Päts was one of the most influential politicians of the independent democratic Republic of Estonia, and during the two decades prior to World War II he also served five times as the country's State Elder (equivalent to both president and prime minister).

After the 16–17 June 1940 Soviet invasion and occupation of Estonia, Päts remained formally in office for over a month, until he was forced to resign, imprisoned by the new Stalinist regime, and deported to the USSR, where he died in 1956.

After the February Revolution in 1917, Päts headed the provincial government of the newly formed Autonomous Governorate of Estonia, which was forced to go underground after the Bolshevik coup in November 1917.

Päts was the Speaker of the Parliament (Riigikogu) (1922–1923)[2] and served five times as State Elder, a post equivalent to that of president in Estonia's radically parliamentarian system (1921–1922, 1923–1924, 1931–1932, 1932–1933, and 1933–1934).

Päts' father Jakob was one of the Estonian nationalist farmers, who in 1865 petitioned to Emperor Alexander II of Russia to remove the (what they considered oppressive) aristocratic privileges of Baltic German landowners.

Jakob divided his land into smaller lots and built half a dozen new houses on the site, which eventually grew into a borough, and later became a district of Pärnu.

According to locals' memories, he was born on a neighbouring roadside farm, since his mother could not reach a doctor in time and was unable to make the last few kilometers back home.

10 October] 1901, starting a rivalry not only between Postimees and Teataja, but also between Jaan Tõnisson and Konstantin Päts personally for the position of leadership in the Estonian nationalist movement.

Because of the lack of Päts’ supervision of Teataja, a group of revolutionaries, led by Hans Pöögelmann, had managed to take control in the newspaper’s staff and publish anti-government articles, calling people for a revolution.

[20] On 28 November 1918, the Soviet Russian Red Army invaded Estonia and conquered the border city of Narva, marking the beginning of the Estonian War of Independence.

After the war with Soviet Russia had also ended with Estonian victory on 2 February 1920, the majority left-wing Constituent Assembly adopted a radical land reform law and the first constitution, which brought about a proportionally representative and very fractured parliament, rapidly changing government cabinets, and a nominal head of state whose office had little more than ceremonial powers only.

[22] In 1920 elections, the party won 21 seats in the 100-member Riigikogu and from 25 January 1921 to 21 November 1922, Konstantin Päts was the State Elder and led the first constitutional government cabinet.

The cabinet fell soon after the centre-left Estonian Labour Party left the coalition because of Päts's right-wing policies and criticism of corruption within the Bank of Estonia.

Otto August Strandman had openly criticized Päts for his role in corruption within the Bank of Estonia and economic policies that depended on trade with Russia.

[25] At the 6th Congress of Farmers' Assemblies in 1929, the party was in opposition to August Rei's leftist government and Päts, among others, demanded changes in the constitution, a smaller parliament, a separate presidential office and fight against corruption.

[27] In 1932 elections the newly formed Union of Settlers and Smallholders won 42 seats in Riigikogu and one of the party's leaders, Karl August Einbund, became the State Elder.

On 3 October 1932, the coalition between the Union of Settlers and Smallholders and National Centre Party broke up, with the latter wanting to devalue the Estonian kroon during the Great Depression.

In September, the Agitation and Propaganda Department was created,[38] in October, all parliamentary work was suspended after the opposition criticized the political restrictions[39] and in December, censorship was introduced.

[43][44][45][46][47][48] Päts believed that a nation should be organized not by political views into parties, but by vocation into respective chambers, and a series of state corporative institutions were thus introduced, following in big part the example of contemporary corporatism in Fascist Italy.

Losing the Supreme Court and some faculties in the university definitely reduced the importance of Tartu in Southern Estonia - the town that had historically been supportive to Päts's opponent Jaan Tõnisson.

[68] The Soviet invaders allowed Päts to stay in office, but he was forced already on 21 June 1940 to appoint a new pro-Soviet puppet government with Johannes Vares as prime minister.

After the visit, it was claimed that both Konstantin and Viktor demonstrated particular viciousness against Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov, sympathized with Germany, and announced that they were impatiently waiting for a German assault on the Soviet Union.

[43] In late 1930s, as the Stalinist Soviet Union took a more aggressive interest in the Baltic countries, Estonia attempted to move closer to Germany in its foreign policy.

Päts also supported giving concession rights of the Narva River hydroelectric power plant to the German enterprise Siemens-Schuckert Werke that already had many projects in Russia and was influenced by it.

[97] Finnish historian Martti Turtola claims that Päts's actions were in accordance with the Soviet Union's demands already since the signing of the Soviet–Estonian Mutual Assistance Treaty on 28 September 1939 and he did not even once try to find more suitable compromises.

[100] According to international law and the Estonian constitution, Päts's actions were of no effect from the beginning of the occupation, or at least from 21 June 1940, when Andrei Zhdanov forced him to appoint a puppet cabinet led by Johannes Vares.

Estonia's official position since the end of the Soviet era has been that the laws passed by the Vares cabinet and promulgated by Päts were void in any case as they were not ratified by the parliament's upper chamber, the National Council (Riiginõukogu), as required by the constitution.

From 1940 onward, his active duties went to the last pre-occupation Prime Minister Jüri Uluots, who let Otto Tief form a government in 1944, before the Soviet reoccupation.

After Uluots died in Stockholm in 1945, presidential duties went to the oldest member of Tief's cabinet, August Rei, who formed the Estonian Government in Exile in 1953.

In the puppet political satire show Pehmed ja karvased Päts is portrayed as a talking bust sculpture that is placed in the cellar of a governmental building together with other former presidents.