Riga unveils plaque to first woman elected to Latvia’s parliament

Riga has unveiled a memorial plaque to Berta Pīpiņa, the first woman elected to the Saeima, Latvia’s parliament, and her husband, Ērmanis Pīpiņš-Vizulis. The plaque was revealed on Monday, her birthday, LSM reported.

It is mounted on the building at 69 Ģertrūdes Street, which Pīpiņa’s husband built and where the family lived. The idea for the plaque came from legal historian Liene Dreimane.

Pīpiņa’s granddaughter, Māra Sātiņa, attended the unveiling. She returned to Latvia after living in the United States. Sātiņa said she did not remember her grandmother: she was two when Pīpiņa was taken to Siberia, where she died in Tomsk.

Sātiņa said her family left the house in 1944, when she was five. “We left when the Russians were coming in. We went to Germany, where my mother was a dentist,” she said. She described Pīpiņa as an exceptional woman and said she had been proud of her throughout her life.

Pīpiņa served as a member of the 4th Saeima and was especially active on family issues, her granddaughter said. Pīpiņa was also a Riga City Council member and founded the Latvian Women’s National League, according to Agnese Strautiņa, director of the Riga Monuments Agency.

Strautiņa said Pīpiņa was among the best-known women from Latvia and wore Latvian folk dress at congresses abroad to represent the country.