Contemporaries Insights about Kārlis Ulmanis

Kārlis Ulmanis is a controversial person, who has a lot of different adherents, but also deniers. In contemporaries’ opinions, Kārlis Ulmanis was not as much thinker as a worker, who relied on his own intuition. He hated long hesitation, was a politician who had the will of iron, huge energy, love for work, deep, true patriotism and modesty in personal life. He never got married, dressed and ate simply, wasn’t interested in money, nor belongings. He donated good amount of income to his political party and later to charity. However, in observers’ opinion, Kārlis Ulmanis work and success drastically raised his self- assurance and possibly made him more arrogant and righteous. He was used to deciding everything on his own; he would barely notice his advisors and overlooked their advices if he hadn’t asked for them himself. Although he listened to others opinions before making the final decision, he expected absolute trust and reliance on him after the decision had been made in its implementation process.
The Issues where Kārlis Ulmanis and his activities had been judged inconsistently.
One of these questions was about how to proclaim the new state of Latvia. Contemporaries memories show that beliefs and ideas how to proclaim an independent Latvia were different between Kārlis Ulmanis and other persons. Shortly before Latvia’s proclamation, Ulmanis had disagreements with employees of Union of Greens and Farmers Riga’s Department, who wanted to proclaim Latvia’s independence themselves. These first disagreements between Ulmanis and employers of Union of Greens and Farmers Riga’s department actually never truly disappeared and Union of Greens and Farmers wanted to replace K. Ulmanis after peace treaty between Germany and USSR was signed.
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