1.
Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic
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The Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic was a short-lived socialist republic formed during the Latvian War of Independence. It was proclaimed on 17 December 1918 with the political, economic, the head of government was Pēteris Stučka. Stučkas government introduced sweeping communist reforms, resuming the radical policy direction from the abortive Iskolat regime, some reforms were initially popular, such as the expropriation of property from the bourgeoisie. The decision to nationalise all agrarian land, however, had dire economic consequences for the cities. The peasants no longer agreed to supply the townsfolk with foodstuffs on the governments terms, arbitrary Revolutionary Tribunals and the so-called Flintenweiber were memorable components of this wave of terror. When the Entente-backed Ulmanis government counter-attacked with the backing of German Freikorps units in the spring of 1919, piat’ mesiatsev Sotsialisticheskoi sovetskoi Latvii, Sbornik statei i dokumentov. The City of the Red Plague, Soviet Rule in a Baltic Town, london, New York, George Allen & Unwin, E. P. Krastyn, IA. P. Sotsialisticheskaia Sovetskaia Respublika Latvii v 1919 g, I inostrannaia interventsiia, Dokumenty i materialy. Riga, Izd-vo Akademii Nauk Latviiskoi SSR. pp.2 v. OCLC18861284, Legal Thought and the Formation of Law and Legal Institutions in the Socialist Soviet Republic of Latvia, 1917–1920. Latvia in the Soviet Union Latvia at www. worldstatesmen. org, significant documents from the history of the LSPR at historia. lv
2.
Occupation of the Baltic states
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On 22 June 1941 Nazi Germany attacked the USSR and within weeks occupied the Baltic territories. In July 1941, the Baltic territory was incorporated into the Reichskommissariat Ostland of the Third Reich, the Soviet annexation occupation of the Baltic states lasted until August 1991, when the Baltic states regained independence. In its reassessment of Soviet history that began during perestroika in 1989, however, Russia agreed to Europes demand to assist persons deported from the occupied Baltic states upon joining the Council of Europe. De facto independence was restored to the Baltic states in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia started to withdraw its troops from the Baltics in August 1993. The full withdrawal of troops deployed by Moscow was completed in August 1994, Russia officially ended its military presence in the Baltics in August 1998 by decommissioning the Skrunda-1 radar station in Latvia. The dismantled installations were repatriated to Russia and the returned to Latvian control. Early in the morning of August 24,1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a ten-year non-aggression pact, the pact contained a secret protocol by which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet spheres of influence. In the north, Finland, Estonia and Latvia were assigned to the Soviet sphere, Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its political rearrangement—the areas east of the Narev, Vistula and San Rivers going to the Soviet Union while Germany would occupy the west. According to this protocol, Lithuania would regain its historical capital Vilnius. Following the end of Soviet invasion of Poland on 6 October, the Soviets pressured Finland, the Soviets questioned the neutrality of Estonia after the escape of an interned Polish submarine on 18 September. A week later on 24 September, the Estonian foreign minister was given an ultimatum in Moscow, the Soviets demanded the conclusion of a treaty of mutual assistance to establish military bases in Estonia. The Estonians had no choice but to accept naval, air, the corresponding agreement was signed on 28 September 1939. Latvia followed on 5 October 1939 and Lithuania shortly thereafter, on 10 October 1939, in September and October 1939, the Soviet government compelled the Baltic states to conclude mutual assistance pacts which gave it the right to establish Soviet military bases. In May 1940, the Soviets turned to the idea of military intervention. Their model was the Finnish Democratic Republic, a puppet regime set up by the Soviets on the first day of the Winter War, the Soviets organised a press campaign against the allegedly pro-Allied sympathies of the Baltic governments. In May 1940, the Germans invaded France, which was overrun, in late May and early June 1940, the Baltic states were accused of military collaboration against the Soviet Union by holding meetings the previous winter. On 15 June 1940, the Lithuanian government had no choice but to agree to the Soviet ultimatum, president Antanas Smetona proposed armed resistance to the Soviets but the government refused, proposing their own candidate to lead the regime. However, the Soviets refused this offer and sent Vladimir Dekanozov to take charge of affairs while the Red Army occupied the state, on 16 June 1940, Latvia and Estonia also received ultimata
3.
Republics of the Soviet Union
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The Republics of the Soviet Union or the Union Republics of the Soviet Union were ethnically based proto-states that were subordinated directly to the Government of the Soviet Union. Article 81 of the Constitution stated that the rights of Union Republics shall be safeguarded by the USSR. In the final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union officially consisted of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics, all of them, with the exception of the Russian Federation, had their own local party chapters of the All-Union Communist Party. In 1944, amendments to the All-Union Constitution allowed for branches of the Red Army for each Soviet Republic. They also allowed for Republic-level commissariats for foreign affairs and defense and this allowed for two Soviet Republics, Ukraine and Byelorussia, to join the United Nations General Assembly as founding members in 1945. All of the former Republics of the Union are now independent countries, however, most of the international community did not consider the Baltic countries to have legitimately been part of the USSR. Their position is supported by the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council, in contrast, the Russian government and state officials maintain that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate. Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a federation, in accordance with provisions present in the Constitution, each republic retained the right to secede from the USSR. Under the constitution adopted in 1936 and modified along the way until October 1977, along with the state administrative hierarchy, there existed a parallel structure of party organizations, which allowed the Politburo to exercise large amounts of control over the republics. State administrative organs took direction from the party organs, and appointments of all party. Each republic had its own set of state symbols, a flag, a coat of arms, and, with the exception of Russia until 1990. Every republic of the Soviet Union also was awarded with the Order of Lenin, number of the union republics of the USSR varied from 4 to 16. In majority of years and at the decades of its existence. The Soviet Union considered the initial annexation legal, but officially recognized their independence on September 6,1991, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia, in winter of 1919 The Lithuanian–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in 1919 but fell very soon. The Persian Socialist Soviet Republic, in what is now Iran, the Turkestan Soviet Federative Republic was proclaimed in 1918 but did not survive to the founding of the USSR, becoming the short-lived Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the RSFSR. When the Tuvan Peoples Republic joined the Soviet Union in 1944, it did not become a union republic, the leader of the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov, suggested in the early 1960s that the country should become a union republic, but the offer was rejected. During the Soviet–Afghan War, the Soviet Union proposed to annex the Northern Afghanistan as its 16th union republic in what was to become the Afghan Soviet Socialist Republic, though administratively part of their respective Union Republics, ASSRs were also established based on ethnic/cultural lines. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, openness and restructuring were intended to liberalise, however, they had a number of effects which caused the power of the republics to increase
4.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
5.
Latvian language
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Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It was previously known in English as Lettish which remains the standard today in various forms in most other Germanic languages, there are about 1.3 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and 100,000 abroad. Altogether,2 million, or 80% of the population of Latvia, of those,1.16 million or 56% use it as their primary language at home. The use of the Latvian language in areas of social life in Latvia is increasing. Latvian is a Baltic language and is most closely related to Lithuanian, in addition there is some disagreement whether Latgalian and New Curonian, which are mutually intelligible with Latvian, should be considered varieties or separate languages. Latvian first appeared in Western print in the century with the reproduction of the Lords Prayer in Latvian in Sebastian Münsters Cosmographia Universalis. Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family and it is one of two living Baltic languages with an official status. The Baltic languages are of particular interest to linguists because they retain many archaic features believed to have present in the early stages of the Proto-Indo-European language. There is some evidence to suggest the existence of a Balto-Slavic language group after the break-up of Proto-Indo-European, there exist a number of Baltic words that are similar to Sanskrit or Latin and which lack counterparts in Slavic languages. Latvian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Albanian, Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages are grouped as satem languages, while the possession of many archaic features is undeniable, the exact manner by which the Baltic languages have developed from the Proto-Indo-European language is not clear. According to some speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from Western Baltic between 400 and 600. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after 800, with a period of being one language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th century or 15th century and this process of consolidation started in the 13th century after the Livonian Crusade and forced christianization. These tribes came under Livonian rule thus forming a political, economic. The oldest known examples of written Latvian are from a 1530 translation of a made by Nikolaus Ramm. Until the 19th century, the Latvian language was influenced by the German language. In the middle of the 19th century the First Latvian National Awakening was started, led by “Young Latvians” who popularized the use of Latvian language, participants to this movement laid the foundations for standard Latvian and also popularized the Latvianization of loan words. However, in the 1880s, when Czar Alexander III came into power, during this period, some Latvian scholars even suggested adopting Cyrillic for use in Latvian
6.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
7.
