Edgar Savisaar

Edgar Savisaar was an Estonian politician who founded the Estonian Centre Party and served as the first Prime Minister of Estonia after the country's restoration of independence. He was born on May 31, 1950, in Harku, then in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, and died on December 29, 2022.

Savisaar studied history at the University of Tartu and worked as an economist and planner in Soviet Estonia. In April 1988 he was one of the founders of the Popular Front of Estonia, a mass movement that became the principal vehicle for Estonian aspirations during the late Soviet period. He served as chairman of the State Planning Committee and deputy prime minister of the Estonian SSR.

From April 1990 he led the transitional government, and after the formal restoration of Estonian independence in August 1991 he continued as Prime Minister until January 1992. He left government briefly, then served as Minister of the Interior in the mid-1990s. In 1991 he founded the Estonian Centre Party, which he led, with one short interruption, until 2016.

Savisaar was elected mayor of Tallinn three times and held the post from 2007 to 2015, making him one of the longest-serving leaders of the Estonian capital. His later career was clouded by criminal proceedings related to party financing, in which he was eventually found partially guilty after a long trial. He suffered a leg amputation in 2015 and remained in poor health until his death in Tallinn.

The name Edgar comes from the Old English Eadgar, composed of the elements ead meaning wealth or fortune and gar meaning spear, traditionally interpreted as wealthy spear. He carried this masculine name throughout his political career.