Aleksander Kesküla

Aleksander Eduard Kesküla (21 March 1882 Saadjärve fief, Tartumaa - 17 June 1963 Madrid, Spain) was an Estonian politician and revolutionary.

In 1905, as a bolshevik intended to create strife inside of the Russian empire and, as Elisabeth Heresch tried to prove, did it in Japanese spy's, Motohirto Akashi's interest. [Heresch, Elisabeth, Geheimakte Parvus, S. 84]

Kesküla studied politics and economics in the universities of Tartu, Berlin, Zürich, Leipzig and Bern.

In 1913. he became an Estonian nationalist and wanted to play a role in the world's political arena. [Erinnerungen an Aleksander Kesküla, Adolf Gasser. Zwischen Tallinn und Zürich, 2003] In 1914-1915, he informed the German government about Lenin´s plans and intended to use Bolshevik agitation to replace the Russian empire with a number of national states. 500,000 German Reichsmark was paid to Lenin by Germany using Kesküla as a conduit. ["Aleksander Kesküla", Proceedings of Estonian Academy of Sciences, 1991, 40, nr 1, lk 28—37]

In 1918, he founded the Estonian Office in Stockholm to seek the support of the Entente states for Estonian independence. He acted in such status, until the official Estonian delegation forbade him to do that. The Estonian delegation was skeptical about Kesküla and considered him a German agent.

Central in Keskülas' thought was the region of Baltic Sea. According to Keskülas' approach, Estonia had originally belonged to the Nordic region, but as a result of the German conquest in the 13th century it was included in the alien Central European cultural space. It then re-established its Nordic heritage in the 16-17th centuries and in the 18th century fell under the yoke of the even more alien Eastern European (Russian) sphere. Kesküla thought that Estonia should separate from Russia and restore its place among the Nordic countries that were becoming increasingly unified. [http://www.para-web.org/viewthread.php?tid=2857]

Kesküla's secretary was wrestler and weight-lifter Oskar Elevant.

In his later years, Kesküla acted as the teacher of politics for several young Spanish scientists. There were rumors that Kesküla met several high Nazi official in Spain during World War II to assess the possibility of a Gross-Estland empire under the condition that the Nazis accept Nordic unity. This has been unproven until now. [Jaanson, K. Aleksander Kesküla ja tema maailmanägemus. Acta Historica Talliniensia, 6, 2002. Lk 108-121]

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