Socialist state
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A socialist state or socialist republic refers to any state that is constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. Aside from the Communist states, a number of states have described their orientation as socialist in their constitutions. In such cases, the system and machinery of government is not specifically structured to pursue the development of socialism. The concept of a socialist state is related to state socialism. Specifically, the state would become an entity for production as opposed to a mechanism for political control. According to Friedrich Engels, Saint-Simon foreshadowed the classical Marxist notion of the development of the state in a socialist society, karl Marx understood the state to be an instrument of the class rule, dominated by the interests of the ruling class in any mode of production. This transitional stage would involve working-class interests dominating government policy, in the manner that capitalist-class interests dominate government policy under capitalism. Karl Marx described the Paris Commune as the prototype for a government of the future. Friedrich Engels noted that all officials, high or low, were only the wages received by other workers. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, such a state would be a temporary affair, Engels argued. A new generation, he suggested, brought up in new and free social conditions, the Leninist conception of a socialist state is tied to Vladimir Lenins theory of the revolutionary party and organizational principles of democratic centralism. These ideas were adopted by Vladimir Lenin in 1917 just prior to the October Revolution in Russia and published in The State and Revolution, a central text for many Marxists. Vladimir Lenin argued that as socialism is replaced by communism, the state would wither away as strong centralized control progressively reduces as local communities gain more empowerment, as he put succinctly, So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state, states run by Communist parties that adhere to Marxism–Leninism, or some variation thereof, refer to themselves as socialist states. The Soviet Union was the first to proclaim itself a socialist state in its 1936 Constitution, another well-known example is the Peoples Republic of China, which proclaims itself to be a socialist state in its 1982 Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China. In the West, such states are known as communist states. This often includes at least the commanding heights of the economy to be nationalized, usually operated according to a plan of production, at least in the major production and social spheres. These Communist states often dont claim to have achieved socialism in their countries, rather, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea used to be a Marxist–Leninist state
8.
Communist Party of Latvia
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Communist Party of Latvia was a political party in Latvia. The party was founded at a congress in June 1904, initially the party was known as the Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party. During its second party congress in 1905 it adopted the programme of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party as its own. At the Fourth Congress of the RSDLP in 1906, the LSDSP entered the RSDLP as a territorial organisation, the party held its fourth congress in Brussels January 26 to February 8,1914. In May 1918 Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party was founded by the Menshevik elements who had expelled from the LSD. The party briefly governed the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic in 1919, the youth wing of the party was the Young Communist League of Latvia. The LKP was a member of the Comintern from 1919, in the aftermath of the Latvian War of Independence, the LKP was banned in Latvia. Its leadership resided in exile in the USSR, while the organisation in Latvia operated clandestinely, either through underground cells, or via proxy organisations, such as Red leftist trades unions. In 1928 the party started operating more openly, and contested the 1928 Saeima elections through a proxy list known as the Left Trade Unions, the list won five seats, but was banned in 1930. They reformed the following year to contest the elections as the Trade Union Workers and Peasants Group. However, in 1933 the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the party, after the Soviet occupation of Latvia in June 1940 and the ousting of the Ulmanis government, the LKP and LDJS were legalised again and could operate openly. It was the party allowed to contest the Soviet staged 1940 elections. The party later merged into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as the Latvian branch of CPSU it was renamed as Communist Party of Latvia (Latvian, Latvijas Komunistiskā partija. When the CPSU was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952, Article 6 of the Latvian SSR Constitution made the LKPs monopoly on political power in Soviet Latvia explicit. In 1990, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia voted to remove Article 6 from the Constitution, on 14 April 1990, a pro-independence faction under Ivars Ķezbers split off from the LKP to form the Independent Communist Party of Latvia. The main body of the LKP, under the chairmanship of Alfrēds Rubiks, remained loyal to Moscow, later that same year, on 14 September, Ķezberss party was officially renamed the Democratic Labour Party of Latvia and adopted nominally social-democratic platform. In October of that year, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Latvia Cīņa, was shut down. Later, an organization by the name of the League of Communists of Latvia was created by Albert Lebedev, however, registration to this organization was denied
9.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
10.
Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare
11.
Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940
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In July 1989 the country stepped on the road of the restoration of its independence, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Latvias sovereignty was fully restored in 1991. On August 22,1996, the Latvian parliament adopted a declaration which stated that the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 was a military occupation, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Latvia declared its independence on November 18,1918. After a prolonged War of Independence, Latvia and Soviet Russia signed a treaty on August 11,1920. The independence of Latvia was diplomatically recognised by the Allied Supreme Council on January 26,1921, on September 22,1921 Latvia was admitted to membership in the League of Nations and remained a member until the formal dissolution of the League in 1946. On June 7,1939 German–Latvian Non-Aggression Pact was signed, on September 1,1939, the day World War II began, Latvia declared its neutrality. Article II defines forms of aggression, fourth — a naval blockade of coasts or ports of another State. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, signed August 23,1939 contained secret protocols to split up territories between Germany and the Soviet Union. According to these protocols, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia were within the Soviet sphere of interest, Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. France and Britain, which were obligated by treaty to protect Poland, following French-British indecision, Britain acted alone moving forward with a two-hour ultimatum at 9, 00am on September 3, which France was then forced to follow, issuing its own ultimatum. France subsequently requested Britain not bomb Germany, fearing retaliation against the French populace. It was determined to do nothing, so as to not provoke a transfer of German forces to the western front, chamberlain declared on September 12 There is no hurry as time is on our side. The abandonment of Poland was complete, Stalin then suggested a trade to Hitler to solve the Baltic problem. The Soviet Union now occupied just over half of all Polish territory, There were no impediments remaining to Stalin, in concert with Hitler, achieving his aims in the Baltics. On September 24,1939, warships of the Red Navy appeared off Latvias northern neighbour, Estonian ports, Soviet bombers began a patrol over Tallinn. USSR then violated the air space of all three Baltic states, flying massive intelligence gathering operations on September 25, Moscow demanded that Baltic countries allow the USSR to establish military bases and station troops on their soil for the duration of the European war. During talks in Moscow, on October 2,1939, Stalin told Vilhelms Munters, the Latvian foreign minister, I tell you frankly, as far as Germany is concerned we could occupy you. The Baltics took this threat seriously, the government of Estonia accepted the ultimatum signing the corresponding agreement on September 28. 1939, Latvia following on October 5,1939, and Lithuania shortly thereafter, at face value, this pact did not impinge upon Latvian sovereignty
12.
Latvia
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Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, one of the three Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2. The country has a seasonal climate. Latvia is a parliamentary republic established in 1918. The capital city is Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, Latvia is a unitary state, divided into 119 administrative divisions, of which 110 are municipalities and 9 are cities. Latvians and Livs are the people of Latvia. Latvian and Lithuanian are the two surviving Baltic languages. Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language, Latvia and Estonia share a long common history. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans, Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant Lutheran, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic. The Russian population has brought a significant portion of Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918, however, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule and it ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991. Latvia is a democratic and developed country and member of the European Union, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, CBSS, the IMF, NB8, NIB, OECD, OSCE, and WTO. For 2014, Latvia was listed 46th on the Human Development Index and it used the Latvian lats as its currency until it was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2014. The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, henry of Latvia coined the Latinisations of the countrys name, Lettigallia and Lethia, both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the name in Romance languages from Letonia. Around 3000 BC, the ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals, by 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia, Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians, as well as the Livonians speaking a Finnic language
13.
Reichskommissariat Ostland
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It was also known initially as Reichskommissariat Baltenland. These policies applied not only to the Reichskommissariat Ostland but also to other German-occupied Soviet territories, through the use of Einsatzgruppen A and B with active participation of local auxiliary forces over a million Jews were killed in the Reichskommissariat Ostland. Throughout 1943 and 1944 the Red Army gradually recaptured most of the territory in their advance on Germany, with the end of the war in Europe and the defeat of Germany in 1945, the Reichskommissariat ceased to exist completely. Ostland should not be confused with Ober Ost, which had a role as an occupation authority for Baltic territories conquered by the German Empire in World War I. Otto Bräutigam, a colleague of Rosenberg at the time. A more important additional colleague of Rosenberg, Georg Leibbrandt, spoke out against this and he argued that the sympathy of the Baltic peoples, who would naturally want the use of their own terminology, could be lost entirely. They would therefore not be won over either as supporters of the German war effort, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, vast areas were conquered to Germanys east. A Führer Decree of 17 July 1941 provided for this move and it established Reichskommissariats in the east, as administrative units of the Greater German Reich. The structure of the Reichskommissariats was defined by the same decree, each of these territories would be led by a German civil governor known as a Reichskommissar appointed by Hitler and answerable only to him. The official appointed for the Ostland was Hinrich Lohse, the Oberpräsident, an instruction for the administrators of the territories was prepared by Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg. Local government in the Reichskommissariat was to be organized under a National Director in Estonia, a General Director in Latvia, rosenbergs ministerial authority was, in practice, severely limited. These German central government interventions in the affairs of Ostland overriding the appropriate ministries were known as special administrations, later, from September 1941, the civil administration that had been decreed in the previous July was actually set up. Lohse and Koch objected to these breaches of their supposed responsibilities, seeking to administer their territories with the independence, in July 1941, the civil administration was declared in much of the occupied Soviet territories before one had materialised in the field. This partly explains the strained relations between the SS and the civil administration, the short-term political objectives for Ostland differed from those for the Ukraine, the Caucasus or the Moscow regions. The Baltic lands, which were to be joined together with Belarus, Rosenberg suggested that Belarus will be in the future an appropriate reception area of various undesirable population elements from the Baltic part of Ostland and German-occupied Poland. He also toyed with the idea of turning the country into a nature reserve. The regime planned to encourage the settlement of Germans to the region. During the war itself in Pskov province ethnic Germans were resettled from Romania with some Dutch, the settlement of Dutch settlers was encouraged by the Nederlandsche Oost-Compagnie, a Dutch-German organisation
14.
