History

 History of Latvia

The proto-Baltic forefathers of the Latvian people have lived on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea since the third millennium BC (3000 BC).[1]

At the beginning of this era, the territory known today as Latvia became famous as a trading crossroads. The famous "route from the Vikings to the Greeks" mentioned in ancient chronicles stretched from Germany through Latvian territory via the River Daugava to ancient Russia and the Byzantine Empire.

The ancient Balts of this time actively participated in the trading network. Across the European continent, Latvia's coast was known as a place for obtaining amber. Into the Middle Ages, amber was more valuable than gold in many places. Latvian amber was known in places as far away as Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. In the 900s AD, the ancient Balts started to form specific tribal realms. Gradually, four individual Baltic tribal cultures developed: Couronians, Latgallians, Selonians, Semigallians (in Latvian: kurši, latgali, seli and zemgali). The largest of them was the Latgallian tribe, which was the most advanced in its socio-political development. In the 1100s and 1200s, the Couronians engaged in a number of invasions that included looting and pillaging. Located on the west coast of the Baltic Sea, they became known as the "Baltic Vikings". The Selonian and Semgallian tribes, during this time, were known as peace-loving and prosperous farmers.

Because of its strategic geographic location, Latvian territory has always been invaded by other larger nations, and this situation has defined the fate of Latvia and its people.

At the end of the 1100s, Latvia was often visited by traders from western Europe who set out on trading journeys along Latvia's longest river, the Daugava, to Russia. At the very end of the 12th century, German traders arrived, and with them he preachers of the Christian faith who attempted to convert the pagan Baltic and Baltic-Finnic tribes to the Christian faith. The Balts did not willingly convert to the new and different beliefs and practices, and particularly opposed the ritual of christening. News of this reached the Pope in Rome and it was decided that Crusaders would be sent into Latvia to influence the situation.

The Germans founded Riga in 1201, and gradually it became the largest city in the southern part of the Baltic Sea. With the arrival of the German Crusaders, the development of separate tribal realms of ancient Latvians came to an end.

In the 1200s, a confederation of feudal nations developed under German rule those was called Livonia. Livonia included today's Latvia and Southern Estonia. In 1282, Riga and later the cities of Cesis, Limbaži, Koknese and Valmiera were included in the Northern German Trading Organisation, or the Hanseatic League (Hanse). From this time, Riga became an important point in west-east trading. Riga, being the centre of the eastern Baltic region, formed close cultural contacts with Western Europe.

The 1500s were a time of great changes for the inhabitants of Latvia, notable for the reformation and the collapse of the Livonian nation. After the Livonian War (1558-1583) today's Latvian territory came under Polish-Lithuanian rule. The Lutheran faith was accepted in Kurzeme, Zemgale and Vidzeme, but the Roman Catholic faith maintained its dominance in Latgale – it remains so to this day.

The 17th and early 18th centuries saw a struggle between Poland, Sweden and Russia for supremacy in the eastern Baltic. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden took Riga in 1621, and the larger part of Polish Livonia, including Vidzeme, came under Swedish rule with the Truce of Altmark in 1629. Latvian forces played a key role at the Battle of Zenta against the Ottomans in 1697 AD. The term "Swedish era" (Latvian: zviedru laiki) is still synonymous with beneficent rule and a sort of 'Golden Age', at least compared to all the other rulers Latvia had to deal with- though serfdom was not abolished, it was strictly regulated and a network of schools was established for the peasantry. The Treaty of Nystad ending the Great Northern War in 1721 gave Vidzeme to Russia (it became part of the guberniya of Livland). The Latgale region remained part of Poland as Inflanty until 1772, when it was joined to Russia. In the Duchy of Courland, a German minority of ca. 4% ruled an indigenous majority of 80% rather harshly and derisively. Courland became known as a "paradise of the nobles," because the code granting privileges to the German nobility declared the country a "social paradise." Courland became a Russian province (the guberniya of Courland) in 1795, bringing all of what is now Latvia into Imperial Russia.

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. The emancipation of the serfs took place in Courland in 1817 and in Livland in 1819. In practice, the emancipation was actually advantageous to the nobility because it dispossessed the peasants of their land without compensation. At the beginning of the 19th century, 7% of the population was urban, this proportion rising to 40% by its close. The population grew from ca. 720 000 persons to almost two million by the end of the century, the proportion of indigenous inhabitants falling from ca. 90% to 68%. The social structure changed dramatically, with a class of independent farmers establishing itself after reforms allowed the peasants to repurchase their land, landless peasants numbering 591 000 in 1897, a growing urban proletariat and an increasingly influential Latvian bourgeoisie. The "Jaunlatviesi" Young Latvia (alternative translation: New Latvians) 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. The "Jaunlatviesi" braved harsh criticism by encouraging the Latvians to reawaken their Nationalist feelings, speak Latvian freely, write novels and create art- the Germans had trodden upon and ridiculed Latvians in general, considering them nothing more than unintelligent farmers. Russification began in Latgale after the January Uprising in 1863 and spread to the rest of what is now Latvia by the 1880s. 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 Revolution, which took on a nationalist character in the Baltic provinces.

