In Geneva on 22 September 1921, Latvia’s name was entered on the membership roll of the League of Nations. The vote was not a gesture of symbolic courtesy – 38 states supported admission, while 10 abstained or were absent, and Latvia was admitted together with Estonia and Lithuania. After war, exile and diplomatic missions, it was a cool phrase in the language of international law: the new republic no longer stood in the anteroom, but sat at the table of the world’s states.

Admission to the League of Nations completed the first major arc of Latvia’s foreign policy after the proclamation of independence and de jure recognition on 26 January 1921. Interwar Latvia placed hopes for security in the organization, but the occupation of 1940 showed how fragile the Versailles system’s guarantees were for small states.