Estonian statesman, lawyer, newspaper editor, and civic leader who opposed Russian (tsarist and communist) domination of his country.

In 1905, after a revolution had broken out in Russia, Tönisson founded the National Liberal Party in Estonia and in 1906 sat in the first Russian Duma (legislative assembly). Although he was expelled from Estonia by the Bolsheviks late in 1917, he took part in negotiations for Allied recognition of Estonian independence. During his term as prime minister (1919–20), Estonia, having repulsed the Red Army, obtained favourable peace terms from the Soviet Union. He later served Estonia as president (1927–28, 1933) and foreign minister (1931–32). Arrested by Soviet occupation forces in 1940, he was last heard of in a Tartu jail the following year.