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| Etymology | |
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The name Latvija comes from the ancient Latgallians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, who along with Couronians, Selonians and Semigallians formed the ethnic core of today’s Latvian people.[17]
[edit] Tags:Latgallians,Indo-european,Baltic Tribes,Couronians,Selonians,Semigallians, | |
| History | |
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Main article: History of Latvia
See also: List of museums in Latvia
History of Latvia
This article is part of a series
Ancient Latvia
Kunda culture
Narva culture
Corded Ware culture
Amber Road and Aesti
Baltic Finns: Livonians, Vends
Latgalians, Curonians, Selonians, Semigallians
Middle ages
Principality of Jersika, Principality of Koknese
Livonian Crusade, Livonian Brothers of the Sword, Livonian Order
Archbishopric of Riga, Bishopric of Courland
Terra Mariana
Early modern period
Livonian War
Kingdom of Livonia
Duchy of Livonia, Duchy of Courland and Semigallia
Polish–Swedish war (1600-1629), Second Northern War
Swedish Livonia, Inflanty Voivodeship
Great Northern War
Governorate of Livonia, Courland Governorate
Modern Latvia
Latvian National Awakening, New Current
German occupation, Latvian Riflemen, United Baltic Duchy, Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic
War of Independence
Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, Occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany, Occupation of Latvia by Soviet Union 1944–1945
Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic
Popular Front of Latvia
Singing Revolution
Restoration of Independence
Republic of Latvia
Chronology
Latvia Portal
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Around the beginning of the third millennium BC (3000 BC), the proto-Baltic ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.[18] The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals.[19] By 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia: Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians[citation needed] (in Latvian: kurši, latgaļi, sēļi and zemgaļi), as well as the Livonians (lībieši) speaking a Finnic language.
[edit] Tags:Riga,Livonians,Latgalian,Livonia,German,Swedish,Nazi German,Soviet,Latgalia,Courland,Soviet Union,Nazi Germany,Singing Revolution,Kunda Culture,Narva Culture,Corded Ware Culture,Amber Road,Aesti,Baltic Finns,Vends,Latgalians,Curonians,Principality Of Jersika,Principality Of Koknese,Livonian Crusade,Livonian Brothers Of The Sword,Livonian Order,Archbishopric Of Riga,Bishopric Of Courland,Livonian War,Kingdom Of Livonia,Duchy Of Livonia,Duchy Of Courland And Semigallia,Polish–swedish War (1600-1629),Second Northern War,Swedish Livonia,Inflanty Voivodeship,Great Northern War,Governorate Of Livonia,New Current,German Occupation,United Baltic Duchy,Baltic Sea,Balts,Rome,Byzantium,Amber,Terra Mariana,Koknese, | |
| The Medieval period | |
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Although the local people had had contact with the outside world for centuries, they were more fully integrated into European society in the 12th century.[20] The first missionaries, sent by the Pope, sailed up the Daugava River in the late 12th century, seeking converts.[21] The local people, however, did not convert to Christianity as readily as hoped.[21] German crusaders were sent into Latvia to convert the pagan population by force of arms.[22]
In the beginning of the 13th century, large parts of today's Latvia were ruled by Germans.[21] Together with Southern Estonia, these conquered areas formed the crusader state that became known as Terra Mariana or Livonia. In 1282, Riga, and later the cities of Cēsis, Limbaži, Koknese and Valmiera, were included in the Hanseatic League.[21] Riga became an important point of east-west trading[21] and formed close cultural contacts with Western Europe[citation needed].
[edit] Tags:Estonia,Daugava River,Crusader State,Cēsis,Limbaži,Valmiera,Hanseatic League, | |
| The Reformation period | |
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The 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries were a time of great change for the inhabitants of Latvia, including the reformation, the collapse of the Livonian state, and the time when the Latvian territory was divided up among foreign powers.
After the Livonian War (1558–1583), Livonia (Latvia) fell under Polish and Lithuanian rule.[21] The southern part of Estonia and the northern part of Latvia were ceded to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and formed into the Ducatus Ultradunensis (Pārdaugavas hercogiste). Gotthard Kettler, the last Master of the Order of Livonia, formed the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia[citation needed]. Though the duchy was a vassal state to Poland, it retained a considerable degree of autonomy and experienced a golden age in the 17th century. Latgalia, the easternmost region of Latvia, became a part of the Polish district of Inflanty.
The 17th and early 18th centuries saw a struggle between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden, and Russia for supremacy in the eastern Baltic. After the Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611), northern Livonia (including Vidzeme) came under Swedish rule. Fighting continued sporadically between Sweden and Poland until the Truce of Altmark in 1629[citation needed]. In Latvia, the Swedish period is generally remembered as positive; serfdom was eased, a network of schools was established for the peasantry, and the power of the regional barons was diminished.[23][24]
Several important cultural changes occurred during this time. Under Swedish and largely German rule, western Latvia adopted Lutheranism as its main religion. The ancient tribes of the Couronians, Semigallians, Selonians, Livs and northern Latgallians assimilated to form the Latvian people, speaking one Latvian language. Throughout all the centuries, however, no such thing as a Latvian state existed so the borders and definitions of who exactly fell within that group are largely subjective. Meanwhile, largely isolated from the rest of Latvia, southern Latgallians adopted Catholicism under Polish/Jesuit influence. The native dialect remained distinct, although it acquired many Polish and Russian loanwords.[25]
[edit] Tags:/,Sweden,Livs,Lithuanian,Russian,Vidzeme,Lithuania, | |
| Latvia in the Russian Empire | |
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The Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710 and the Treaty of Nystad, ending the Great Northern War in 1721, gave Vidzeme to Russia (it became part of the Riga Governorate)[citation needed]. The Latgale region remained part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as Inflanty Voivodeship until 1772, when it was incorporated into Russia. The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia became an autonomous Russian province (the Courland Governorate) in 1795, bringing all of what is now Latvia into the Russian Empire. All three Baltic provinces preserved local laws, the local official language and their own parliament, the Landtag[citation needed].