World War I devastated the country. Demands for self-determination were at first confined to autonomy ("a free Latvia in a free Russia"), but full independence was proclaimed in Riga on November 18, 1918, by the People's Council of Latvia, Karlis Ulmanis becoming the head of the provisional government. The War of Independence that followed was a very chaotic period in Latvia's history. By the spring of 1919 there were actually three governments- Ulmanis' government, which concluded an agreement with the Germans and was supported by the United Kingdom; the Iskolat led by Peteris Stucka, which proclaimed an independent Soviet Latvia and whose forces, supported by the Red Army, occupied almost all of the country; and the "Baltic German" puppet government headed by Andrievs Niedra. Estonian and Latvian forces defeated the Germans at the Battle of Cesis in June 1919, and a massive attack by a German and Russian force under Pavel Bermondt-Avalov was repelled in November. Eastern Latvia was cleared of Red Army forces by Polish, Latvian, and German troops in early 1920.

The Freedom Monument (1935) in RigaA freely elected Constituent Assembly was convened on May 1, 1920 and adopted a liberal constitution, the Satversme, (loose translation: "tied together," "collection,") in February 1922- suspended by Ulmanis after his coup in 1934 but reaffirmed in 1990 and since amended, this is the constitution still in use in Latvia today. The Satversme declares that power is vested in the people of Latvia (Latvijas tauta- rather than the Latvian people, latviešu tauta), and minorities received considerable cultural autonomy. 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 1930 that percentage had been reduced to 23.2%. The extent of cultivated land surpassed the pre-war level already in 1923. Innovation and rising productivity led to the GNP per capita approaching Finland's level by 1930, but the economy soon suffered the effects of the Great Depression. Though Latvia showed signs of economic recovery and the electorate had steadily moved toward the center during the parliamentary period, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup on May 15, 1934, establishing a nationalist dictatorship that lasted until 1940. Most of the Baltic Germans left Latvia by agreement between Ulmanis' government and Nazi Germany after the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. On October 5, 1939, Latvia was forced to accept a "mutual assistance" pact with the Soviet Union, granting the Soviets the right to station 25,000 troops on Latvian territory. On June 16, 1940, Vyacheslav Molotov presented the Latvian representative in Moscow with an ultimatum accusing Latvia of violations of that pact, and on June 17 great numbers of Soviet forces occupied the country. Rigged elections for a "People's Saeima" were held, and a puppet government headed by Augusts Kirhenšteins led Latvia into the USSR. The annexation was formalized on August 5, 1940.

The ensuing months would become known in Latvia as Baigais Gads, the Year of Horror. Mass arrests, disappearances, and deportations culminated on the night of June 14, 1941. Prior to the German invasion, in less than a year, at least 27,586 persons were arrested; most were deported, and ca. 945 persons were shot. While under German occupation, Latvia was administered as part of Reichskommissariat Ostland. Latvian paramilitary and Auxiliary Police units established by occupation authority actively participated in the Holocaust. More than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II, including approximately 70,000 Latvian Jews murdered during the Nazi occupation. Latvian soldiers fought on both sides of the conflict, including in the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS, most of them conscripted by the occupying Nazi and Soviet authorities. Refusal to join the occupying army resulted in an imprisonment, threats to relatives or even death.

The Soviets reoccupied the country in 1944-45, and further mass deportations followed as the country was forcibly collectivized and Sovietized; 42,975 persons were deported in 1949. An influx of laborers, administrators, military personnel and their dependents from Russia and other Soviet republics meant that the ethnic Latvian population had fallen to 62% by 1959. During the Khrushchev Thaw, attempts by national communists led by Eduards Berklavs to gain a degree of autonomy for the republic and protect the rapidly deteriorating position of the Latvian language were suppressed. In 1989 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a resolution on the "Occupation of the Baltic States," in which it declared that the occupation was "not in accordance with law," and not the "will of the Soviet people". A national movement coalescing in the Popular Front of Latvia took advantage of glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev, opposed by the Interfront, and on May 4, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR adopted the Declaration of the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia, subject to a transition period that came to an end with Latvian independence on August 21, 1991, after the failure of the August Putsch. The Saeima, Latvia's parliament, was again elected in 1993, and Russia completed its military withdrawal in 1994.

In the 1990s and early 21st century, Latvia focused on "rejoining Europe"; its two major goals, NATO and European Union membership, were achieved in 2004. Language and citizenship laws have been opposed by many Russophones (Latvian is the official language and citizenship was not automatically extended to some former Soviet citizens - mostly ethnically Russian - who settled during the occupation, or to their descendants). Though many are naturalizing since the law was liberalized, almost 18.5% of the residents remain non-citizens today. Non-citizens hold a Latvian aliens' passport (an internationally recognized identity document that serves as a proof of residence as well as entitles the holder to consular protections abroad and certain other rights). The government denationalized private property confiscated by the Soviet rule, returning it or compensating the owners when that was not possible, and privatized most state-owned industries, reintroducing the prewar currency. After a difficult transition to a liberal economy and its re-orientation toward Western Europe, Latvia still has one of the lowest standards of living in the EU, though its economy has one of the highest growth rates.

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