State Council of the Soviet Union
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The members of the council consisted of the President of the Soviet Union, and highest officials from the Soviet Union Republics. This committee was transformed into the Committee on the Operational Management of the Soviet Economy, also chaired by Silayev. Its function was to coordinate economic policy across the Soviet Union, as Chairman of both COMSE and the IEC, Silayev presided over a quickly disintegrating Soviet Union. On 6 September 1991 a presidential decree gave the IEC the same authority as the Cabinet of Ministers. When he first took office, Silayev wanted to reduce the powers of the central government and this view changed, he demanded that Yeltsin give back much of the authority of the central government which he had usurped following the August Coup. In this he failed, and his position as Russian SFSR Premier was severely weakened as a result. Silayev, as overseer of the economy, was given the task of initiating economic reforms in the Soviet Union in a way that both the central government and the Soviet republics. Silayev tried to maintain an integrated economy while initiating the marketisation of the economy, on 19 December COMSE was dissolved by a presidential decree, and Gorbachev resigned as Soviet President on 25 December. The next day,26 December 1991, Silayev resigned from his post as IEC Chairman, and the Soviet Union was formally dissolved by the Council of Republics
15.
History of Latvia
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The History of Latvia began around 9000 BC with the end of the last glacial period in northern Europe. Ancient Baltic peoples arrived here during the second millennium BC, in the early medieval period, the regions peoples resisted Christianisation and became subject to attack in the Northern Crusades. Latvias capital city Riga, founded in 1201 by Germans at the mouth of the Daugava and it was to be the first major city of the southern Baltic and, after 1282, a principal trading centre in the Hanseatic League. By the 16th century, Baltic German dominance in Terra Mariana was increasingly challenged by other powers, the last period of external hegemony began in 1710, when control over Riga and parts of modern-day Latvia switched from Sweden to Russia during the Great Northern War. The increasing social problems and rising discontent that this meant that Riga also played a leading role in the 1905 Russian Revolution. The Constitution of Latvia was adopted in 1922, political instability and effects of the Great Depression led to the May 15,1934 coup détat by Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis. Latvias independence was interrupted in June–July 1940, when the country was occupied and incorporated into the Soviet Union, in 1941 it was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany, then reconquered by the Soviets in 1944–45. From the mid-1940s Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic was subject to Soviet economic control, since then, under restored independence, Latvia has become a member of the United Nations, entered NATO and joined the European Union. Latvias economy suffered greatly during the Great Recession which caused the 2008 Latvian financial crisis, worsening economic conditions and better job opportunities in Western Europe have caused a massive Latvian emigration. The Ice Age in Latvia ended 14, 000–12,000 years ago, the first human settlers arrived here during the Paleolithic Age 11, 000–12,000 years ago. They were hunters, who following the reindeer herds camped along the rivers, as geology of the Baltic Sea indicates, the coastline then reached further inland. The earliest tools found near Salaspils date to the late Paleolithic age, circa 12,000 years ago, during the Mesolithic Age permanent settlements of hunter-gatherers were established. They hunted and fished, establishing camps near rivers and lakes,25 settlements have been found near Lake Lubāns and these people from the Kunda culture made weapons and tools from flint, antler, bone and wood. The early Neolithic was marked by beginnings of pottery-making, animal husbandry, a local Narva culture developed in the region during the Middle Neolithic. Inhabitants of this age were Finno-Ugric peoples, forefathers of Livonians who are related to Estonians and Finns. At the beginning of the Late Neolithic, arrived people belonging to the Corded Ware culture and they were Balts, forefathers of Latvians, who have inhabited most of Latvian territory since the third millennium BCE. Baltic languages are ones of the oldest in Europe, retaining many connections to the Proto-Indo-European language, with introduction of iron tools during the early Iron Age agriculture was greatly improved and emerged as the dominant economic activity. Bronze, which was traded from foreigners because Latvia has no copper or tin, was used for making a variety of decorative ornaments
16.
Kunda culture
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The oldest known Kunda culture settlement in Estonia is Pulli settlement. The Kunda Culture is succeeded by the Narva culture who use pottery, most Kunda settlements are located near the edge of the forests beside rivers, lakes, or marshes. Elk were extensively hunted, perhaps helped by trained domestic hunting-dogs, on the coast seal hunting is represented. Pike and other fish were taken from the rivers, there is a rich bone and antler industry, especially in relation to fishing gear. Tools were decorated with geometric designs, lacking the complexity of the contemporary Maglemosian Culture communities to the southwest. The Kunda culture appears to have undergone a transition from the Palaeolithic Swiderian culture located previously over much of the same range, one such transition settlement, Pasieniai 1C in Lithuania, features stone tools of both Late Swiderian and early Kunda. One shape manufactured in both cultures is the retouched tanged point, the final Swiderian is dated 7800–7600 BC by calibrated radiocarbon dating, which is in the Preboreal period, at the end of which time with no gap the early Kunda begins. Evidently the descendants of the Swiderians were the first to settle Estonia when it became habitable, other post-Swiderian groups extended as far east as the Ural mountains. Kunda, Estonia Pulli, Estonia Luga Pasieniai, Lithuania Ristola, Finland Velizh Zvejnieki, Latvia
17.
Narva culture
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A successor of the Mesolithic Kunda culture, Narva culture continued up to the start of the Bronze Age. The technology was that of hunter-gatherers, the culture was named after the Narva River in Estonia. The people of the Narva culture had little access to flint, therefore, they were forced to trade, for example, there were very few flint arrowheads and flint was often reused. The Narva culture relied on local materials, heavy use of bones and horns is one of the main characteristics of the Narva culture. The bone tools, continued from the predecessor Kunda culture, provide the best evidence of continuity of the Narva culture throughout the Neolithic period, the people were buried on their backs with few grave goods. The Narva culture also used and traded amber, a few hundred items were found in Juodkrantė, one of the most famous artifacts is a ceremonial cane carved of horn as a head of female elk found in Šventoji. The people were primarily fishers, hunters, and gatherers and they slowly began adopting husbandry in middle Neolithic. They were not nomadic and lived in same settlements for periods as evidenced by abundant pottery, middens. The pottery shared similarities with Comb Ceramic culture, but had specific characteristics, one of the most persistent features was mixing clay with other organic matter, most often crushed snail shells. The pottery was made of 6-to-9 cm wide clay strips with minimal decorations around the rim, the vessels were wide and large, the height and the width were often the same. The bottoms were pointed or rounded, and only the latest examples have narrow flat bottoms, from mid-Neolithic Narva pottery was influenced and eventually disappeared into the Corded Ware culture. For a long time believed that the first inhabitants of the region were Finno-Ugric. In 1931, Latvian archeologist Eduards Šturms was the first to note that artifacts found near Zebrus Lake in Latvia were different, in early 1950s settlements on the Narva River were excavated. Lembit Jaanits and Nina Gurina grouped the findings with similar artifacts from eastern Baltic region, at first it was believed that Narva culture ended with appearance of the Corded Ware culture. However, newer research extended it up to the Bronze Age, as Narva culture spanned several millenniums and encompassed a large territory, archaeologists attempted to subdivide the culture into regions or periods. For example, in Lithuania two regions are distinguished, southern and western, there is an academic debate what ethnicity represented the Narva culture, Finno-Ugrians or other Europids, preceding arrival of the Indo-Europeans. It is also unclear how the Narva culture fits with the arrival of the Indo-Europeans, overview of Neolithic sites on Narva River in Estonia
18.
Corded Ware culture
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Corded Ware culture encompassed a vast area, from the Rhine on the west to the Volga in the east, occupying parts of Northern Europe, Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The Corded Ware was genetically related to the Yamnaya culture. The Corded Ware culture may have disseminated the Proto-Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic Indo-European languages, the Corded Ware Culture also shows genetic affinity with the later Sintashta culture, where the proto-Indo-Iranian language originated. The term Corded Ware culture was first introduced by the German archaeologist Friedrich Klopfleisch in 1883 and he named it after cord-like impressions or ornamentation characteristic of its pottery. The term Single Grave culture comes from its burial custom, which consisted of inhumation under tumuli in a position with various artifacts. Battle Axe culture, or Boat Axe culture, is named from its characteristic grave offering to males, at the same time, they had several shared elements that are characteristic of all Corded Ware groups, such as their burial practices, pottery with cord decoration and unique stone-axes. The contemporary Beaker culture overlapped with the extremity of this culture, west of the Elbe. The origins and dispersal of Corded Ware culture was for a time one of the pivotal unresolved issues of the Indo-European Urheimat problem. Its wide area of distribution indicates rapid expansion at the time of the dispersal of Indo-European languages. Some archaeologists believed it sprang from central Europe while others saw an influence from nomadic societies of the steppes. In favour of the first view was the fact that Corded Ware coincides considerably with the earlier north-central European Funnelbeaker culture, according to Gimbutas, the Corded Ware culture was preceded by the Globular Amphora culture, which she regarded to be an Indo-European culture. The Globular Amphora culture stretched from central Europe to the Baltic sea, however, in other regions Corded Ware appears to herald a new culture and physical type. The degree to which cultural change generally represents immigration were matter of debate, according to controversial radiocarbon dates, Corded Ware ceramic forms in single graves develop earlier in the area that is now Poland than in western and southern Central Europe. The earliest radiocarbon dates for Corded Ware indeed come from Kujawy and Lesser Poland in central and southern Poland, whereas in the area of the present Baltic states and East Prussia, it is seen as an intrusive successor to the southwestern portion of the Narva culture. However, today Corded Ware is now seen as intrusive, though not necessarily aggressively so. A Genetic study conducted by Haak et al, about 75% of the DNA of late Neolithic Corded Ware skeletons found in Germany was a precise match to DNA from individuals of the Yamnaya culture. Haak et al. also note that their results suggest that haplogroups R1b and R1a spread into Europe from the East after 3,000 BCE.5 In terms of phenotypes, Wilde et al. and Haak et al. Autosomal DNA tests also indicate that the Yamnaya migration from the steppes introduced a component of ancestry referred to as Ancient North Eurasian admixture into Europe
19.
