A Brief History of Latvia..
This is a “Reader's Digest” of Latvian history. Some parts of it have been kind of “glossed over” based on keeping this relatively short. There are several good books that available that will fill in the blank spots and provide more details..It is difficult to look at the history of Latvia, without looking at the history of Estonia and Lithuania at the same time. Although they are ethnically different and speak a different tongue, their histories are embroiled with each others.
Back in the 800-900 AD, there were no countries as we know them today.. Mankind had spread around the globe and developed their own local customs, religions, and languages...After the fall of the Roman Empire, most of Europe existed as small independent kingdoms that were constantly struggling for territory with each other, but there was no real dominant force. The Baltic area was no different. Several different tribes had established themselves along the coast.. The Estonians, Livonians, Curonians, Semigallians, Selonians, Lithuanians, Lettgaliansand several other smaller tribes.. For the coastal area, seafaring was a way of life for them. Family units assembled into villages and towns, mostly ruled by elders. Many of these small groups amalgamated together for trading and defensive purposes. Inshore fishing was the mainstay for the coastal communities. Inland and for the coastal villages agriculture was the name of the game Amber, a valuable commodity in those days would be found on the miles and miles of sand beaches after a storm had washed some sand away. Baltic amber has been recorded with the Egyptian Pharaohs. This amber was probably traded via overland routes. A bit of trade would have been conducted with neighbouring coastal people, and some inland trade down the rivers. During these times, the Vikings would sail across the Baltic Sea and maraud the coastal villages. The motivation for these marauding voyages was more entertainment value than gain of wealth. The Latvians not to be outdone, would mount their own marauding campaigns.. After all, what would appeal to a young man more, tending nets along the shoreline or off marauding foreign lands. They had the knowledge of the sea from their life of fishing, They had the technology and the timbers to build the boats to conduct trade with some neighbouring peoples.. It was not stretching things too much, to go off and maraud some more far flung villages. Latvian marauders actually made it as far as Great Britain and Sweden in their exploits.. The capital of Sweden had actually been moved from Sgituna to Stockholm to better defend itself against these marauding Balts. These were a hardy folk....
Around 1000 AD, overland trade routes were becoming more established. Trade between Russia and Europe was funnelled through Latvia. Russia itself had not ports on the Baltic nor Atlantic side, and as far as crossing Poland in those days, it was more troublesome than it was worth. Russian and German traders showed up and set up shop. Along with the traders came missionaries to convert the pagans. Riga was first established in 1201. It quickly became a centre of trade. The closest deep water seaport to Russia made the trade of goods here the natural focus of activity. Furs from Russia were traded with goods from European nations and further.. The Daugava River which flows through Riga would have allowed water transportation of goods deep into present day Belarus and Russia. The German influence and interests continued to grow in the area, Around 1200 AD, the Teutonic Knights, who were in essence, a mercenary force working for the Pope and Roman Catholic church moved through the area and took control of most of the land. These Knights were rather brutal in their quest to Christianize the locals. It wasn't long before most of Latvia had adopted the Roman Catholic religion. The Roman Catholic church was concerned about the Christianization of the Balts, coming from what is present day Russian in the east. This would have made them converts to the Orthodox Catholic church, not the Roman Catholic church. Once Christianity took it's roots, the Latvians were considered serfs and went back to tending their fields and nets under the overlord German nobles. Latvian serfs could not own land and were tenured to the land of the nobles. It would be another 600 years before they could attain the right to own land. This was the first time that foreign troops controlled most of what we call Latvia today, It would not be the last.
Before the arrival of Christianity, most people lived in villages and hamlets. These were small communities and everyone knew everyone else.. Most people would likely have known all the people in neighbouring villages also. The custom of the day, as far as names go, was simply to have a first name. Surnames and written records were not something that they had any need of. With Christianity, written records, and growing populations, the peasant families were issued numbers or the name of the farm was used for identification or they were identified by the noble's manor name where they lived..
