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The People's Council of Latvia (Latvian : Latvijas Tautas padome, LTP) was a temporary council which declared Latvia's independence on November 18, 1918 and then acted as the temporary parliament of the country until a Constitutional Assembly was elected. [1]
The People's Council was formed on November 17, 1918 as a result of merging two councils of Latvian organizations: Latvian Provisional National Council (Latvian : Latvijas Pagaidu Nacionālā padome, LPNP) and the Democratic Bloc. Originally, the People's Council had 40 members representing all the major Latvian political organizations, except the far right and the far left (communists). It was later expanded to 245 representatives. [2]
On November 18, 1918, the People's Council declared Latvia an independent country at the now National Theatre of Latvia. It chose Jānis Čakste as the President of the Council and Kārlis Ulmanis as the Prime Minister of the Latvian Provisional Government. [3] The People's Council acted as a temporary parliament of Latvia until May 1, 1920 when the Constitutional Assembly was elected. [2]
Jānis Kristaps Čakste was a Latvian politician and lawyer who served as the first head of an independent Latvian state as the Chairman of the People's Council (1918–1920), the Speaker of the Constitutional Assembly (1920–1922), and as the first President of Latvia (1922–1927).
Gustavs Zemgals was a Latvian politician and the second President of Latvia. He also was twice the mayor of Riga.
Alberts Kviesis was a Latvian politician who served as third President of Latvia from 1930 to 1936.
The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania defines the legal foundation for all laws passed in the Republic of Lithuania. The first constitution of the contemporary republic was enacted on 1 August 1922. The current constitution was adopted in a referendum on 25 October 1992.
The Coat of arms of the Republic of Latvia was officially adopted by the Constitutional Assembly of Latvia on 15 June 1921, and entered official use starting on 19 August 1921. It was created using new national symbols, as well as elements of the coats of arms of Polish and Swedish Livonia and of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. Thus, the coat of arms combines symbols of Latvian national statehood, as well as symbols of its historical regions. The Latvian national coat of arms was designed by Latvian artists Vilhelms Krūmiņš and Rihards Zariņš.
The Latvian War of Independence, sometimes called Latvia's freedom battles or the Latvian War of Liberation, was a series of military conflicts in Latvia between 5 December 1918, after the newly proclaimed Republic of Latvia was invaded by Soviet Russia, and the signing of the Latvian-Soviet Riga Peace Treaty on 11 August 1920.
The Constituent Assembly of Lithuania or Constituent Seimas was the first parliament of the independent state of Lithuania to be elected in a direct, democratic, general, secret election. The Assembly assumed its duties on 15 May 1920 and was disbanded in October 1922.
The Government of Austria is the executive cabinet of the Republic of Austria. It consists of the chancellor, who is the head of government, the vice chancellor and the ministers.
A parliamentary republic is a republic that operates under a parliamentary system of government where the executive branch derives its legitimacy from and is accountable to the legislature. There are a number of variations of parliamentary republics. Most have a clear differentiation between the head of government and the head of state, with the head of government holding real power and the head of state being a ceremonial position, similar to constitutional monarchies. In some countries the head of state has reserve powers to use at their discretion as a non-partisan "referee" of the political process. Some have combined the roles of head of state and head of government, much like presidential systems, but with a dependency upon parliamentary confidence.
The Constitution of Latvia is the fundamental law of the Republic of Latvia. Satversme is the oldest Eastern or Central European constitution still in force and the sixth oldest still-functioning republican basic law in the world. It was adopted, as it states itself in the text, by the people of Latvia, as represented in the Constitutional Assembly of Latvia, on 15 February 1922 and came into force on 7 November 1922. It was heavily influenced by Germany's Weimar Constitution and the Swiss Federal Constitution. The constitution establishes the main bodies of government ; it consists of 116 articles arranged in eight chapters.
Zigfrīds Anna Meierovics was a Latvian politician and diplomat who served as the first Foreign Minister of Latvia from its independence until 1924 and again from December of the same year until his death. He also served two terms as the Prime Minister of Latvia from June, 1921 to January, 1923 and from June 1923 to January, 1924. He was one of the founders of the Latvian Farmers' Union, one of Latvia's oldest political parties.
The Declaration "On the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia" was adopted on 4 May 1990 by the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR in which Latvia declared independence from the Soviet Union. The Declaration stated that, although Latvia had de facto lost its independence in 1940, when it was annexed by the Soviet Union, the country had de jure remained a sovereign country as the annexation had been unconstitutional and against the will of the Latvian people.
The president of Latvia is head of state and commander-in-chief of the National Armed Forces of the Republic of Latvia.
Marģers Skujenieks held the office of Prime Minister of Latvia twice from 19 December 1926 – 23 January 1928 and 6 December 1931 – 23 March 1933.
The Latvian Central Council was the pro-independence Latvian resistance movement during World War II from 1943 onwards. The LCC consisted of members from across the spectrum of former leading Latvian politicians and aimed to be the governing body of a democratic Republic of Latvia after the war. Its military units were an alternative to the Soviet partisans also operating in Latvia.
The Latvian Provisional Government was formed on November 18, 1918 by the People's Council of Latvia as the interim government of the newly-proclaimed Republic of Latvia during the Latvian War of Independence. The term encompasses three cabinets led by Kārlis Ulmanis, the leader of the Agrarian Union, who was chosen to be Prime Minister. The Ulmanis' government led the country until the formation of an elected cabinet after the elections to the Constitutional Assembly of Latvia in June 1920.
Parliamentary elections were held in Latvia on 14 and 15 July 1940, alongside simultaneous elections in Estonia and Lithuania, following the Soviet occupation of the three countries. The Communist Party of Latvia was legalised, and it created the "Latvian Working People's Bloc" to take part in the elections. It was the sole permitted participant in the elections; an attempt to include the Democratic Bloc, an alliance of all now-banned Latvian parties except the Social Democratic Workers' Party, on the ballot was suppressed.
The Federal Constitutional Law is a federal constitutional law in Austria serving as the centerpiece of the Constitution. It establishes Austria as a democratic federal parliamentary republic.
Latvian Provisional National Council was a political organization established on November 29, 1917 in Valka, Governorate of Livonia by the Latvian Refugee Support Central Committee, Latvian political parties and representatives from the Provisional Land Council of Vidzeme and the Provisional Land Council of Latgale. Due to German army advances, the National Council also met in Petrograd, in secrecy from the new Bolshevik regime.
The State Security Service or VDD is one of three Latvian security and intelligence services. VDD is the civilian counterintelligence and internal security service, which gathers intelligence from a number of sources and conducts its analysis, informs senior state officials about the identified risks to the national security as well as acts to neutralize those risks.