Amber Road
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The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber from coastal areas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Prehistoric trade routes between Northern and Southern Europe were defined by the amber trade, from at least the sixteenth century BC amber was moved from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean area. The breast ornament of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen contains large Baltic amber beads Heinrich Schliemann found Baltic amber beads at Mycenae, the quantity of amber in the Royal Tomb of Qatna, Syria, is unparalleled for known second millennium BC sites in the Levant and the Ancient Near East. Amber was sent from the North Sea to the temple of Apollo at Delphi as an offering, from the Black Sea, trade could continue to Asia along the Silk Road, another ancient trade route. In Roman times, a main route ran south from the Baltic coast through the land of the Boii to the head of the Adriatic Sea, the Old Prussian towns of Kaup and Truso on the Baltic were the starting points of the route to the south. In Scandinavia the amber road probably gave rise to the thriving Nordic Bronze Age culture, sometimes the Kaliningrad Oblast is called the Янтарный край, which means the amber area. Several roads connected the North Sea and Baltic Sea, especially the city of Hamburg to the Brenner Pass, proceeding southwards to Brindisi and Ambracia. The Swiss region indicates a number of roads, concentrating around the capital city Bern and probably originating from the borders of the Rhône River. A small section, including Baarn, Barneveld, Amersfoort and Amerongen, a small section led southwards from Antwerp and Bruges to the towns Braine-l’Alleud and Braine-le-Comte, both originally named Brennia-Brenna. The route continued by following the Meuse River towards Bern in Switzerland, three routes may be identified leading from an amber finding region or delta at the mouth of the River Openia towards Bresse and Bern, crossing the Alps to Switzerland and Italy. Routes connecting amber finding locations at Ambares, leading to Béarn, Routes connecting the amber finding locations in northern Spain and in the Pyrenees were a trading route to the Mediterranean Sea. There is a tourist route stretching along the Baltic coast from Kaliningrad to Latvia called Amber Road, in Poland a north–south motorway A1 is officially named Amber Highway. OWTRAD-scientific description of the road in Poland Old World Traditional Trade Routes Project Joannes Richter - Die Bernsteinroute bei Backnang
20.
Aesti
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The Aesti were an ancient people first described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his treatise Germania. According to Tacitus, Aestui, the land of the Aesti, was located somewhere east of the Suiones and west of the Sitones and this and other evidence suggests that Aestui was in or near the present-day Russian enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast. Geographical and linguistic evidence suggests that the Aesti were, ethnologically and they may have been synonymous with the Brus/Prūsa or Old Prussians – that is, not a Germanic people like modern Prussians, and not a Finno-Ugric people, such as modern Estonians. Tacitus often utilised unreliable, secondary sources, and may not have been aware of such distinctions in any case, Tacitus mention of a cult of the mother of the gods among the Aesti along the eastern Baltic coast does apply to the ancient Estonian and Baltic pagan religions. He also refers to the Fenni living next to the Aesti—the Fenni being ancestors to the Finns or the Sámi would situate them closest to the Estonians. Ultimately, Tacitus use of Aesti could apply equally well to either a people or to a grouping of ethnically diverse peoples across a wider area. In the modern Estonian language, Eesti is the endonym for Estonia, Estonia was known as Estia or Hestia in some early Latin sources, and Eistland in ancient Scandinavian sagas. Estonians themselves used Maarahvas, meaning people of the land, to refer to themselves until the modern era. The etymologies of Aesti and Eesti remain subjects of scholarly conjecture, both may be loanwords from a Germanic language, given their similarity to the Gothic word glas. Therefore, the oldest known name of the body of the water was lagoon of the Aesti, the ancient writers, beginning with Tacitus, who was the first Roman author to mention them in his Germania, provide very little information on the Aestii. They worship the Mother of the Gods, as the characteristic of their national superstition, they wear the images of wild boars. This alone serves them for arms, this is the safeguard of all, rare amongst them is the use of weapons of iron, but frequent that of clubs. In producing of grain and the fruits of the earth, they labour with more assiduity. Nay, they search the deep, and of all the rest are the only people who gather amber. They call it glesum, and find it amongst the shallows, but, according to the ordinary incuriosity and ignorance of Barbarians, they have neither learnt, nor do they inquire, what is its nature, or from what cause it is produced. In truth it lay long neglected amongst the other gross discharges of the sea, till from our luxury, it gained a name and value. To themselves it is of no use, they gather it rough, they expose it in pieces coarse and unpolished, and for it receive a price with wonder. The Baltic amber trade, which appears to have extended to the Mediterranean Sea, has been traced by archaeologists back to the Nordic Bronze Age and we have received the amber which you have sent us
21.
Baltic Finns
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In some cases the Kvens, Ingrians, Tornedalians and speakers of Meänkieli are also included separately rather than being a part of Finns proper. The bulk of the Baltic Finns are ethnic Finns and Estonians, Baltic Finns are also significant minority groups in neighbouring countries of Sweden, Norway and Russia. The Migration Theory has been called into question since 1980, based on genealogy, craniometry, the Settlement Continuity Theory asserts that at least the genetic ancestors of the Finno-Ugric peoples were among the earliest indigenous peoples of Europe. The origin of the people who lived in the Baltic Sea area during the Mesolithic Era continues to be debated by scientists, the members of this new Finno-Ugric-speaking ethnic group are regarded as the ancestors of modern Estonians. The Y-chromosomal data has revealed a common Finno-Ugric ancestry for the males of the neighboring Balts. According to the studies, Baltic males are most closely related to the Finno-Ugric-speaking Volga Finns such as the Mari, the results suggest that the territories of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been settled by Finno-Ugric-speaking tribes since the early Mesolithic period. On the other hand, some linguists do not consider it likely that a Baltic-Finnic language form could have existed at such an early date, according to these views, the Finno-Ugric languages appeared in Finland and Baltic only during the Early Bronze Age, if not later. The Baltic Finns share a cultural heritage, the art of ancient rune singing in the Kalevala meter, estimated to be 2. The Veps are the only Baltic Finnish people with no significant corpus of Kalevala meter oral poetry, the poetic tradition has included epic poems, lyric poems and magic chants. J. R. R. Tolkien has highlighted the importance of Kalevala as a source for his legendarium, the region has been populated since the end of the last glacial era, about 10,000 BC. The earliest traces of settlement are connected with Suomusjärvi culture. The Early Mesolithic Pulli settlement is located by the Pärnu River and it has been dated to the beginning of the 9th millennium BC. The Kunda Culture received its name from the Lammasmäe settlement site in northern Estonia, bone and stone artefacts similar to those found at Kunda have been discovered elsewhere in Estonia, as well as in Latvia, northern Lithuania and southern Finland. Around 5300 BCE pottery and agriculture entered Finland, the earliest representatives belong to the Comb Ceramic Cultures, known for their distinctive decorating patterns. Some researchers have argued that a form of Uralic languages may have been spoken in Estonia. The beginning of the Bronze Age in Estonia is dated to approximately 1800 BC, the coastal regions of Finland were a part of the Nordic Bronze Culture, whereas in the inland regions the influences came from the bronze-using cultures of Northern Russia. The development of the borders between the Finnic peoples and the Balts was under way, the first fortified settlements, Asva and Ridala on the island of Saaremaa and Iru in the Northern Estonia, began to be built. The development of shipbuilding facilitated the spread of bronze, the Pre-Roman Iron Age began in about 500 BC and lasted until the middle of the 1st century
22.
