, as one assessment put it, largely symbolic.

  A legal dispute in Ireland illustrated both the reach and the limits of this symbolic authority. Three Estonian ships named Otto, Piret, and Mall, along with two Latvian vessels named Rāmava and Everoja, had sailed to a neutral port in Ireland rather than obey instructions to proceed to a Soviet port. Ivan Maisky, the Soviet Union's ambassador to the United Kingdom, applied to the High Court in Dublin for possession of the ships. The ships' owners could not be reached. John McEvoy, the honorary consul of Estonia, successfully opposed the action. The episode was later recalled by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who served as President of Estonia.