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a short history of Latvia

Brief History of Latvia

The land of today's territory of Latvia has been populated since 9000 BC, and the first settlers were people from the Baltic areas. Some centuries later, around the 3rd millennium BC, the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea was settled by the Latvians. Around 900 AD, the tribes were divided in five, Livonians, Latgallians, Couronians, Selonians and Semigallians, who spoke the Finno-Urgic language. Latvia was famous for its amber, and the Balts used to trade with Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Around 1180, the area was visited by Christian missionaries but the process of converting the faith of the Balts was not easy. German Crusaders were sent in, and by 1211 Christianity was perceived as the main religion in the area. In the 1200s, a new confederation was formed under German rule, named Libonia and including the existing Latvia and Southern Estonia. At the end of the century, in 1282, Riga and later the towns of Limbazi, Cesis and Koknese were included in the Hanseatic League, and from then on Riga became an important trade centre between the west and the east, and the cultural centre of the Baltic region. The Livonian State collapsed in the 1500s, and this brought many changes to the region. As a result of the Livonian War, the territories of today's Latvia came under Polish-Lithuanian rule. In the 17th and early 18th Centuries, there was a struggle for supremacy over the eastern Baltic region among Sweden, Poland and Russia.

In 1629, the Truce of Altmark was signed, on the grounds of which a great part of Polish Livonia went under Swedish rule and thus serfdom was eased and many schools were established. When the Great Northern War ended and the Treaty of Nystad was signed in 1721, the Vidzeme region went to Russia, while the Latgale region remained part of Poland until 1772, when it also joined Russia. The Duchy of Courland became a Russian province and thus all of today's Latvia became part of Imperial Russia in 1795. Peter the Great made promises to the Baltic German nobility when Riga fell, later known as the Capitulations, reforms that reversed the reforms made by the Swedes. The serfs emancipation happened in 1817 and 1819 and the social structure changed significantly when a group of independent farmers were allowed to buy their lands back. That led to an urban proletarian and the formation of a strong and influential Latvian bourgeoisie. A nationalist group was formed named the Young Latvians, who opposed the social order dominated by the Germans. Russification had spread over Latvia by the 1880s, after the January Uprising in 1863. Discontent exploded some years later, which led to the Revolution of 1905. The First World War completely devastated Latvia. Full independence was proclaimed in 1918, in Riga. After that, a period of chaos followed. By the spring of the following year, the Latvian territory had three governments, that of the Ulmanis, the Soviet Latvians and the Baltic Germans. The Latvian and Estonian forces defeated the Germans in June 1919, which was followed by a massive attack from the Russians and Germans. The eastern part of Latvia was cleared of the Red Army forces by Latvian, German and Polish troops in 1920.

A Constituent Assembly was formed in May 1920, and a liberal constitution was adopted. A radical land reform was the main political question in Latvia, as its industrial base was sent to the interior of Russia in 1915. The innovations made in the rural zones and rising productivity led to steady and rapid growth of the economy, however it was soon affected by the Great Depression. In May of 1934, the Ultmans made a bloodless coup and established a nationalist dictatorship which lasted for the next six years. The country was forced to sign a pact with the Soviet Union in the end of 1939, thus granting the Soviets the right to station many troops on the Latvian territory. Some months later, in 1940, Molotov presented the Latvians with an ultimatum which accused Latvia of violating the pact, and the very next day the Russian troops occupied Latvia. Thus Latvia was included in the USSR and the annexation was signed in August 1940. During the Second World War, more than 200,000 Latvian citizens died, including many Jews. The Latvian forces fought on both the Latvian Legion side and the Waffen-SS side. In the period 1944-1945, the Soviets occupied the country again, followed by massive deportations, forced collectivism and Sovietism. This led to an influx of administrators, personnel and laborers from Russia and the rest of the Soviet Republics, and by the beginning of the 1960s the ethnic Latvian population had fallen to 62%. Of course, there were attempts at regaining autonomy, but they were suppressed.

In 1989, the USSR signed a resolution stating that the occupation of Latvia was not according to the law and the will of the Soviet people. In the time of glasnost and the rule of Mikhail Gorbachov, the Latvian SSR adopted a Declaration of the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia. Latvian independence was officially adopted in August 1991, and Russia withdrew its troops three years later, in 1994. Ten years after that, in the year 2004, Latvia joined NATO and became a member of the European Union. The government gave back or compensated the private property confiscated under Soviet rule. Today, the Latvian economy is one of the most solid ones, with very high growth rates.