Livonians
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The Livonians or Livs are the indigenous inhabitants of Northern Latvia and Southwestern Estonia. They spoke the Uralic Livonian language, a language which was related to Estonian. The last person to have learned Livonian as a tongue, Grizelda Kristiņa. As of 2010, there were approximately 30 people who had learned it as a second language, in 2011, there were 250 people who claimed Livonian ethnicity in Latvia. The exact date of the Uralic migration to the region has been disputed, linguistic estimations place the arrival of ancestors of modern Livonians on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea around the Gulf of Riga as early as 1800 B. C. Historically, the Livonians lived in two areas of Latvia, one group in Livonia and another on the northern coast of Courland. The latter were referred as Curonians, together with the Balts living there, the Livonians referred to themselves as rāndalist and supported themselves mainly by fishing, but also by agriculture and animal husbandry. However, with the traders came missionaries from Western Europe who wanted to convert the pagan Livonians to Christianity. It has been suggested that the first person to convert some Livonians to Christianity was the Danish archbishop Absalon, in the 12th century, Germans invaded Livonia and established a base in Ykskyle, known today as Ikšķile. Archbishop Hartvig II converted some Livonians in the area, including the local chieftain Caupo of Turaida. After Meinhard died in 1196, his place was taken by Berthold, Berthold tried to convert the Livonians by force, launching two raids on Livonia. The first took place in 1196, but he was forced to retreat to Germany after being ambushed near Salaspils and he tried again in 1198, but this time he was killed by the Livonian soldier Ymaut. Berthold was followed by Albert von Buxhövden, who forced the Livonian leaders at the mouth of the Daugava River to give him land to build a Christian settlement, from this settlement, the city of Riga grew. In a campaign that was part of the known as the Livonian Crusade. In 1208, Pope Innocent III declared that all Livonians had been converted to Christianity, afterwards they were obliged to join the Knights of the Sword as infantry during the wars against the Estonians and the Latvian tribes, which continued until 1217. Before the German Conquests Livonian inhabited territory was divided in lands of Daugava Livonians, Satezele, Turaida, Idumeja, during the Livonian Crusade, once prosperous Livonia was devastated, and whole regions were almost completely depopulated. This vacuum was filled by Latvian tribes – Curonians, Semigallians, Latgallians and Selonians – who started to move into the area around 1220, and continued to do so for at least thirty years. They settled mostly in the Daugava Valley, so that the Livonians of Livonia in the east were cut off from those living on the peninsula of Curonia in the west
23.
Balts
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One of the features of Baltic languages is the number of conservative or archaic features retained. German medieval chronicler Adam of Bremen in the part of the 11th century CE was the first writer to use the term Baltic in its modern sense to mean the sea of that name. This is the first reference to the Baltic or Barbarian Sea, the Germanics, however, preferred some form of East Sea until after about 1600, when they began to use forms of Baltic Sea. Around 1840 the German nobles of the Governorate of Livonia devised the term Balts to mean themselves and they spoke an exclusive dialect, Baltic German. For all practical purposes that was the Baltic language until 1919, scandinavians begin settling in Western Baltic lands in Lithuania and Latvia during Vendel Age and with interruptions their presence in Baltic lands continued most of Viking Age. In 1845 Georg Heinrich Ferdinand Nesselmann proposed a language group for Latvian and Lithuanian to be called Baltic. It found some credence among linguists but was not generally adopted until the creation of the Baltic states as part of the settlement of World War I in 1919, estonia and Finland, however, also became counted among the Baltic states in the geopolitical sense. Because the thousands of lakes and swamps in this area contributed to the Balts geographical isolation and it is possible that around 3, 500–2,500 B. C. there was massive migration of peoples representing the Corded Ware culture. They came from the southeast and spread all across Eastern and Central Europe and it is believed that Corded Ware culture peoples were Indo-European ancestors of many Europeans, including Balts. It is thought that those Indo-European newcomers were quite numerous and in the Eastern Baltic assimilated earlier indigenous cultures, over time the new people formed the Baltic peoples and they spread in the area from the Baltic sea in the west to the Volga in the east. This information is summarized and synthesized by Marija Gimbutas in The Balts to obtain a likely proto-Baltic homeland, a possible early reference to a Baltic people occurs in 98 CE, when Tacitus names a tribe living near the Baltic Sea as the Aesti and describes them as amber gatherers. However, it is not clear if the Aesti mentioned by Tacitus were, a Baltic people, or, the Aesti appear to have inhabited the Sambian peninsula (in or near the present Kaliningrad Oblast. Over time, the area of Baltic habitation shrank, due to assimilation by other groups, finally, according to Slavic chronicles of the time, they warred with Slavs, and perhaps, were defeated and assimilated some time in the 11th to 13th centuries. Balts became differentiated into Western and Eastern Balts in the late centuries BCE, the eastern Baltic region was inhabited by ancestors of the Western Balts, Brus/Prūsa, Sudovians/Jotvingians, Scalvians, Nadruvians, and Curonians. The Eastern Balts, including the hypothesised Dniepr Balts, were living in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine, many other Eastern and Southern Balts either assimilated with other Balts, or Slavs in the 4th–7th centuries and were gradually slavicized. Gradually Old Prussians became Germanized or some Lithuanized during period from the 15th to the 17th centuries, the cultures of the Lithuanians and Latgalians/Latvians survived and became the ancestors of the populations of the modern countries of Latvia and Lithuania. Old Prussian was closely related to the other extinct Western Baltic languages and it is more distantly related to the surviving Eastern Baltic languages, Lithuanian and Latvian. Compare the Prussian word seme, the Latvian zeme, the Lithuanian žemė, Old Prussian contained a few borrowings specifically from Gothic and even North Germanic
24.
Latgalians
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Latgalians, sometimes also Ancient Latvians were an ancient Baltic tribe. They likely spoke the Latvian language, which became the lingua franca in present-day Latvia during the Northern Crusades due to their alliance with the crusaders. Latgalians later assimilated the neighboring tribes, forming the core of modern Latvians, the Latgalians were an Eastern Baltic tribe whose origin is little known. In the 5th and 6th centuries they lived in the part of present-day Vidzeme. In written sources they are mentioned from the 11th century, in the first two decades of the 13th century the Latgalians allied with German crusaders. Their lands as vassal states were incorporated into Livonia, in the 11th century Eastern orthodoxy started to spread in Latgalian lands from Polotsk and Pskov. In 12th century Latgalian lands and their rulers paid tribute to dukes of Polotsk, in 13th century during the Livonian crusade Latgalian elders changed their Eastern orthodoxy for Roman Catholicism and became vassals of Livonian Order. Due to crusade many regions of Semigallia and Courland were left depopulated so already during the war, subsequently between 13th and 16th centuries, they gradually assimilated other Baltic tribes Selonians, Semigallians and Curonians who thus became a part of todays ethnic Latvians. In the lands of the Western and the Eastern Latgalians, about 80 flat cemeteries of Western Latgalian origin have been excavated, the first large scale excavations took place in Ludza Odukalns Cemetery in Latgale, where 339 Late Iron Age burials were uncovered. In the excavations at Pildas Nukši Cemetery,218 burials were uncovered, dated to the 9th-12th century, at the Zvirgzdenes Kivti Cemetery 175 burials from the 7th-12th century were excavated. 315 burials were found at Aglonas Kristapiņi Cemetery, in use from the late 8th to 12th century, Ērgļu Jaunāķēni Cemetery was totally excavated in 1971-1972, with 89 burials being found. At Koknese Cemetery 102 burials from the Late Iron Age were uncovered, in the area of Gaujas Latgallians two cemeteries, Drabešu Liepiņas and Priekuļu Ģūģeri are well excavated too. Archaeological excavations have also carried out on the hillforts of Ķente, Koknese, Sārumkalns, Tanīskalns. Only a few Latgalian settlements have been excavated, large scale excavations and reconstruction has been done at the Āraiši lake dwelling site. In Latgale, dating from the 6th-7th centuries, there were flat cemeteries as well as barrow cemeteries, in the 9th-10th century the transition started from flat graves to barrows. There are about 15 excavated Eastern Latgalian barrow cemeteries, but usually only a number of barrows were investigated. Archaeologically identified dwelling-sites in Latgale include hill forts, settlements and lake dwellings, among hillforts, well researched is Jersika Hillfort, forming complex together with Dignāja Hillfort, on the opposite bank of Daugava. Jersika was occupied in the 10th-14th century, probably after the decline of Dignāja, which had been inhabited since the 6th century
25.
Curonians
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The Kursenieki are also known as Curonians. They gave their name to the region of Courland, and they spoke the Old Curonian language, Curonian lands were conquered by the Livonian Order in 1266 and they eventually merged with other Baltic tribes participating in the ethnogenesis of Lithuanians and Latvians. Direct descendants of the Curonians include the Kuršininkai of the Curonian Spit, ethnic origin of the Curonians has been disputed in the past. Until the middle of the 20th century, they were considered a Finnic tribe akin to the Livonians. This was traditionally the consensus of the Estonian historians, while the Latvian historians regarded the Curonians as Baltic, since the 20th century, most sources refer to the Curonians as a Baltic tribe. Some researchers place the Curonians to the eastern Baltic group, however, others hold that the Curonians were related to Old Prussians who belonged into western Baltic group. The Curonians were known as warriors, excellent sailors and pirates. They were involved in wars and alliances with Swedish, Danish. During that period they were the most restless and the richest of all the Balts,750, according to Norna-Gests þáttr saga from c. Grobin was the centre of the Curonians during the Vendel Age. Chapter 46 of Egils Saga describes one Viking expedition by the Vikings Thorolf, according to some opinions, they took part in attacking Swedens main city Sigtuna in 1187. Curonians established temporary settlements near Riga and in regions including eastern Sweden. The Curonians had a warrior culture and are considered to be eastern Baltic by some researchers. The Curonians were a religious people, worshipping pagan gods and their sacred animal. In c.1075 Adam of Bremen described the Curonians in his Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum as world famous pagan diviners, gold is very plentiful there, the horses are of the best. All the houses are full of pagan soothsayers, diviners, and necromancers, oracular responses are sought there from all parts of the world, especially by Spaniards and Greeks. It was common for the Curonians to carry out joint raids, linguist Eduard Vääri argues that it is possible that Curonians were Baltic Finns. The attested local Finnic language, Livonian, may be the source of Finnic elements in Curonian, during the Livonian crusade, Curonians formed an alliance with the Semigallians, resulting in a joint attack against Riga in 1228
26.
