In Moscow, not Riga, the legal fiction of the summer of 1940 reached its end on August 5: after a “request” from the delegation of the People’s Saeima elected under occupation, Latvia, as the Latvian SSR, was admitted into the USSR. Latvian sources treat this date as the formal completion of the annexation: the Constitution required a referendum for changing the state order, but no referendum was held. Part of Latvia’s diplomatic service abroad continued to operate on the position of state legal continuity.
This step followed the entry of Soviet troops into Latvia on June 17, 1940, the installation of a puppet government, and the July 14–15 People’s Saeima elections without real political competition. The later Western policy of non-recognition became an important argument for Latvia’s state continuity.
Related events
- 1915On August 5, 1915, New Style, the Northwestern Front headquarters signed the rules establishing Latvian Riflemen battalions; the first were the Daugavgrīva and Riga battalions.
- 1995On the morning of August 5, 1995, Livonians and their guests gathered in Mazirbe for the Liv Festival; the programme included “Līvlist,” “Kāndla,” and the Riga Cathedral Boys’ Choir.
- 2017On August 5, 2017, Balvi town park unveiled architect Didzis Jaunzems’s environmental object “Gaiss,” a wind-chime tree with 324 pipes that responds to moving air.