Ado Birk


Ado Birk, was an Estonian politician who was the Estonian Prime Minister for three days, from 28 July 1920 to 30 July 1920.

Biography

Ado Birk was born in Kulbisaare farmstead, Mõnnaste village, Tarvastu Parish, Kreis Fellin, Governorate of Livonia. He graduated from the Theological Seminary in Riga, studied in the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy, and in the law departments of the Tartu, Saint Petersburg and Leipzig universities.
Between 1911–1912 he was Head of the Tallinn Statistical Bureau. From 1912–1917 he worked as a solicitor to barrister Jaan Poska.
In 1917 he was made provisional secretary of the Estonian Province Assembly, and in 1918 was made representative of Estonia in Helsinki, Finland. From 1918 to 1919 he was Chairman of Estonian Province Assembly and chairman of General Committee of Elections to the Constituent Assembly. From 1919 to 1920 he was vice chairman of Constituent Assembly and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was prime minister for three days from 28 July 1920 to 30 July 1920. Between 1917–1924, Birk was also chairman of the Tallinn Voluntary Society of Firemen, in 1919–1922 chairman of the All-Estonian Union of Firemen. He was again appointed foreign minister in 1925 but on a caretaker capacity.
He served in the Estonian mission to Russia from 1922 to 1926. An account detailed how he was recruited by the Soviet's department of intelligence acting under a false flag.
In the second half of 1920s and in the 1930s, he became active in the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, and in 1939–1940 was the Ecumenical Secretary of the EAOC whilst serving as a businessman in Tallinn.
With the onset of the Second World War, he was arrested by the NKVD and on 14 June 1941, was in the Sosva prison camp, and was sentenced to death but died before the execution at Sosva, Sverdlovsk oblast, Russia.