Selonians
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The Selonians were a tribe of Baltic peoples. They lived until the 15th century in Selonia, located in southeastern Latvia and they eventually merged with neighbouring tribes, contributing to the ethnogenesis of modern Latvians and Lithuanians. They spoke the Eastern Baltic Selonian language, little is known about the Selonians. There is little evidence and in historic sources the region is often described as a scarcely populated land. In written sources they are mentioned only few times, archeological data can trace the Selonians back to the beginning of 1st millennium AD when they lived on both sides of the Daugava River. And 7th centuries their settlements can be traced only on the bank of the river. Selonian culture had a very strong Latgalian influence, Selonian and Latgalian burial traditions show little difference. Some scholars speculate that during the late Iron Age the Selonians were already assimilated by the Latgalians. The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia mentions the Selonians at the beginning of the 13th century, the author of the chronicle describes the Selonians as Lithuanian allies. Their lands were subjects of the principalities of Jersika and Koknese, the Southern lands however were ruled by Lithuanian lords. In 1207, the German Brothers of Sword together with their Livonian and Latgalian allies besieged the main Selonian centre at Sēlpils castle, reason for the attack were German claims that Sēlpils castle was used as main Lithuanian support base for their attacks in Livonia. After a long siege the Selonians agreed to baptism and German rule, the Selonians were last mentioned in written sources in the 15th century
27.
Semigallians
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Semigallians were the Baltic tribe that lived in the southcentral part of contemporary Latvia and northern Lithuania. They are noted for their resistance against the German crusaders. Semigallians had close linguistic and cultural ties with Samogitians, during the Viking Age, the Semigallians were involved in battles with Swedish Vikings over control of the lower part of the Daugava waterway. In Gesta Danorum the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus wrote that the Viking Starkad crushed the Curonians, all the tribes of Estonia, and the peoples of Semgala. When the Rurikid successors of the Varangians tried to subjugate the Semigallians, ancient chronicles claim that 9000 of their soldiers were killed. At the start of German conquests Semigallian lands were divided in Upmale, Dobele, Spārnene, Dobe, Rakte, Silene, in 1207, the Semigallian duke Viestards helped the christened Livonian chief Caupo conquer back his Turaida castle from pagan rebels. In 1219, the Semigallian-German alliance was canceled after an invasion in Semigallia. Duke Viestards promptly formed an alliance with Lithuanians and Curonians, in 1228, Semigallians and Curonians attacked the Daugavgrīva monastery, the main crusader stronghold at the Daugava river delta. The crusaders took revenge and invaded Semigallia, the Semigallians, in turn, pillaged land around the Aizkraukle hillfort. In 1236, Semigallians attacked crusaders retreating to Riga after the Battle of Saule, after regular attacks, the Livonian Order partly subdued the Semigallians in 1254. In 1270, the Lithuanian Grand Duke Traidenis, together with Semigallians, attacked Livonia, during the Battle of Karuse on the frozen gulf of Riga, the Livonian Order was defeated, and its master Otto von Lutterberg killed. In 1287, around 1400 Semigallians attacked a crusader stronghold in Ikšķile, as they returned to Semigallia they were caught by the Orders forces, and the great battle began near the Garoza river. The crusader forces were besieged and badly defeated, more than 40 knights were killed, including the master of the Livonian Order Willekin von Endorp, and an unknown number of crusader allies. It was the last Semigallian victory over the forces of the Livonian Order. In 1279, after the Battle of Aizkraukle, Grand Duke Traidenis of Lithuania supported a Semigallian revolt against the Livonian Order led by duke Nameisis, in the 1280s, the Livonian Order started a massive campaign against the Semigallians, which included burning their fields and thus causing famine. The Semigallians continued their resistance until 1290, when they burned their last castle in Sidrabene, the Rhymed Chronicle claims 100,000 migrated to Lithuania and once there continued to fight against the Germans. One of the most notable Semigallian leaders was duke Viestards, upon uniting hostile Semigallian clans into a single state in the early 13th century, Viestards formed an alliance with the German crusaders to defeat his enemies on the outside. After the crusaders broke the treaty and invaded his lands, he allied with Lithuanians, Duke Nameisis, another renowned Semigallian leader, united Semigallian and Lithuanian tribes for a retaliatory counterattack on Teutonic Knights at Riga in 1279 and in Prussia after 1281
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Principality of Jersika
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The principality of Jersika was an early medieval Latgalian principality in eastern modern-day Latvia and one of the largest early states in Latvia before the German conquests. The capital of Jersika was located on a hill fort 165 km southeast of Riga, Jersika was established in the 10th century as an outpost of the principality of Polotsk on the old trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. It was ruled by Orthodox Christian princes from the Latgalian-Polotsk branch of the Rurik Dynasty, in 1209 Visvaldis, the prince of Jersika, was defeated by bishop Albert of Riga and the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, and his Lithuanian wife taken prisoner. He was forced to submit his kingdom to Albert as a grant to the Bishopric of Riga and he lost lands of Autīne and Cesvaine, but retained Jersika, Mākoņkalns and Naujiene. Visvaldis feudal charter is the oldest such document surviving in Latvia, in 1211 the part of Jersika controlled by Albert which was known as Lettia was divided between the bishopric of Riga and the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. In 1212 Polotsk gave up its rights over Jersika in favor of Bishop Albert. In 1214 Germans attacked the Castle of Jersika and sacked it, baltic German Uexküll family claimed that Conrad Uexküll had married the daughter of Visvaldis
29.
Principality of Koknese
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The Principality of Koknese was a small vassal state of the Principality of Polotsk on the right bank of the Daugava River in ancient Livonia during the Middle Ages. According to old sources, Vetseke gave half of his land to Albert of Riga in 1205 in return for protection against the Duchy of Samogitia, during one of their raids he was captured by the Livonians but was released by order of the bishop. When the bishop left for Germany Vetseke rebelled, killed all the Germans in Koknese, the bishop and his army quickly returned and Vetseke burned his castle and fled to Novgorod. By 1209 Koknese had been taken over by the Brothers of the Sword, the knights controlled the town until it was transferred to the Bishopric of Riga in 1238. Archaeological excavations in Koknese showed that town in the 13th century was inhabited mainly by latgalians and selonians with very small Slavic minority, Генрих Латвийский Хроника Ливонии Генрих Латвийский Хроника Ливонии
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Livonian Crusade
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The lands on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea were the last corners of Europe to be Christianized. After the success of the crusade, the German- and Danish-occupied territory was divided into six feudal principalities by William of Modena, Christianity had come to Latvia with the settlement of Grobiņa by Swedes in the 7th century and the Danes in the 11th. By the time German traders began to arrive in the half of the 12th century to trade along the ancient trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. Saint Meinhard of Segeberg arrived in Ikšķile in 1184 with the mission of converting the pagan Livonians, in those days the riverside town was the center of the upcoming missionary activities in the Livonian area. The first prominent Livonian to be converted was their leader Caupo of Turaida, Pope Celestine III had called for a crusade against pagans in Northern Europe in 1193. When peaceful means of conversion failed to produce results, the impatient Meinhard plotted to convert Livonians forcibly and he died in 1196, having failed in his mission. His appointed replacement, bishop Berthold of Hanover, a Cistercian abbot of Loccum arrived with a contingent of crusaders in 1198. Shortly afterward, while riding ahead of his troops in battle, Berthold was surrounded and killed, to avenge Bertholds defeat, Pope Innocent III issued a bull declaring a crusade against the Livonians. Albrecht von Buxthoeven, consecrated as bishop in 1199, arrived the year with a large force. In 1202 he formed the Livonian Brothers of the Sword to aid in the conversion of the pagans to Christianity and, more importantly, to protect German trade, as the German grip tightened, the Livonians and their christened chief rebelled against the crusaders. Caupos forces were defeated at Turaida in 1206, and the Livonians were declared to be converted, Caupo subsequently remained an ally of the crusaders until his death in the Battle of St. Matthews Day in 1217. By 1208 the important Daugava trading posts of Salaspils, Koknese, in 1209 Albert, leading the forces of the Order, captured the capital of the Latgalian Principality of Jersika, and took the wife of the ruler Visvaldis captive. Visvaldis was forced to submit his kingdom to Albert as a grant to the Archbishopric of Riga, and received back a portion of it as a fief. Tālava, weakened in wars with Estonians and Russians, became a state of the Archbishopric of Riga in 1214. With the help of the newly converted local tribes of Livs and Latgalians, the Estonian tribes fiercely resisted the attacks from Riga and occasionally sacked territories controlled by the crusaders. Hill forts, which were the key centers of Estonian counties, were besieged, captured, a truce between the war-weary sides was established for three years. It proved generally more favourable to the Germans, who consolidated their political position and they were led by Lembitu of Lehola, the elder of Sackalia, who by 1211 had come to the attention of German chroniclers as the central figure of the Estonian resistance. The Livonian leader Caupo was killed in the Battle of St. Matthews Day near Viljandi on September 21,1217, but Lembitu was also killed, the Christian kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden were also eager for expansion on the eastern shores of the Baltic
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Livonian Brothers of the Sword
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The Livonian Brothers of the Sword was a military order established by the third bishop of Riga, Bishop Albert of Riga, in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204 for the second time, the membership of the order comprised German warrior monks who fought Baltic pagans in the area of modern-day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Alternative names of the Order include Christ Knights, Sword Brethren, from its foundation, the undisciplined Order tended to ignore its supposed vassalage to the bishops. In 1218, Albert asked King Valdemar II of Denmark for assistance, the Brotherhood had its headquarters at Fellin in present-day Estonia, where the walls of the Masters castle still stand. Other strongholds included Wenden, Segewold and Ascheraden, the commanders of Fellin, Goldingen, Marienburg, Reval, and the bailiff of Weißenstein belonged to the five-member entourage of the Orders Master. Pope Gregory IX asked the Brothers to defend Finland from the Novgorodian attacks in his letter of November 24,1232, however, no known information regarding the knights possible activities in Finland has survived. The Order was decimated in the Battle of Schaulen in 1236 against Lithuanians and Semigallians and this disaster led the surviving Brothers to become incorporated into the Order of Teutonic Knights in the following year, and from that point on they became known as the Livonian Order. They continued, however, to function in all respects as a branch of the Teutonic Order. It also appears prominently in The Mongoliad, where they appear as one of the antagonists of the fictional order to which the main characters belong. The Sword Brothers by Peter Darman is an account of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword set in the 13th century. The order is featured in Medieval II, Total War, available as an unit of the Teutonic Order. Teutonic Order Battle of Saule Livonian Crusade Northern Crusades Order of Dobrin
32.
