The Estonian Provincial Assembly or Estonian State Diet, also known by its Estonian language name Maapäev, was elected in May–June 1917 during the Russian Revolution as the provincial parliament (diet) of the autonomous Governorate of Estonia. On 28 November 1917, after the Bolshevik coup in Petrograd (then Saint Petersburg, capital of Russia), the Assembly declared itself the sole sovereign power in the governorate of Estonia and called for the elections of Estonian Constituent Assembly. On the eve of the German occupation of Estonia during World War I the council of elders the Maapäev elected the Estonian Salvation Committee, who went on to issue the Estonian Declaration of Independence on 24 February 1918.
