As the Russian and German empires collapsed at the close of World War I, Latvian national leaders convened in Riga's National Theatre to declare an independent republic. The new state faced immediate threats from Bolshevik Russia and German forces, leading to a brutal war of independence that lasted until 1920, when Latvia secured its sovereignty through the Treaty of Riga.
The declaration came at a precarious hinge point in European history. Germany's army, which had occupied much of Latvia, was collapsing following its defeat on the Western Front, while Bolshevik Russia eyed the Baltic territories as ripe for revolutionary expansion. Into this vacuum stepped the Latvian People's Council, a coalition of political factions that unanimously declared independence at the National Theatre in Riga.
Kārlis Ulmanis, a former agronomist who had studied in the United States, became the head of the provisional government. His fledgling state had almost no army, no recognized borders, and enemies on every side including a Bolshevik invasion within weeks that briefly captured Riga itself.
Latvia's independence war dragged on for nearly two years, involving Latvian, German, Estonian, Polish, and Soviet Russian forces in shifting alliances. The country secured formal recognition through the Treaty of Riga with Soviet Russia in 1920, only to lose its independence again in 1940 under Soviet occupation, a cycle it would not break free of permanently until 1991.