Livonian Order
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The Livonian Order was an autonomous branch of the Teutonic Order, formed in 1237. It was later a member of the Livonian Confederation, from 1435 to 1561, the Order was formed from the remnants of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword after their defeat by Samogitians in 1236 at the Battle of Schaulen. They were incorporated into the Teutonic Knights and became known as the Livonian Order in 1237, in 1298 Lithuanians took Karkus castle north of Riga, and defeated the order in the Battle of Turaida, killing Livonian Land Master Bruno and 22 knights. In 1346, the Order bought the Duchy of Estonia from King Valdemar IV of Denmark, life within the Orders territory is described in the Chronicle of Balthasar Russow. The Livonian Orders defeat in the Battle of Swienta on September 1,1435, during the Livonian War, however, the Order suffered a decisive defeat by troops of Muscovite Russia in the Battle of Ergeme in 1560. After coming to an agreement with Sigismund II Augustus and his representatives, in the southern part of the Brothers lands he created the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia for his family. Most of the lands were seized by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The north of Estonia was taken back by Denmark and Sweden, the Livonian Master, like the grandmaster of the Teutonic Order, was elected by his fellow knights for a life term. The grandmaster exercised supervisory powers and his advice was considered equal to a command, the grandmaster of Teutonic knights did not limit local autonomy, he rarely visited Livonia or sent ambassadors for oversight
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Archbishopric of Riga
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The Archbishopric of Riga was an archbishopric in Medieval Livonia, a subject to the Holy See. It was established in 1186 as the bishopric of Livonia at Üxküll, the see was restored as a diocese of the Catholic Church in 1918 and raised into an archdiocese in 1923. A new Bishopric of Livonia was established in Latgalia in 1621 during the Inflanty Voivodeship of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Archbishops of Riga were innovators in the field of minting currency, reviving techniques abandoned since the collapse of Rome. The names of individual archbishops after 1418, as well as the years of their reigns, are stamped on Livonian pennies excavated at archaeological sites. In many cases, this is the biographical data available. No Livonian pennies before 1418 have been found
34.
Bishopric of Courland
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The Bishopric of Courland was the second smallest ecclesiastical state in the Livonian Confederation founded in the aftermath of the Livonian Crusade. During the Livonian War in 1559 the bishopric became a possession of Denmark, in ancient times the Curonians, a Baltic tribe, inhabited Courland and had strong links with the maritime tribes in both sides of the Baltic sea. In 1234 Dominican monk Engelbert was appointed to be the first bishop of Courland, in 1242 the area of Courland passed under the influence of the Teutonic Knights owing to the amalgamation of this order with that of the Brethren of the Sword in 1237. In 1253 the territory of Courland was divided between the Bishopric of Courland and the Livonian branch of the Order of Teutonic Knights, during the Livonian War, under the increasing pressure of Muscovy, the Livonian Confederation dissolved. In 1559 the Bishop of Courland and Ösel-Wiek Johannes V von Münchhausen sold his lands to King Frederick II of Denmark for 30,000 thalers, the Danish king gave the territory to his younger brother Duke Magnus of Holstein. Duke Magnus was crowned King of Livonia in 1570, in 1577, having lost Ivan’s favor and receiving no support from his brother, Magnus called on the Livonian nobility to rally to him in a struggle against foreign occupation. He was attacked by Ivan’s forces and taken prisoner, on his release, he renounced his royal title. Magnus spent the last six years of his life at the castle of Pilten and he promised to transfer it to the Duchy of Courland after his death, but this plan failed and only later Wilhelm Kettler did regain this district. After Magnus of Livonia died in 1583, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth invaded his territories in the Duchy of Courland,1290, The cathedral chapter is incorporated into the Teutonic Order lands, the bishopric is subjected to the Order. 1341, The bishops were also rulers of the island of Runö from at least 1341,1520, Made a sovereign principality of the Holy Roman Empire, but style of prince not used. 20 May 1560, Sold to the King of Denmark, given as an appanage to Magnus Herzog von Holstein,1578, Bishop Magnus accepts sovereignty of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 20 April 1585, Sold by Denmark to Poland-Lithuania according to the Treaty of Kronenborg
35.
Terra Mariana
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Terra Mariana was the official name for Medieval Livonia or Old Livonia, which was formed in the aftermath of the Livonian Crusade in the territories comprising present day Estonia and Latvia. It was established on 2 February 1207, as a principality of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1346 the Order bought Danish Estonia. Following its defeat in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 the Teutonic Order, in 1561, during the Livonian war, Terra Mariana ceased to exist. The island of Saaremaa became part of Denmark, since the beginning of the 20th century Terra Mariana has been used as a poetic name or sobriquet for Estonia. In 1995 the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, a decoration, was instituted to honor the independence of Estonia. The lands on the shores of the Baltic Sea were the last part of Europe to be Christianized by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1193 Pope Celestine III called for a crusade against the pagans in Northern Europe and this crusade is often compared to the crusade of the Franks and Charlemagne. However, this crusade was not officially announced until 1197 or 1198, at the beginning of the 13th century, German crusaders from Gotland and the northern Holy Roman Empire conquered the Livonian and Latvian lands along the Daugava and Gauja rivers. The stronghold of Riga was established in 1201, and in 1202 the Livonian Brothers of the Sword was formed as a branch of the Knights Templar, in 1218 Pope Honorius III gave Valdemar II of Denmark free rein to annex as much land as he could conquer in Estonia. The last to be subjugated and Christianised were Oeselians, Curonians and Semigallians and this crusade differed from many other crusades because, in this case, the Pope allowed people intending to go on a crusade to the Holy Land to go instead to crusade in Livonia. Members of this crusade were made to wear the insignia of the cross as well, after the success of the crusade, the German- and Danish-occupied territory was divided into feudal principalities by William of Modena. Medieval Livonia was intermittently ruled first by the Brothers of the Sword, since 1237 by the branch of Teutonic knights called Livonian Order. By the mid 14th century, after buying the Duchy of Estonia from Christopher II, the Livonian Order controlled about 67,000 square kilometers of the Old Livonia, the lands of the Order were divided into about 40 districts governed by a Vogt. The largest ecclesiastical state was the Archbishopric of Riga followed by the Bishopric of Courland, Bishopric of Dorpat, the nominal head of Terra Mariana as well as the city of Riga was the Archbishop of Riga as the apex of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In 1240 Valdemar II created the Bishopric of Reval in the Duchy of Estonia by reserving the right to appoint the bishops of Reval to himself and his successor kings of Denmark. The decision to nominate to the See of Reval was unique in the whole Catholic Church at the time and was disputed by bishops. Two major civil wars were fought in 1296–1330, 1313–1330, technically, the Archbishop of Riga was the feudal and ecclesiastical superior, first over the Teutonic Knights, later over the Livonian Order. But the Archbishop did not become the dominant political power, already the Knights had thrown off the episcopal dominion, the bishops of Dorpat, Courland and Ösel-Wiek were lesser powers
36.
