Latvia was originally settled by the
ancient people known as Balts. In the 9th century the Balts came
under the overlordship of the Varangians, or Vikings, but a more lasting
dominance was established over them by their German-speaking neighbours
to the west, who Christianized Latvia in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The Knights of the Sword, who merged with the German Knights of
the Teutonic Order in 1237, conquered all of Latvia by 1230, and German
overlordship of the area continued for three centuries, with a German
landowning class ruling over an enserfed Latvian peasantry. From the
mid-16th to the early 18th century, Latvia was partitioned between
Poland and Sweden, but by the end of the 18th century the whole of
Latvia had been annexed by expansionist Russia. German landowners
managed to retain their influence in Latvia, but indigenous Latvian
nationalism grew rapidly in the early 20th century. Following the
Russian Revolution of 1917, Latvia declared its independence on November
18, 1918, and, after a confused period of fighting, the new nation was
recognized by Soviet Russia and Germany in 1920.
Independent Latvia
was governed by democratic coalitions until 1934, when authocratic rule
was established by President Karlis Ulmanis. In 1939 Latvia was forced
to grant military bases on its soil to the Soviet Union, and in 1940 the
Soviet Red Army moved into Latvia, which was soon incorporated into the
Soviet Union. Nazi Germany held Latvia from 1941 to 1944, when it was
retaken by the Red Army. Latvia's farms were forcibly collectivized in
1949, and its flourishing economy was integrated into that of the Soviet
Union. Latvia remained one of the most prosperous and highly
industrialized parts of the Soviet Union, however, and its people
retained strong memories of their brief 20-year period of independence.
With the liberalization of the Soviet regime undertaken by Mikhail
Gorbachev in the late 1980s, Latvians began seeking Latvia declared
restoration of its independence on May, 1990 and attained full
independence from the Soviet Union in August 21, 1991.
The Latvians constitute a
prominent division of the ancient group of peoples known as the Balts.
The first historically documented connection between the Balts and the
civilization of the Mediterranean world was based on the ancient amber
trade: according to the Roman historian Tacitus (1st century AD), the
Aestii (predecessors of the Old Prussians) developed an important trade
with the Roman Empire. During the 10th and 11th centuries Latvian lands
were subject to a double pressure: from the east there was Slavic
penetration; from the west came the Swedish push toward the shores of
Courland.
German rule. During the crusading period, German--or,
more precisely, Saxon--overseas expansion reached the eastern shores of
the Baltic. Because the people occupying the coast of Latvia were the
Livs, the German invaders called the country Livland, a name rendered in
Latin as Livonia. In the mid-12th century, German merchants from Lόbeck
and Bremen were visiting the estuary of the Western Dvina; these visits
were followed by the arrival of German missionaries. Meinhard, a monk
from Holstein, landed there in 1180 and was named bishop of άxkόll (Ikskile)
in 1186. The third bishop, Albert of Buxhoevden, with Pope Innocent
III's permission, founded the Order of the Brothers of the Sword in
1202. Before they merged in 1237 with the Knights of the Teutonic Order,
they had conquered all the Latvian tribal kingdoms.
After the conquest, the Germans
formed a so-called Livonian confederation, which lasted for more than
three centuries. This feudalistic organization was not a happy one, its
three components--the Teutonic Order, the archbishopric of Riga, and the
free city of Riga--being in constant dispute with one another. Moreover,
the vulnerability of land frontiers involved the confederation in
frequent foreign wars. The Latvians, however, benefited from Riga's
joining the Hanseatic League in 1282, as the league's trade brought
prosperity. In general, however, the situation of the Latvians under
German rule was that of any subject nation. The indigenous nobility was
extinguished, apart from a few of its members who changed their
allegiance; and the rural population was forced to pay tithes and taxes
to their German conquerors and to provide corvιe, or statute labour.
Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, and the
encroachment of Russia. In
1561 the Latvian territory was partitioned: Courland, south of the
Western Dvina, became an autonomous duchy under the suzerainty of the
Lithuanian sovereign; and Livonia north of the river was incorporated
into Lithuania. Riga was likewise incorporated into the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth in 1581 but was taken by the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf
in 1621; Vidzeme--that is to say, the greater part of Livonia north of
the Western Dvina--was ceded to Sweden by the Truce of Altmark (1629),
though Latgale, the southeastern area, remained under Lithuanian rule.
The rulers of Muscovy had so far
failed to reach the Baltic shores of the Latvian country, though Ivan
III and Ivan IV had tried to do so. The Russian tsar Alexis renewed the
attempt without success in his wars against Sweden and Poland (1653-67).
Finally, however, Peter I the Great managed to "break the window" to the
Baltic Sea: in the course of the Great Northern War he took Riga from
the Swedes in 1710; and at the end of the war he secured Vidzeme from
Sweden under the Peace of Nystad (1721). Latgale was annexed by the
Russians at the first partition of Poland (1772), and Courland at the
third (1795). By the end of the 18th century, therefore, the whole
Latvian nation was subject to Russia.
Russian domination. In the
period immediately following the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian emperor
Alexander I was induced to grant personal freedom to the peasants of
Courland in 1817 and to those of Vidzeme in 1819. This did not imply any
right of the peasant to buy the land that his ancestors had tilled for
centuries. Consequently, there was unrest in the Latvian lands until the
emancipation of the serfs throughout the Russian Empire (1861) brought
the right to buy land in ownership from the state and from the landlords,
who were still mostly German.
In step with the growing economic
strength of the local peasantry came a revival of national feeling.
Educational and other national institutions were established. The idea
of an independent Latvian state was openly put forward during the
Russian Revolution of 1905. This revolution, evoked as it was
simultaneously by social and by national groups, bore further witness to
the strength of the Latvian reaction to economic and political German
and Russian pressure.
Independence.
After the Russian Revolution of March 1917 the Latvian National
Political Conference, convened at Riga, asked for complete political
autonomy in July. On September 3, however, the German army took Riga.
After the Bolshevik coup of November 1917 in Petrograd, the Latvian
People's Council, representing peasant, bourgeois, and socialist groups,
proclaimed independence on Nov. 18, 1918. A government was formed by the
leader of the Farmers' Union, Karlis Ulmanis. The Soviet government
established a communist government for Latvia at Valmiera, headed by
Peteris Stucka. The Red Army, which included Latvian units, took Riga on
Jan. 3, 1919, and the Ulmanis government moved to Liepaja, where it was
protected by a British naval squadron. But Liepaja was still occupied by
German troops, who the Allies wished to defend East Prussia and Courland
(Kurzeme) against the advancing Red Army. Their commander, General
Rόdiger von der Goltz, intended to build a German-controlled Latvia and
to make it a German base of operation in the war against the Soviets.
This intention caused a conflict with the government of independent
Latvia supported by the Allies. On May 22, 1919, von der Goltz took Riga.
Pushing northward, the Germans were stopped near Cesis by the Estonian
army, which included 2,000 Latvians. The British forced the Germans to
abandon Riga, to which the Ulmanis government returned in July. In the
meantime, the Red Army, finding itself attacked from the north by the
Estonians, had withdrawn from Latvia.
In July the British demanded that
the German troops retreat to East Prussia. But von der Goltz now raised
a "West Russian" army, systematically reinforced by units of German
volunteers. These forces, headed by an adventurer, Colonel Pavel
Bermondt-Avalov, were to fight the Red Army, cooperating with the other
"White Russian" armies of Kolchak, Denikin, and Yudenich, supported by
the Allies. But on October 8 Bermondt-Avalov attacked the Latvian troops
and occupied the suburbs of Riga south of the river. By November 10,
however, the Latvians, aided by the artillery of an Anglo-French naval
squadron cooperating with Estonian forces, defeated von der Goltz's and
Bermondt-Avalov's troops, attacked finally also by the Lithuanians. By
December 1919 all German troops had abandoned Latvia and Lithuania. Only
Latgale remained in Red hands; but this province was soon thereafter
cleared of Red troops.