During the Great Northern War (1700–1721), the Baltic area was once again the scene of great devastation, with Peter the Great's scorched-earth policy, famine, and plague being responsible for catastrophic loss of human life: as much as 40% of the population in Latvian lands were killed.[26] In 1710, the plague reached Riga, where it was active until 1711 and claimed the lives of about half the population.[27]
The promises Peter the Great made to the Baltic German nobility at the fall of Riga in 1710, confirmed by the Treaty of Nystad and known as "the Capitulations", largely reversed the Swedish reforms[citation needed].
The emancipation of the serfs took place in Courland in 1817 and in Vidzeme in 1819[citation needed]. In practice, however, the emancipation was actually advantageous to the landowners and nobility[citation needed], as it dispossessed peasants of their land without compensation, forcing them to return to work at the estates "of their own free will".
During the 19th century, the social structure changed dramatically[citation needed]. A class of independent farmers established itself after reforms allowed the peasants to repurchase their land, but many landless peasants remained[citation needed]. There also developed a growing urban proletariat and an increasingly influential Latvian bourgeoisie. The Young Latvian (Latvian: Jaunlatvieši) movement laid the groundwork for nationalism from the middle of the century, many of its leaders looking to the Slavophiles for support against the prevailing German-dominated social order[citation needed]. The rise in use of the Latvian language in literature and society became known as the First National Awakening. Russification began in Latgale after the Polish led the January Uprising in 1863: this spread to the rest of what is now Latvia by the 1880s[citation needed]. The Young Latvians were largely eclipsed by the New Current, a broad leftist social and political movement, in the 1890s. Popular discontent exploded in the 1905 Russian Revolution, which took a nationalist character in the Baltic provinces.
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| Declaration of Independence | |
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“Poland & The New Baltic States” map from a British atlas in 1920, showing still-undefined borders after the treaties of Brest and Versailles and before the Peace of Riga.
Kārlis Ulmanis
World War I devastated the territory of what would become the state of Latvia, along with other western parts of the Russian Empire. Demands for self-determination were at first confined to autonomy, but the Russian 1917 Revolution, treaty with Germany at Brest-Litovsk, and allied armistice with Germany on November 11, 1918, created a power vacuum. The People's Council of Latvia proclaimed the independence of the new country in Riga on November 18, 1918, with Kārlis Ulmanis becoming the head of the provisional government[citation needed].
The War of Independence that followed was part of a general chaotic period of civil and new border wars in Eastern Europe. By the spring of 1919, there were actually three governments — Ulmanis' government; the Soviet Latvian government led by Pēteris Stučka, whose forces, supported by the Red Army, occupied almost all of the country; and the Baltic German government of the United Baltic Duchy, headed by Andrievs Niedra and supported by the Baltische Landeswehr and the German Freikorps unit Iron Division.
Estonian and Latvian forces[citation needed] defeated the Germans at the Battle of Wenden in June 1919, and a massive attack by a predominantly German force — the West Russian Volunteer Army — under Pavel Bermondt-Avalov was repelled in November. Eastern Latvia was cleared of Red Army forces by Latvian and Polish troops in early 1920 (from the Polish perspective the Battle of Daugavpils was a part of the Polish-Soviet War)[citation needed].
A freely elected Constituent assembly convened on May 1, 1920, and adopted a liberal constitution, the Satversme, in February 1922.[28] The constitution was partly suspended by Kārlis Ulmanis after his coup in 1934, but reaffirmed in 1990. Since then, it has been amended and is still in effect in Latvia today. With most of Latvia's industrial base evacuated to the interior of Russia in 1915, radical land reform was the central political question for the young state. In 1897, 61.2% of the rural population had been landless; by 1936, that percentage had been reduced to 18%.[29]
By 1923, the extent of cultivated land surpassed the pre-war level. Innovation and rising productivity led to rapid growth of the economy, but it soon suffered from the effects of the Great Depression. Latvia showed signs of economic recovery and the electorate had steadily moved toward the centre during the parliamentary period[citation needed]. On May 15, 1934, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup, establishing a nationalist dictatorship that lasted until 1940.[30] After 1934, Ulmanis established government corporations to buy up private firms with the aim of "Latvianising" the economy.[31]
[edit] Tags:Country,Baltic States, | |
| Latvia in World War II | |
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See also: Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, Occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany, The Holocaust in Latvia, Latvian partisans, and Latvian resistance movement
"TWO WORLDS": Anti-Sovietism propaganda board, Latvia, Summer, 1941.
Early in the morning of August 24, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a 10-year non-aggression pact, called the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The pact contained a secret protocol, revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945, according to which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet "spheres of influence".[32] In the North, Latvia, Finland and Estonia were assigned to the Soviet sphere.[32] Thereafter, Germany and the Soviet union Tags: | |
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