Perhaps a word about purity of lineage is worthwhile here. Every species of animal strives to introduce new genetic material to the gene pool. This is part of evolution and has made the world what it is today. Latvians are no different. It is unlikely that there is such a thing as a pure Latvian, pure Irishman, or pure Frenchman. In the early days of marauding warriors, the introduction of new genetic material was common. Later in history as people moved around, countries were occupied, people were displaced, this constant change in the genetic make up continued. This is true in Latvia with the marauding Vikings, and occupying forces of Germans, Russian, Swedes, Poles and whoever else traipsed through these lands.. When things finally got to the point where borders had to be established, the borders were, for the most part, decided on what language the locals spoke. Border disputes carry on to this day over this issue. It is not a definite line in the sand where one language stops and a new language begins. As one moves further away from the focal point of a language, other languages start showing up. In minor quantities at first but as we move further and further away, the different languages become more and more dominant until the point is reached where the original language is not spoken at all. As there are no real geographical barriers to denote a change of culture and language, borders continue to be in dispute, as to where to draw the line on the map.
Back to history. The area continued to be occupied by the Teutonic Knights, now called the the Livonian Order. Most of present day Latvia and Estonia were lumped together into an area called Livonia..The Latvians served as the serfs and workers to German nobles. Around 1550, the strength of the Livonian Order began to crumble. Although it was still loosely connected to Papal and German/Prussian authority, control of the Order had faltered significantly. At the same time as the Livonian order was crumbling Evengelical Lutheranism started to work it's way into the country. As the control of the land crumbled in the hands of the Livonian Order, Russian decided to make a move on Livonia. Russian troops moved in from the east. To the west and south, Lithuania and Polish forces moved in. . It was not long before they set their sites on Riga and controlling the trading corridor into Russian. The Poles pushed the Russians back out of what we call Western Latvia today. By 1605, present day Latvia had fallen into the Litho-Polish empire. Latvia turned into an interesting situation. These conquests were not about colonization like conquests were in the new world. The conquest was about controlling the trading corridor and to be able to support troops in the area with food and supplies. To this end it would not be of benefit for the conquerors to destroy the local farms and culture. It would be far better, strategically to have the local populace producing food for the army and homeland. The German nobles were not killed nor thrown out of the country, but remained as a “special” class that acted as administrators for the Polish Empire. To the average Latvian serf, not a lot had changed. Latvians were reluctantly allowed to practice Lutheranism. The serfs still had the same noble. About the only difference was that the nobles sent the taxes that they collected to a different empire. Riga continued to grow as a trading centre under the Litho-Polish rule. Most of the western part of present day Latvia grew into a grand duchy with a very powerful leader and rich economy. This area became known as Courland. Courland actually had colonies in the new world.. Tobago was once a Courland colony as was Gambia, until the late 1700's. The period 1500-1600 passed in relative tranquillity for the Latvian people. They spoke their language, practised their customs, worked the farms and seas for the German nobles and had the Litho-Polish empire at the top of the power pyramid. It is in this time frame that the Riga traders started the tradition of the Christmas tree. It is interesting that the original Christmas tree was actually hung upside down from the ceiling. It was only when they started decorating the tree with candles in Germany, in later years, that they turned the tree right side up as we know it today.
Things changed in the early 1600's. Sweden had been gaining in economic and military might. By 1604 the Swedes had taken over Finland, Estonia, and Livland from the east, as far as Riga and the Daugauva River. They never did take over Courland (western Latvia) which remained an semi autonomous duchy or Poland. When the Swedes moved in they did not rape and pillage the country side, but rather just took over as the main power of the region from the Poles.. They understood well, that to have their troops on foreign soil, they must be able to feed the troops, so they needed the countryside intact. Along with that train of thought, the Swedes did not disrupt the German noble class. So we have the Swedes as the military power in the region, employing the Germans to essentially manage the economy, and the the Latvians working as serfs and peasants. Things were not bad for the Latvians. Most Latvians would have welcomed the Swedes as Sweden had become the centre of the Lutheran religion. In fact during the reign of the Swedes in Latvia, the Swedes insisted on teaching all Latvians to read and write. From the Swedes point of view this would keep the Germans on their toes, and it would also give the Swedish armies somewhat educated populace to choose troops from. It was also based on the Swedish train of thought that the peasants should be able to read the Bible. The Germans obviously resisted this education of the peasants, as it tended to interfere with production of goods, as young men and women went to school. The Swedes, as the military power in the region got their way. Schooling for Latvian children would have lasted anywhere from 2 to 4 years, and schooling would have started around age 10. Schooling would have consisted of reading and writing Latvian, basics of the church, mathematics, singing, and some German. These schools would have been boarding schools, and children would have been expected to help support their stay there by doing chores (gardening, wood, cleaning) while at school. So for a long long way back in history, the Latvians were amongst the highest educated masses in the world. During the Swedish reign, Riga was the biggest city in the Swedish empire, even surpassing Stockholm. Riga became the centre of ship building for the Swedes.