A Latvian constituent assembly,
elected in April 1920, met in Riga on May 1; and on August 11 a Latvian-Soviet
peace treaty was signed in Riga, the Soviet government renouncing all
claims to Latvia. The Latvian constitution of Feb. 15, 1922, provided
for a republic with a president and a unicameral parliament, the Saeima,
of 100 members elected for three years.
The multiplicity of parties in the
Saeima (22 in 1922 and 24 in 1931) made it impossible to form a stable
government; and in 1934 Ulmanis, prime minister for the fourth time
since 1918, proposed a constitutional reform. This was angrily opposed
by the Social Democrats, the communists, and the national minorities.
The German minority became Nazified, and Ulmanis had to suppress the
Latvian branch of the Baltischer Bruderschaft ("Baltic Brotherhood"),
whose program was the incorporation of the Baltic state into the Third
Reich; but a Latvian fascist organization called Perkonkrust ("Thundercross")
developed fierce propaganda. On May 15, 1934, Ulmanis issued a decree
declaring a state of siege. The Saeima and all the political parties
were dissolved. On April 11, 1936, on the expiration of the second term
of office of President Alberts Kviesis, Ulmanis succeeded him. The
country's economic position improved considerably.
The Soviet occupation and
incorporation. When World
War II started in September 1939, the fate of Latvia had been already
decided in the secret protocol of the so-called German-Soviet
Nonaggression Pact of August 23. In October Latvia had to sign a
dictated treaty of mutual assistance by which the U.S.S.R. obtained
military, naval, and air bases on Latvian territory. On June 17, 1940,
Latvia was invaded by the Red Army. On June 20 the formation of a new
government was announced; on July 21 the new Saeima voted for the
incorporation of Latvia into the U.S.S.R.; and on August 5 the U.S.S.R.
accepted this incorporation. In the first year of Soviet occupation
about 35,000 Latvians, especially the intelligentsia, were deported to
Russia. During the German invasion of the U.S.S.R., from July 1941 to
October 1944, Latvia was a province of a larger Ostland, which included
Estonia, Lithuania, and Belorussia.
About two-thirds of the country
was occupied by the Red Army in 1944. the Germans held out in Kurzeme
until the end of the war. About 100,000 fled to Sweden and Germany
before the arrival of Soviet forces.
The first postwar decade proved
particularly difficult. The uncompromising effort of the regime to
transform the country into a typical Soviet bailiwick compounded the
devastation of the war. Severe political repression accompanied radical
socioeconomic change. Extreme Russification numbed national cultural
life. Several waves of mass deportation to northern Russia and Siberia--altogether
involving at least 100,000 people--occurred, most notably in 1949 in
connection with a campaign to collectivize agriculture. Large-scale
immigration from Russia and other parts of the Soviet Union began and
continued throughout the postwar period. In just over 40 years the
proportion of Latvians in the population dropped from roughly three-fourths
to little more than one-half.
The ruling Communist Party was
disproportionately composed of immigrants. A concerted effort made to
nativize the party and especially its ruling cadres triggered a
wholesale purge in 1959 of indigenous high-level officials. The
immigrant element headed by first secretary Arvids Pelse and his
successors Augusts Voss and Boriss Pugo remained entrenched in positions
of power during the following three decades.
Restoration of
independence. A national renaissance developed in the late
1980s in connection with the Soviet campaigns for glasnost ("openness")
and perestroika ("restructuring"). Mass demonstrations on ecological
questions in 1987 were the first non-officially-staged political
gatherings in the country in postwar times. In 1988 the Latvian Popular
Front emerged in opposition to the ruling establishment. It triumphed in
the elections of 1990. On May 4, 1990, the Latvian legislature passed a
declaration on the renewal of independence. A period of transition was
provided. Soviet efforts to restore the earlier situation culminated in
violent incidents in Riga in January 1991. In the aftermath of the
failed coup in Moscow in August of the same year, the Latvian
legislature declared full independence.
UP
