[1] Eduards Berklavs was born in Kurmāle Parish, which is part of the Kuldīga Municipality as of today.
After Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union in the 1940, Berklavs, with a background as a Komsomol and Communist Party official, rose to become the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of Latvian SSR in the 1950s.
He later wrote the Letter of 17 Latvian communists, where he accused the Soviet government of "Great Russian chauvinism" and the "forced assimilation".
He was one of the founders and the first chairman of Latvian National Independence Movement (LNNK), a pro-independence political organization.
He was simultaneously active in Latvian Popular Front and the Congress of Citizens of Latvia.