Baltic Germans
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The Baltic Germans are ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their resettling from Estonia and Latvia during the upheavals and aftermath of the Second World War, the largest groups of present-day descendants of the Baltic Germans are found in Germany and Canada. It is estimated that several thousand still reside in Latvia and Estonia, for centuries Baltic Germans and the Baltic nobility were a ruling class over native “Undeutsche” serfs. The emerging Baltic-German middle class was mostly urban and professional, in the 12th and 13th centuries Germans, both traders and crusaders, began settling in the eastern Baltics. After the Livonian Crusade they assumed control of government, politics, economics, education, with the decline of Latin, German became the language of all official documents, commerce, education and government. After 1710 many of these increasingly took high positions in the military, political and civilian life of the Russian Empire, Baltic Germans held citizenship of the Russian Empire until 1918 and Estonian or Latvian citizenship until 1939–40. The Baltic German population never surpassed more than 10% of the total population, in 1881 there were 180,000 Baltic Germans in Russias Baltic provinces, but by 1914 this number had declined to 162,000. In 1881 there were approximately 46,700 Germans in Estonia, according to the Russian Empire Census of 1897, there were 120,191 Germans in Latvia, or 6. 2% of the population. Baltic German history and presence in the Baltics came to an end in late 1939, following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, almost all the Baltic Germans were resettled by Nazi Germany under the Heim ins Reich program into the newly formed Reichsgaue Wartheland and Danzig-West Prussia. In 1945, most were expelled from these lands by the Soviet army, ethnic Germans from East Prussia and Lithuania are sometimes incorrectly considered Baltic Germans for reasons of cultural, linguistic, and historical affinities. However, the Germans of East Prussia held Prussian, and after 1871, Baltic Germans were not a purely German ethnic group. The early crusaders, tradesmen and craftsmen often married local females, some noble families, like Lievens, even claimed descent from native chieftains. Many of the German Livonian Order soldiers died during the Livonian war, during this time the Low German of the original settlers was replaced by the High German. In those cases where intermarriage occurred, the ethnic group frequently assimilated into German culture, adopting language, customs. They were then considered Germans, leading to the ethnogenesis of the Baltic Germans, barclay de Tolly and George Armitstead, who arrived from the British Isles, became part of the Baltic-German community. Livland, roughly the half of present-day Estonia and the northern and eastern part of todays Latvia, major towns, Riga, Wenden, Wolmar, Walk, Dorpat, Pernau. Kurland, roughly the half of present-day Latvia, major towns. Ösel belonging to present-day Estonia, major town, Arensburg, after the heavy defeat in the 1236 Battle of Saule the Livonian Brothers of the Sword became a part of the Teutonic Order
37.
Livonian War
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During the period 1558–1578, Russia dominated the region with early military successes at Dorpat and Narva. Russian dissolution of the Livonian Confederation brought Poland–Lithuania into the conflict while Sweden, Magnus attempted to expand his Livonian holdings to establish the Russian vassal state Kingdom of Livonia, which nominally existed until Magnus defection in 1576. This was followed by a campaign through Russia culminating in the long. Under the 1582 Truce of Jam Zapolski, which ended the war between Russia and Poland–Lithuania, Russia lost all its holdings in Livonia and Polotsk to Poland–Lithuania. The following year, Sweden and Russia signed the Truce of Plussa with Sweden gaining most of Ingria, by the mid-16th century, economically prosperous Old Livonia had become a region organised into the decentralised and religiously divided Livonian Confederation. Its territories consisted of the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order, the prince-bishoprics of Dorpat, Ösel–Wiek, as well as Courland, the Archbishopric of Riga and the city of Riga. Together with Riga, the cities of Dorpat and Reval, along with the knightly estates, the only common institutions of the Livonian estates were the regularly held common assemblies known as landtags. As well as a political administration, there were also persistent rivalries between the archbishop of Riga and the landmeister of the Order for hegemony. As war approached, Livonia had a weak administration subject to internal rivalries, lacked any powerful defences or outside support, and was surrounded by monarchies pursuing expansionist policies. Frost notes of the region, Racked with internal bickering and threatened by the political machinations of its neighbours. Only the archbishopric of Riga successfully overcame resistance of the lesser nobles, Wilhelm and Christoph were to pursue Alberts interests in Livonia, among which was the establishment of a hereditary Livonian duchy styled after the Prussian model. At the same time the Order agitated for its re-establishment in Prussia, by the time the Livonian War broke out, the Hanseatic League had already lost its monopoly on the profitable and prosperous Baltic Sea trade. While still involved and with increasing sales, it now shared the market with European mercenary fleets, most notably from the Dutch Seventeen Provinces, a long bar of Danish territories in the south and her lack of sufficient year-round ice-free ports severely limited Swedens access to the Baltic trade. Through its absorption of the principalities of Novgorod and Pskov, the Tsardom of Russia had become Livonias eastern neighbour, the conflict between Russia and the Western powers was exacerbated by Russias isolation from sea trade. The new Ivangorod port built by Tsar Ivan on the shore of the Narva River in 1550 was considered unsatisfactory on account of its shallow waters. The Livonians eventually promised to pay this sum to Ivan by 1557, Ivan continued to point out that the existence of the Order required passive Russian support, and was quick to threaten use of military force if necessary. The Polish King and Lithuanian Grand Duke Sigismund II Augustus was wary of Russian expansionist aspirations, expansion of Russia into Livonia would have meant not only a stronger political rival but also loss of lucrative trade routes. Therefore, Sigismund supported his cousin Wilhelm von Brandenburg, archbishop of Riga, in his conflicts with Wilhelm von Fürstenberg, Sigismund hoped that Livonia, just like the Duchy of Prussia under Duke Albert, would become a vassal state of Poland–Lithuania
38.
Kingdom of Livonia
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The Kingdom of Livonia was a nominal state in what is now the territory of Estonia and Latvia. The Russian Tsar Ivan IV declared the establishment of the kingdom during the Livonian War of 1558-1583, on June 10,1570 the Danish Duke Magnus of Holstein arrived in Moscow, where he was crowned King of Livonia. Magnus took the oath of allegiance to Ivan as his overlord, the treaty between Magnus and Ivan IV was signed by an oprichnik and by a member of the zemskii administration, the diak Vasiliy Shchelkalov. The territories of the new kingdom still had to be conquered. The new king Magnus of Livonia departed from Moscow with 20,000 Russian soldiers for the conquest of Swedish-controlled Reval, Ivans hope for the support of King Frederick II of Denmark, the older brother of Magnus, failed. By the end of March 1571 Magnus gave up the struggle for Reval, in 1577, having lost Ivans favor and getting no support from his brother, Magnus called on the Livonian nobility to rally to him in a struggle against foreign occupation. Ivans forces attacked him and took him prisoner, on his release he renounced his royal title. Magnus spent the last six years of his life at the castle of Pilten in the Bishopric of Courland where he died as a pensioner of the Polish crown. The end of the Livonian War in August 1583 saw most of the territory of Old Livonia under the control of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, with Swedish control established in the Duchy of Estonia, møntfund i Estland med danske Vikingemønter Die Münzen von Herzog Magnus
39.
Duchy of Livonia
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The Duchy of Livonia was a territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania—and later the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—that existed from 1561 to 1621. It corresponds to the areas of northern Latvia and southern Estonia. Livonia had been part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from 1561, since the Livonian Order was secularized by the Union of Vilnius and it was a province of Grand Duchy of Lithuania until 1569. After the Union of Lublin in 1569, it became a joint domain of the Polish Crown, the larger part of the Duchy was conquered by Swedish Empire during the Polish–Swedish wars, and their gains were recognized in the Truce of Altmark in 1629. The title Grand Duke of Livonia was added to the title of later Russian Emperors
40.
Inflanty Voivodeship
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The Inflanty Voivodeship was one of the few territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to be ruled jointly by Poland and Lithuania. The seat of the voivode was Dyneburg, the name Inflanty is derived through Polonization of Livland, the German name for Livonia. In modern times the region is known as Latgalia in the Republic of Latvia, miles It was inhabited by the Latvians, whose language is similar to Lithuanian, but still differs from it, as the Latvians interacted and mixed with the Estonians in central and northern Inflanty. The province, together with Courland, was in the 13th century conquered by the Germans of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. Later on, however, facing three powerful neighbours, Muscovy, Swedish Empire, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the found it difficult to keep their independence. After Estonia had been seized by Sweden, Great Master Gotthard Kettler voluntarily decided to seek for help from Polish king, with permission of Livonian towns and knights, on 28 November 1561 in Vilnius, a document was signed, which turned Livonia into a Polish-Lithuanian fief. The post-1660 Inflanty Voivodeship was divided into four so-called tracts, named after seats of starostas and these were Dyneburg, Rzezyca, Piltyn, Marienhaus, and Lucyn. Local sejmiks took place at Dyneburg, while starostas resided at Dyneburg, Lucyn, Rzezyca and Marienhaus. The voivodeship had six deputies to the Sejm, but only two of them came from Inflanty, the four were symbolically named by the king. Two deputies were elected to the committee at Grodno Inflanty had several noble families
41.
Swedish Livonia
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Swedish Livonia was a dominion of the Swedish Empire from 1629 until 1721. The minority part of the Wenden Voivodeship retained by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was renamed the Inflanty Voivodeship, riga was the second largest city in the Swedish Empire at the time. Together with other Baltic Sea dominions, Livonia served to secure the Swedish dominium maris baltici, the territory in turn was conquered by the Russian Empire during the Great Northern War and, following the Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710, formed the Governorate of Livonia. Formally, it was ceded to Russia in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, together with Swedish Estonia, the dominion was ruled by appointed Governors-General, but retained its own diet
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