Gottlieb Jaan Ast (2 March 1874 – 15 December 1919) was an Estonian politician who was the mayor of

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

from June to July 1919. Ast graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tartu in 1906. Afterwards, he became involved in politics and was active in southern

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

as a socialist agitator. After the failed

1905 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...

, he emigrated to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

in 1906 and to

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and later the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, but returned to Estonia after the

February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...

. After returning to Estonia, he joined the Estonian Social Democratic Workers' Party and was elected as a representative of the party to the Tallinn City Government and was later the mayor of Tallinn, where he served for one month, from June to July 1919. He died of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

in December 1919 and was buried in

Rahumäe cemetery Rahumäe ( Estonian for ''"Peace Hill"'' or ''"Quiet Hill"'') is a subdistrict ( et, asum) in the district of Nõmme, Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. It covers an area of and has a population of 3,075 (), population density is . Rahumäe has a ...

. His younger brother was politician and writer

Karl Ast Karl Ast (pseudonym: Karl Rumor, 19 February 1886, Orava – 9 July 1971, New York City) was an Estonian writer and politician.Arvo Mägi, ''Estonian literature: an outline'', Baltic Humanitarian Association, 1968 Life Ast's older brother, G ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ast, Gottlieb 1874 births 1919 deaths People from Võru Parish People from Kreis Werro Estonian Social Democratic Workers' Party politicians Mayors of Tallinn Estonian expatriates in Germany Estonian expatriates in Switzerland Estonian expatriates in the United States University of Tartu alumni 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Estonia Burials at Rahumäe Cemetery

See also

References