By the end of the 1700's the Swedish empire had expanded well beyond what it could maintain. Peter the Great had come to power in Russian and he was expanding his territories. At this same time, the Black Death was taking it's toll in most of Europe, Riga included. The plague decimated the Swedish troops in Livland along with a good percentage of the Latvian people. . With the weakened Swedish troops, Livonia, and present day Latvia, was an easy mark for Peter the Great's troops. By 1710, Russian had control of Riga, and pretty well all of Latvia including Courland. The Russians continued to allow the German noble class to control their Latvian serfs and peasants. Life for Latvian serfs took a general turn for the worse under the Russians. Latvians began taking formal surnames during the beginning of the 1800's. Instead of being named Jahn from Hockenhof manor, they had to adopt formal surnames. Often these names were just simplification of the manor name, in that the “manor” or “from the house of” was dropped. In other circumstances, the names were assigned to the Latvians. This is how so many Latvians today carry German surnames. Sometimes the names were given in good faith, other times in jest. Often the German overlords assigned names like “ass” to the Latvian peasants. By 1832, the revision list required all serfs in Eastern Latvia to have surnames. For western Latvia (Courland), this did not happen until the 1859 revision list. This all added to the growing resentment of the German overlords by the Latvian peasants. Life in Riga continued on a more affluent note. Under the Russian control, Riga was the third biggest and the wealthiest city in the Russian Empire. The population of Latvia more than doubled in the 1800's with Latvians themselves falling to just 68% of the population. The serfs were emancipated in the early 1800's and allowed to hold land. Slowly the German overlords moved the serfs off the land and then made them buy the land back. By 1850, many serfs had been displaced off the manor farm and had to head to urban areas to find work. Things remained pretty much the same in Latvia until the 1850's. Overpopulation was just beginning to be a problem. Young men had to head to the rapidly expanding cities where big industry was starting to flourish. Ship building has a major industry in coast Latvia.. Russification to date had been relatively slow to take hold. By the 1880's records were still kept by the German nobles in German. By the 1890's the records were starting to be kept in Russian. This was the world that Jahn Rosenthal was born into... We think his education would have been in Latvian using the Latin alphabet. By the time he was 14 and he left home, schooling would have converted to Russian. Education would have been in Latvian for primary schools. Technical training would have been in Russian speaking schools. Cultural studies and the arts would have been in German speaking schools. For basic farmhands Latvian would have sufficed with a sprinkling of the other languages. For residents of Riga itself, the other languages would have been much more dominant. This was the time of the “Young Latvians”. Young men who had managed to go on to further education, starting to think of Latvians as a separate people and culture.. Latvians who thought that Latvia should be controlled by Latvians, not by German nobles or by foreign powers. It is interesting note that Riga had never been a Latvian city. Latvians have always been a minority within the city itself. By 1900, Russification had intensified and Russian was being forced on the common folks who resisted it. Riga continued to grow and develop an industrial base as well as being a cultural and educational centre for Eastern Europe.
