Kārlis Ducmanis

Kārlis Ducmanis (born November 10, 1881 in Branti , Livonia Governorate , † August 20, 1943 in Kirow ) was a Latvian lawyer, publicist and diplomat during the time of Latvia's first independence.

Life

Ducmanis was born in the municipality of Branti in what was then the governorate of Livonia. He attended schools in Rauna , Cēsis and Jelgava . From 1902 to 1913 he studied law in Saint Petersburg . In addition, he was the head of the Pēterburgas Avīzes (Petersburg newspaper) and politically active in terms of Latvian autonomy. From 1913 he worked as a lawyer in Riga and also published the newspaper "Līdums".

During the First World War he was involved in the "Latvian Refugee Committee" in Vitebsk . In 1918 the Republic of Latvia was proclaimed. Ducmanis was first envoy in Denmark and from 1923 consul general in Sweden. In 1925 he became a delegate to the League of Nations in Geneva. He was also the Latvian ambassador for Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. From 1936 to 1940 he was a senator in the Supreme Court of Latvia.

When Latvia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, Ducmanis initially cooperated and was active as a translator. On June 14, 1941, however, he was arrested and taken to Kirov prison. On December 5, 1942, he was sentenced to five years in a prison camp for “fighting the revolutionary movement” . Ducmanis died on August 20, 1943 in the camp in Kirov.

Web links

• Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Literature by and about Kārlis Ducmanis in the bibliographic database WorldCat