The People's Council of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Tautas padome, LTP) was a temporary council which declared
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
's
independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the st ...
on November 18, 1918 and then acted as the temporary
parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
of the country until a
Constitutional Assembly was elected.
The People's Council was formed on November 17, 1918 as a result of merging two councils of Latvian organizations:
Latvian Provisional National Council
Latvian Provisional National Council (, LPNP) was a political organization established on November 29, 1917 (November 16 in the Julian calendar) in Valka, Governorate of Livonia by the Latvian Refugee Support Central Committee, Latvian political p ...
( lv, Latvijas Pagaidu Nacionālā padome'','' LPNP) and the
Democratic Bloc. Originally, the People's Council had 40 members representing all the major Latvian political organizations, except the far right and the far left (
communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
). It was later expanded to 245 representatives.
On November 18, 1918, the People's Council declared Latvia an independent country at the now
National Theatre of Latvia. It chose
Jānis Čakste
Jānis Kristaps Čakste (14 September 1859 – 14 March 1927) was a Latvian politician and lawyer who served as the first head of an independent Latvian state as the Chairman of the People's Council (1918–1920), the Speaker of the Constituti ...
as the President of the Council and
Kārlis Ulmanis
Kārlis Augusts Vilhelms Ulmanis (; 4 September 1877 – 20 September 1942) was a Latvian politician. He was one of the most prominent Latvian politicians of pre- World War II Latvia during the Interwar period of independence from November 1918 t ...
as the
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is n ...
of the
Latvian Provisional Government
The Latvian Provisional Government ( lv, Latvijas Pagaidu valdība) was formed on November 18, 1918 by the People's Council of Latvia as the interim government of the newly-proclaimed Republic of Latvia during the Latvian War of Independence. Th ...
.
The People's Council acted as a temporary parliament of Latvia until May 1, 1920 when the Constitutional Assembly was elected.
References
External links
Tautas padome
Political history of Latvia
1918 establishments in Latvia
{{Latvia-hist-stub
Independence of Latvia