In 1934 – during the night of 15 to 16 May – Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis, with the support of War Minister Jānis Balodis, carried out a coup d’état. In the early hours of 16 May, Ulmanis arrived at Riga Castle and informed President Alberts Kviesis that power had been seized. The Constitution and the Saeima were suspended, a state of emergency was declared, and Ulmanis’s authoritarian regime began, ending parliamentary democracy in interwar Latvia.
The coup took place at a time when authoritarianism was gaining strength across Europe, although Latvia’s democratic system had not collapsed. Ulmanis’s regime promised order and national unity, but in practice it abolished party politics, parliamentary oversight, and the normal operation of the Constitution.
Related events
- 1941On 16 May 1941, Lavrentiy Beria and Vsevolod Merkulov submitted to Joseph Stalin a draft decision on the “cleansing” of the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian SSRs of anti-Soviet, criminal, and antisocial elements – a document connected with the preparation of the 14 June deportations.
- 1957On 16 May 1957, Andris Vilks was born in Riga – a book scholar and director of the National Library of Latvia from 1989 to 2024, during whose tenure the Castle of Light was built and Latvia’s library sector was substantially modernized.
- 1877On 16 May 1877, Jānis Seskis was born in Vaive Parish – one of the pioneers of Latvian diplomacy, a participant in the foreign-affairs work of the Latvian National Council, and later Latvia’s envoy to Estonia and the USSR.
Footnotes
- 1.https://enciklopedija.lv/skirklis/119045-1934-gada-15-maija-apv%C4%93rsums
- 2.https://www.president.lv/lv/Alberts-Kviesis
- 3.https://lvportals.lv/norises/363468-nakts-aizsega-tautas-un-vestures-varda-atskats-uz-15-maija-apversumu-pec-90-gadiem-2024
- 4.https://lvportals.lv/norises/175289-1934-gada-15-maijs-un-latviskaka-latvija-2008
- 5.https://enciklopedija.lv/skirklis/108548-1941-gada-14-j%C5%ABnija-deport%C4%81cija-
- 6.https://enciklopedija.lv/skirklis/257832-Andris-Vilks
- 7.https://www.vestnesis.lv/ta/id/25306
- 8.https://www.vestnesis.lv/ta/id/1405