Jüri Uluots

Who was Jüri Uluots?

Jüri Uluots was an Estonian prime minister, journalist, prominent attorney and distinguished Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Tartu.

Uluots was born in Kirbla Parish, Lääne County in 1890 and studied law at St. Petersburg University in 1910 – 1918. He subsequently taught Roman and Estonian law at the University of Tartu until 1944. Uluots was also an editor of the Kaja newspaper from 1919–1920, and editor-in-chief of Postimees from 1937–38.

Uluots was elected to the Riigikogu, the Estonian parliament, for 1920–1926, and from 1929 through 1932. He was speaker of the Riigivolikogu from 4 April 1938 to 12 October 1939. Uluots then served as prime minister from 1939 until June 1940 when Soviet troops entered Estonia and installed a new Soviet puppet government led by Johannes Vares, whereas Uluots' constitutional government went underground. The communist puppet government was never recognized by the United States, United Kingdom and other western powers who considered it and the August 1940 annexation of Estonia into the USSR illegal.