Arnold Susi (; 4 January 1896 – 29 May 1968) was a lawyer and the Minister of Education in the

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

n government of

Otto Tief Otto Tief ( – 5 March 1976) was an Estonian politician, military commander, and a lawyer. Tief was the acting prime minister of the last government of Estonia

established on 18 September 1944 during

WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. In 1945, Susi befriended

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

in a Soviet prison. In the 1960s, when writing ''

The Gulag Archipelago ''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' () is a three-volume nonfiction series written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident. It was first published in 1973 by the Parisian ...

'' Solzhenitsyn hid at Susi's country house in Estonia. Solzhenitsyn also briefly describes his meeting with Arnold Susi in that book. Susi also wrote his memoirs of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in ''Doom of the Russian Empire'' (in Estonian: ''Vene impeeriumi hukk''), which he wrote while in

Abakan Abakan ( ; , ) is the capital city of Khakassia, Russia, located in the central part of the Minusinsk Depression, at the confluence of the Yenisei and Abakan Rivers. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 165,214—a slight incre ...

. He died in

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

, aged 72. In 2019, the Estonian

Ministry of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

created the

Heli Heli, also ''heli'', ''heli-'' may refer to: People * Heli, King of Britain (mythical) * Heli (Bible), listed as an ancestor of Jesus * Heli (name) Places * Heli, Tangyuan County (鹤立镇), town in Tangyuan County, Heilongjiang, China * H ...

and Arnold Susi Mission Award for the Courage to Speak Out, which recognizes individuals who have dared to use the power of their words to stand up for democratic values and human rights.

References

1896 births 1968 deaths People from Uspensky District People from Kuban oblast Government ministers of Estonia 20th-century Estonian lawyers Estonian anti-communists Estonian Gulag detainees Estonian people imprisoned in the Soviet Union 20th-century Estonian politicians {{Estonia-politician-stub