Miķelis Valters

Miķelis Valters ( pronunciation : [ ˈmicɛlis ˈvalters ], German: Walters; * 13 April ^July / 25 April  1874 ^greg. In Liepāja (Libau); † March 27, 1968 in Nice , France) was a Latvian publicist, politician, Diplomat and poet. He was an early advocate of an independent Latvian state and in 1919 Minister of Interior of the Republic of Latvia .

Youth and Exile

Valters was born as the son of a dock worker in Libau (then Kurland Governorate ). As a railway worker and a graduate of the Libauer Realschule, he came into contact with socialist ideas. He was involved in the labor movement and worked for the newspaper "Dienas Lapa" in Riga. He also stayed briefly in Berlin, where he made contact with German socialists and attended lectures at the university. After returning to Latvia, on May 20, 1897, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for participating in the " New Current " movement . When he was to be sent into exile in Vyatka after serving his sentence , he managed to escape to Germany. He later went to Switzerland, where he studied political science at the University of Bern . With like-minded people he founded a "Western European Latvian Social Democratic Party" and published his radical views as an editor of various newspapers. He was the first (in contrast to the Bolsheviks) to call for a completely independent Latvian nation-state.

During the revolution of 1905 Valters was present in the Baltic States, but returned to Switzerland in 1906 and obtained his doctorate in political science in 1907 with his dissertation "Tolstoy according to his socio-economic, state-theoretical and political views". From 1909 to 1910 he completed his training at the Sorbonne in Paris and lived in London from 1912 to 1913.

Latvian independence

In May 1917 Valters traveled to Latvia and was elected to the "Provisional Council of Vidzemes". Together with Kārlis Ulmanis, he was one of the founders of the Latvian Farmers' Association and the Latvian People's Council . After the proclamation of the Republic of Latvia on November 18, 1918, he became the first Minister of the Interior and in this position negotiated with the Plenipotentiary of the German Reich Winnig and later with the commanding general of the German occupying power von der Goltz . He was briefly imprisoned in the Baltic coup on April 16. In his memoirs, Valters describes von der Goltz as "probably the only higher-ranking member of the government and therefore thinks more impartially about the Balts and Germans". Valters, in turn, quotes v. the. Goltz in his book Latvia : »The mildest thing that happened was that the Latvians were portrayed as uneducated, whereas the Baltic Germans were always draped as the“ old masters and cultural bearers of the country ”. Last but not least, Count von der Goltz looked for such and similar expressions with profound enthusiasm: Latvia was undeveloped, and nothing could ever come of the undeveloped country; But the whole country and people also owe everything to Germanic culture and civilization. Riga and Mitau in Latvian hands has something “absurd and reactionary” in the eyes of a Count von der Goltz and means for him a relapse into earlier cultural periods. "

From 1920 to 1940 Valter was the Latvian envoy to Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary and Belgium. When Ulmanis ruled authoritarian after 1934, Valters was one of the few who sharply criticized publicly and in private memoranda; probably for this reason he was transferred to the rather insignificant ambassadorial post in Brussels in 1937.

From 1940 Valters lived in Switzerland and continued to be active as a journalist after the Second World War in the spirit of a free Latvia. He died in Nice in 1968.

Writing activity

In addition to political writings, he also published art-theoretical writings (partly under the pseudonyms Dorupnieks and Ingmars Ingmarsons ) and the three volumes of poetry Tantris (1908), Ēnas uz akmeņiem (shadows on stones, 1910) and Mūžība (eternity, 1914) under the stage name Andrejs Papārde ; He also presented the two philosophical dramas Kristus atriebšanās (Christ's Vengeance, 1928) and Dievs un cilvēks (God and Man, 1930) as well as memoirs entitled Atmiņas un sapņi (Memories and Dreams, posthumously 1969). In order to raise awareness of the Republic of Latvia and the fate of the Baltic states in German-speaking countries, he published a. a. the books of Latvia. His development to the state and the Baltic questions (Rome 1923), Baltic thoughts and Baltic politics (Paris 1926; both under the name of Dr. M. Walters) and The crime against the Baltic states (1962).

Private

Miķelis Valters was married to Estere Papardīte (see Valters' stage name) until 1928. In 1930 he married Alise Ērika Vilsone. In 1938 he had an illegitimate son with Antonija Jākobsone.

literature

• Personal entry in Latvijas ārlietu dienesta darbinieki 1918–1991. Biogrāfiska vārdnīca , sast. Ē. Jēkabsons un V. Ščerbinskis (Latvijas Valsts vēstures arhīvs; Rīga: Zinātne 2003), 437. lpp., 316. – 318. lpp.
• Jānis Akuraters : Miķelis Valters (Andrejs Papārde) (50 gadu atskatam) (portrait of the poet on the occasion of his 50th birthday) in: Latvju Grāmata No. 3/1924, p. 216 ff.

Web links

Article Nepieciešams solis (A necessary step) in the daily newspaper Jaunākās Ziņas No. 245 of October 29, 1927 (PDF, 11.9 MB) , p. 1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry in the baptismal register of St. Anne's Church in Libau (Latvian: Liepājas sv. Annas baznīca)
2. ↑ Von der Goltz: My broadcast in Finland and in the Baltic States (KF Koehler, Leipzig 1920), p. 125
3. ↑ dspace.ut.ee: Latvia, its development as a state and the Baltic questions
4. ↑ Latvijas rakstniecība biogrāfijās (2nd edition, Riga: Zinātne 2003), 612. lpp.