The early 1900's continued with industrialization and Russification of what we call Latvia today. There was labour unrest and Latvian nationalism was starting to take root. Demonstrations and strikes took place, until the czar sent in troops to clean out the instigators.... slaughtering anyone they thought was a rabble rouser. This caused a major exodus of Latvian peasants circa 1905, to the new world. Unemployment, and Russification at home was just getting to be too much for them. With the beginning of First World War, German troops moved through and pushed the Russians out.. For the duration of the war, the Russians would push the front west and push the Germans out, and then the German would push the Russians back out to the east. Each time the front line moved across Latvia, the Latvians had to decide which side to support. They had just finished 600 years of German domination. The hard handed slaughter in 1905 did not leave a good taste in their mouths.. This happened several times until the end of the war. During the war, the Russian army picked up many Latvian men and formed their own divisions. They were known as a very tight knit army. At the end of the war, the Russian revolution was in full swing. These Latvian divisions which had fought for Czarist Russia returned to Latvia. Nationalist Latvian feelings had been growing since the turn of the century. Latvia declared itself to be an independent state for the first time in history in 1918. In the meantime Western Latvia had been home to divisions of the Russian Czarist army, for the latter part of the war. With the Russian revolution completed, they were now an army without a country. They sought to take Riga, and make it their own country. The Latvian army members returning from the Russian army took up defence of Riga with the Riga citizens and defeated the Czarist Russian army. At this point the world recognized Latvia as an independent state. This also marked the decline of the gravy train for the German noble class. Most large manors and estates had been destroyed during the war. The new Latvian government confiscated most of the lands from these estates. The confiscated land was divided into small parcels and handed out to the freedom fighters for Latvia and lottery systems were held to distribute the rest of the land to Latvian citizens.
After independence, Latvia established a constitution, currency, education system and social systems. The country flourished between the wars. Names were changed. With the beginning of the exodus of the German ruling class, and growing nationalism of Latvians, they changed the spelling of many names to be spelled with correct pronunciation to their alphabet. This is reflected in the “S” in Rosenthal, is pronounced in reality like a “Z”. So they changed the spelling accordingly. Back to history... Agricultural products were being shipped far and wide to war torn Europe, and agriculture became a very profitable enterprise in Latvia during this time. Things took a serious turn for the worse in 1939-1940. Hitler and Stalin had sat down and divided up Europe as they saw fit. Latvia and the other Baltic states were to fall into the hands of the Russians. The one condition of this agreement was that German was allowed to repatriate the Baltic Germans. The German government, under Hitler knew that Latvia would soon be under Russian control and encouraged Baltic Germans to repatriate to Germany. There were three waves or repatriation to Germany. Latvians, unaware of the pact between Stalin and Hitler, were gleeful to see the exodus of the German ruling class. Stalin, at this time was negotiating with the Latvian government to rent or borrow land in Latvia to establish military bases, to help defend what everybody could see as a growing Nazi threat to the area. June 17, 1940, Stalin sent tanks and troops in to Riga. The Latvian army, thinking it was simply a movement of troops to the Russian bases, did not view it as an attack. When they awoke in the morning, the troops had occupied all the government offices in the country. Stalin still insisted that nothing would change, so the locals did not put up anything in terms of armed resistance. Very quickly it became clear that this was not to be the case. Within a year, all land had been transferred to the Russian state. The currency had changed overnight to Russian currency. The international community did not take notice of this coup, as most of Europe was already embroiled in the war with the Nazis. The Latvian president had been fooled into giving the power to Russia, on the premise that Latvia would remain an independent state. So the rest of the world did not view this as an armed invasion.. The new Russian government was by now, at war with Germany. They went through the citizenry and essentially took any Germans who were left in Latvia and sent to Siberia. Intellectuals, politicians, teachers, doctors, Jews, and anybody with any higher education were shipped off to Siberia.
In 1941, the German troops moved through again. Any Jewish people that were left, were shipped off to German concentration camps. They pushed the Russian troops back to Russian territory on their push through to St Petersburg for the now famous 600 day siege of St Petersburg. By 1944, the German army had come close to collapse and was now in full retreat. Oct 13, 1944 saw Russian troops back in Riga.. It wasn't until 1945 that Courland was finally defeated by the Russians. During this interval thousands of Latvians fleeing the Russian way of life, and remnants of the German army trapped in Courland, made refugee type escapes to other countries across the Baltic Sea.
