Estonian politician and lawyer
Otto Tief
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Tief, c. 1930
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Born
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1889-08-14
)
14 August 1889
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Died
| 5 March 1976
(1976-03-05)
(aged 86)
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Nationality
| Estonia
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Occupation(s)
| Lawyer
Prime Minister
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Otto Tief
(14 August [
O.S.
2 August] 1889
[1]
– 5 March 1976) was an
Estonian
politician, military commander, and a lawyer.
Tief was the
acting prime minister
of the last
government of Estonia
[2]
[3]
before
Soviet troops
occupied
Estonia
in
the Second World War
in September 1944. Due to his commitment to his country, Tief is regarded by many of his fellow countrymen as a symbol of national resistance.
Education and career
[
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]
Tief studied law in
St Petersburg
between 1910 and 1916. During the
Estonian War of Independence
, Tief was a commander in the
Kalevlaste Maleva
battalion formed in 1918 by members of the
Kalev sports society
. Following the war, he graduated in law from the
University of Tartu
in 1921. He served as legal counsel to Eesti Maapank (the Estonian Land-Bank) and also worked in private practice as a lawyer. Tief was elected to parliament (third
Riigikogu
) in 1926 and served as the Minister of Social Affairs from 1926 to 1927. In 1928, he was the Minister of Justice. In 1932, he was elected to the fifth Riigikogu.
Tief government of 1944
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]
During the turbulent days in September 1944, between the retreat of the
German
occupation forces in
Estonia
and the advancement of the
Red Army
, the acting
President
of the
Republic of Estonia
Juri Uluots
appointed Tief
Prime Minister
and asked him to form a
government
on 18 September 1944. Tief then published a proclamation, re-establishing the independence of the Republic of Estonia on the basis of legal continuity, and attempted to organise the defence of
Tallinn
against the invading
Red Army
, which pushed into the capital on 22 September 1944.
Members of the Tief's government:
Aftermath
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Otto Tief was arrested by the Soviet
NKVD
on 10 October 1944. In 1945, the Soviet occupation authorities sentenced him to ten years of imprisonment in the Siberian
Gulag
. While in imprisonment, in January 1953, he was removed in absentia from the
Estonian government-in-exile
by
August Rei
. After being able to return briefly to Soviet-occupied Estonia in 1955, Tief was again forced to live in exile in
Soviet Ukraine
until 1965, when he was permitted to relocate closer to home, and he could then reside just on the other side of the Estonian border in
Latvia
. When Tief died on 5 March 1976, the
Soviet security services
would not allow his burial in Estonia. After Estonia regained independence in 1991, Tief was reinterred and reburied in his home country, in the national cemetery in
Tallinn
, in 1993.
Tief's symbolic significance
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Tief held power for only a brief period of time (18?22 September 1944), and his efforts were rapidly undone by the invading
Red Army
. However, Tief's actions have immense symbolic and legal significance, as his proclaiming of the restoration of the
Republic of Estonia
, as well as the accompanying raising of the
Estonian flag
atop the tower of
Pikk Hermann
high above Tallinn at the seat of power in the
Toompea
quarter negates
Soviet historiography
's claims, according to which the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet
Red Army
in September 1944 constituted "the liberation of Estonia".
[5]
[6]
Although the attempt to restore Estonian independence in September 1944 did not succeed, the Tief government proved to be an integral and indispensable part of the
de jure
continuity of the Republic of Estonia.
Commemoration
[
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]
In February 2007, the Estonian parliament decided to commemorate the actions of Tief's government by proclaiming 22 September the annual "Day of Resistance". 22 September 1944 was the day, several days after the departure of
Nazi Germany
's occupying forces, that Stalin´s invading Red Army took over the administrative centre of Tallinn, tore down the
Estonian national flag
, and replaced it with
the Red Banner
, the symbol of Soviet occupation.
[7]
References
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Citations
[
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
- Miljan, Toivo (2004).
Historical Dictionary of Estonia
. Maryland, USA: Scarecrow Press.
ISBN
0-8108-4904-6
.
- Otto Tief, "Malestusi aastaist 1944?1954" ? Akadeemia 1990, nr. 2, lk. 231?250
(in Estonian)
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