Tõnis Kalbus

Tõnis Kalbus (born November 22 ^{. Jul} / 4. December  1880 ^greg. In Tori , Pärnu county , Livonia ; † 20th March 1942 in the prison camp Sosva, Sverdlovsk Oblast , Soviet Union ) was an Estonian lawyer and politician.

Early years

Tõnis Kalbus was born to Jaan (1848–1909) and Mari Kalbus (née Kask, 1856–1930) on the Kõrveoja farm. He first attended school in Selja . In 1896 he graduated from Tori parish school. From 1899 to 1901 he worked as a community clerk in Taali . He then worked at the Viljandi-Pärnu Peace Court.

From 1905 to 1909 Kalbus was employed by the building management of the Pärnu narrow-gauge railway . In 1909 he passed his Abitur as an external student at the boys' high school in Pärnu . He then went to Moscow to study . In 1913 he joined the Moscow University with a degree in jurisprudence from.

politics

From 1913 to 1919 Kalbus worked as a lawyer in Rakvere . There he was also politically active. 1914 became the chairman of the city council. He held the office until 1919. After the February Revolution of 1917, he was appointed head of the militia in Viru County by the government , and later Commissioner for the County. The Provisional Government of the Republic of Estonia appointed him chairman of the Rakvere-Paide Magistrate's Court in 1918.

With the establishment of the Republic of Estonia in 1918, Kalbus took over leading positions in the state. He was friends with the founding father of the Estonian Social Democracy, Jüri Vilms (1889–1918). Kalbus became a member of the constituent assembly ( Asutav Kogu ) of the young republic and belonged to the democratically elected parliament ( Riigikogu ) in all five legislative periods in the interwar period .

Kalbus became one of the leading figures of the Estonian Labor Party ( Eesti Tööerakond ). From December 1925 to July 1926 he was Estonian Minister of Justice in the cabinet of Prime Minister Jaan Teemant . He held the same office from December 1927 to December 1928 in the coalition government under Jaan Tõnisson . He was then until July 1929 in the government of August Rei and until April 1930 in the following cabinet under August Strandman Estonian court and interior minister.

With the Soviet occupation of Estonia Tõnis Kalbus been inside the Soviet Union deported . He died in the Gulag in March 1942 .

Private life

Tonis Kalbus was married to Salme Sophie Kalbus (née Kollist, 1884–1973). The couple had two sons and a daughter.

While his son Endel (1914–?) Was also deported and his trail is lost in the Gulag, Kalbus' wife and the other two children escaped this fate.