Aizsargi
1919–1940 Latvian voluntary militia
Aizsargi (lit. 'Defenders' or 'Guards'; officially – Latvian: Latvijas Aizsargu organizācija, lit. 'Guards Organization of Latvia', or LAO) was a volunteer paramilitary organization, militia with some characteristics of a military reserve force in Latvia during the interbellum period (1918–1939).
The Aizsargi was created on March 30, 1919, by the Latvian Provisional Government as a self-defense force - a kind of National Guard - during the Latvian War of Independence. In 1921, it was reorganized to follow the example of the Finnish Suojeluskunta (known as the "White Guard").
The Aizsargi published a newspaper, entitled Aizsargs ("Defender"/"Guard"), and the movement had subsidiary sections for women ("Aizsardzes", established in 1926) and youth ("Jaunsargi").The organization, along with the Latvian Army, provided military support to the 1934 coup d'état of Kārlis Ulmanis.
By 1 January 1940, the organization had a membership of 60,684: 31,874 guards (aizsargi), 14,810 women members (aizsardzes), and 14,000 youth members (jaunsargi). The organization consisted of 19 infantry regiments and the separate Railroad and Aviation Regiments.
On 23 June 1940, the organization was disbanded as a result of the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940. During the Soviet occupation, the former members of the LAO were heavily persecuted.
Post-independence status
After the restoration of the independence of Latvia, the Aizsargi organization was not re-established by the government, as the Latvian National Guard was formed in 1991 as the main volunteer defence force of the country. Since then, separate small-scale NGOs have claimed to be the successors of the original LAO, which sometimes espoused fringe right-wing political views, e.g.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2997781. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 1939, 1919 and 1921.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aizsargi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.