On 15 April 1875, Frīdrihs Vesmanis was born at Kraukļi in Rundāle parish – a lawyer, Social Democrat, and an early symbolic figure of Latvian parliamentarism. After the persecution of the New Current, he lived in exile in London, later became mayor of Jelgava, and served as a member of the Constitutional Assembly and the 1st Saeima. In November 1922, Vesmanis was elected the first Speaker of the Saeima, and later represented Latvia as envoy to the United Kingdom.
Vesmanis’s life story links the era of the New Current, the experience of the 1905 Revolution, and the parliamentary state of independent Latvia. The end of his career was marked by the violence of the Soviet occupation – in 1941 he was arrested, deported, and died in the Solikamsk prison camps.
Related events
- 1837On 15 April, Atis Kronvalds was born – a Young Latvian publicist, linguist, and educator who vigorously defended the rights of Latvian language and culture.
- 1914On 15 April, the 100th performance of the 1911 staging of Rainis’s play “Fire and Night” took place – the first such case in Latvian theatre history.
- 1917On 15 April, Dobele was granted town rights – an important step in the modern municipal development of this historic Zemgale centre.
Footnotes
- 1.https://enciklopedija.lv/skirklis/173259-Fr%C4%ABdrihs-Vesmanis
- 2.https://www.saeima.lv/lv/par-saeimu/likumdeveju-vesture/fridrihs-vesmanis-1
- 3.https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atis_Kronvalds
- 4.https://enciklopedija.lv/skirklis/96065-%E2%80%9CUguns-un-nakts%E2%80%9D
- 5.https://enciklopedija.lv/skirklis/252342-Dobele