Kristjan Seaver (1898 – 28 August 1941) was an Estonian Communist politician who was the chairman of the executive committee of

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 ...

from 17 January to 24 August 1941. He initially was a member of the Ravila branch of the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

. He later was involved in the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

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 ...

, and was a planner of the failed 1924 uprising in Estonia. For his part, he was arrested in September 1925 and was sentenced to life in prison. He was later granted amnesty in 1940 and later participated in the Soviet takeover of Estonia. Seaver later became the chairman of the executive committee of Tallinn from 17 January to 24 August 1941. He disbanded all representational authority. After he resigned on 24 August, on 28 August, he evacuated Tallinn with a number of representatives of other Soviet authorities due to the Nazi German invasion of Tallinn. He was killed when the

Baltic Fleet The Baltic Fleet () is the Naval fleet, fleet of the Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea. Established 18 May 1703, under Tsar Peter the Great as part of the Imperial Russian Navy, the Baltic Fleet is the oldest Russian fleet. In 1918, the fleet w ...

ship he was in, the destroyer ''

Yakov Sverdlov Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov ( – 16 March 1919) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A key Bolshevik organizer of the October Revolution of 1917, Sverdlov served as chairman of the Secretariat of the Russian Communist Party from ...

'', hit a

naval mine A naval mine is a self-contained explosive weapon placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Similar to anti-personnel mine, anti-personnel and other land mines, and unlike purpose launched naval depth charges, they are ...

in the

Gulf of Finland The Gulf of Finland (; ; ; ) is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland to the north and Estonia to the south, to Saint Petersburg—the second largest city of Russia—to the east, where the river Neva drains into it. ...

and sank. He was succeeded as mayor (during the Nazi occupation of Estonia) by Artur Terras.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seaver, Kristjan 1898 births 1941 deaths People from the Governorate of Estonia Old Bolsheviks Communist Party of Estonia politicians Mayors of Tallinn Soviet civilians killed in World War II Deaths due to shipwreck at sea 20th-century Estonian politicians

See also

References