At the end of the war, Latvia was no more an independent state. It was known as the Latvian Soviet Republic. Riga remained the core of the area. Administration of Soviet ideology would come through Riga. Every business had been nationalized.. Private property was all confiscated by the Soviet government. Private business did not exist. Education was conducted in Russian, and widely available to all Latvians. Anybody who excelled in a field (sports, dancing, arts) were well provided for, as long as they were willing to join the party. After the death of Stalin in 1953, Latvians who had been shipped off to Siberia began to slowly returned.. It took until independence of Latvia in 1991 for some of those Siberian political prisoners to be returned to Latvia. Life during the Soviet regime has been described as grey and hopeless. Bettering of self and family was out of the question. By the same token, there was no unemployment, nobody went hungry, and nobody had to live without a roof over their head. Throughout the Soviet regime, Latvians continued to celebrate their local customs, including Nov 18th as Latvian Independence day.. commemorating that big day in 1919. The nation kept the memory of independence.
By 1986, the feeling of national pride for Latvians was once again growing. Life style for peoples under the Soviet regime had been slipping. It was not keeping up to the west. As to what really happened in the Soviet bureaucracy is really up in the air. The Party Bureaucracy had seriously fumbled with the economy.. Many would say the changes came through the KGB, who were literally the cream of the crop of the Soviet system in terms of intelligence and knowledge. Dissident nationalist groups started showing up in 1986. Initially, they were semi-tolerated. Some were arrested some were not... By 1988 these groups had grown considerably in size. In 1989, the Baltic states staged a demonstration of people linked arm in arm across all three states. Thousands upon thousands of individuals forming a string 1000 km long stretching from the Vilnius through Latvia to Talin in Estonia. Independence Day celebrations in 1989 attracted over 1 million people in Riga. Again the Soviet government did not interfere. This whole time frame has become known as the Singing Revolution. In May of 1990, the Soviet Latvian Parliament voted for independence. Latvian citizens held their breath as to what the reaction of Moscow would be. Meanwhile in Lithuania, the independence movement had been squashed and it included a very black mark for the Soviet regime. Fifteen people were killed by Soviet forces at a television station. Would they use force again to quell the uprising in Latvia, or just what would happen. Latvians barricaded Riga and stood their ground, singing in front of all government buildings. Pop groups played music..People held arms and sang. Radio and television stations broadcast news constantly. For the first time they were uncensored.... A temporary field hospital was set up and manned by volunteer doctors and medical staff. Anything could happen... A week passed.. two weeks... three weeks and no sign of interference from Moscow. There was one shooting incident, but opinions are mixed as to what really happened. The Soviet troops in Latvia were on alert, but never moved off base.. Would Moscow use force to quell the demonstrations. Western journalists were everywhere so any show of force would be immediately broadcast to the West. In the end it was a peaceful transition from Soviet rule to independent state. For the third time in a century, the Latvian populace had to start from nothing. They had nothing. No currency. No land titlement. No government, nothing. Interim currencies and government were set up as the country made the transition. Land that had been confiscated by the Russians in 1940 was returned to the original owners. Much land had been flooded or destroyed during the Soviet occupation. Latvian citizens were given alternate pieces of land. The remaining freehold land was divided up to the remaining Latvians. Under Soviet control, every person had a roof over their heads. With the new independent state, they were given ownership to these buildings and the lands encompassed by the buildings. Latvia struggled desperately to join the EU and NATO, as insurance that the Russian troops would not once again move across it's borders. Businesses started to flourish. Initially it was Scandinavian businesses that moved in and set up shop. Later the Germans, who had been burned before in Latvia moved in with new businesses... Today, with the economic recession in full swing we see Latvia struggling. Rising unemployment seems to have been stemmed and inflation seems to be under control.. Latvia is like a sheep standing in a pack of wolves. Hoping to make the right decisions and head in the right directions, without the pack of wolves devouring it and destroying the language and culture...
