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Country in Northern Europe From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Latvia (/ˈlætviə/ LAT-vee-ə, sometimes /ˈlɑːtviə/ LAHT-vee-ə; Latvian: Latvija Latvian pronunciation: [ˈlatvija]),[14] officially the Republic of Latvia,[15][16] is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of 64,589 km2 (24,938 sq mi), with a population of 1.9 million. The country has a temperate seasonal climate.[17] Its capital and largest city is Riga. Latvians belong to the ethnolinguistic group of the Balts and speak Latvian. Russians are the most prominent minority in the country, at almost a quarter of the population; 37.7% of the population speak Russian as their native tongue.[18]
Republic of Latvia | |
|---|---|
| Anthem: Dievs, svētī Latviju! (Latvian) ("God Bless Latvia!") | |
 Location of Latvia (dark green) – in Europe (green & dark grey) | |
| Capital and largest city | Riga 56°57′N 24°6′E |
| Official languages | Latviana |
| Recognized languages | Livonian Latgalian |
| Ethnic groups (2022[1]) |
|
| Religion (2018)[2] |
|
| Demonym(s) | Latvian |
| Government | Unitary parliamentary republic |
| Edgars Rinkēvičs | |
| Evika Siliņa | |
| Daiga Mieriņa | |
| Legislature | Saeima |
| Independence | |
| 18 November 1918 | |
• Recognised | 26 January 1921 |
| 7 November 1922 | |
| 21 August 1991 | |
| Area | |
• Total | 64,589 km2 (24,938 sq mi) (122nd) |
• Water (%) | 2.09 (2015)[5] |
| Population | |
• 2022 estimate | 1,842,226[6] (146th) |
• Density | 29.6/km2 (76.7/sq mi) (147th) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2024 estimate |
• Total |  $78.421 billion[7] (104th) |
• Per capita | $41,730[7] (51st) |
| GDP (nominal) | 2024 estimate |
• Total | $45.466 billion[7] (96th) |
• Per capita | $24,193[7] (42nd) |
| Gini (2021) |  35.7[8]medium inequality |
| HDI (2022) | 0.879[9] very high (37th) |
| Currency | Euro (€) (EUR) |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| UTC+3 (EEST) | |
| Calling code | +371 |
| ISO 3166 code | LV |
| Internet TLD | .lv |
| |
After centuries of Teutonic, Swedish, Polish-Lithuanian, and Russian rule, the independent Republic of Latvia was established on 18 November 1918 after breaking away from the German Empire in the aftermath of World War I.[3] The country became increasingly autocratic after the coup in 1934 established the dictatorship of Kārlis Ulmanis.[19] Latvia's de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II, beginning with Latvia's forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union, followed by the invasion and occupation by Nazi Germany in 1941 and the re-occupation by the Soviets in 1944, which formed the Latvian SSR for the next 45 years. As a result of extensive immigration during the Soviet occupation, ethnic Russians became the most prominent minority in the country. The peaceful Singing Revolution started in 1987 among the Baltic Soviet republics and ended with the restoration of both de facto and officially independence on 21 August 1991.[20] Latvia has since been a democratic unitary parliamentary republic.
Latvia is a developed country with a high-income, advanced economy ranking 39th in the Human Development Index. It is a member of the European Union, Eurozone, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the International Monetary Fund, the Nordic-Baltic Eight, the Nordic Investment Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the World Trade Organization.
The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes (along with Curonians, Selonians and Semigallians), which formed the ethnic core of modern Latvians together with the Finnic Livonians.[21] Henry of Latvia coined the latinisations of the country's name, "Lettigallia" and "Lethia", both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the country's name in Romance languages from "Letonia" and in several Germanic languages from "Lettland".[22]
Around 3000 BC, the proto-Baltic ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.[23] The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals.[24] By 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia: Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians (in Latvian: kurši, latgaļi, sēļi and zemgaļi), as well as the Finnic tribe of Livonians (lībieši) speaking a Finnic language.[25]
In the 12th century in the territory of Latvia, there were lands with their rulers: Vanema, Ventava, Bandava, Piemare, Duvzare, Sēlija, Koknese, Jersika, Tālava and Adzele.[26]
Although the local people had contact with the outside world for centuries, they became more fully integrated into the European socio-political system in the 12th century.[27] The first missionaries, sent by the Pope, sailed up the Daugava River in the late 12th century, seeking converts.[28] The local people, however, did not convert to Christianity as readily as the Church had hoped.[28]
German crusaders were sent, or more likely decided to go of their own accord as they were known to do. Saint Meinhard of Segeberg arrived in Ikšķile, in 1184, traveling with merchants to Livonia, on a Catholic mission to convert the population from their original pagan beliefs. Pope Celestine III had called for a crusade against pagans in Northern Europe in 1193. When peaceful means of conversion failed to produce results, Meinhard plotted to convert Livonians by force of arms.[29]
At the beginning of the 13th century, Germans ruled large parts of what is currently Latvia.[28] The influx of German crusaders in the present-day Latvian territory especially increased in the second half of the 13th century following the decline and fall of the Crusader States in the Middle East.[30] Together with southern Estonia, these conquered areas formed the crusader state that became known as Terra Mariana (Medieval Latin for "Land of Mary") or Livonia.[31] In 1282, Riga, and later the cities of Cēsis, Limbaži, Koknese and Valmiera, became part of the Hanseatic League.[28] Riga became an important point of east–west trading[28] and formed close cultural links with Western Europe.[32] The first German settlers were knights from northern Germany and citizens of northern German towns who brought their Low German language to the region, which shaped many loanwords in the Latvian language.[33]
After the Livonian War (1558–1583), Livonia (Northern Latvia & Southern Estonia) fell under Polish and Lithuanian rule.[28] The southern part of Estonia and the northern part of Latvia were ceded to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and formed into the Duchy of Livonia (Ducatus Livoniae Ultradunensis). Gotthard Kettler, the last Master of the Order of Livonia, formed the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia.[34] Though the duchy was a vassal state to the Lithuanian Grand Duchy and later of the Polish and Lithuanian commonwealth, it retained a considerable degree of autonomy and experienced a golden age in the 16th century. Latgalia, the easternmost region of Latvia, became a part of the Inflanty Voivodeship of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[35]
In the 17th and early 18th centuries, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden, and Russia struggled for supremacy in the eastern Baltic. After the Polish–Swedish War, northern Livonia (including Vidzeme) came under Swedish rule. Riga became the capital of Swedish Livonia and the largest city in the entire Swedish Empire.[36] Fighting continued sporadically between Sweden and Poland until the Truce of Altmark in 1629.[37][38] In Latvia, the Swedish period is generally remembered as positive; serfdom was eased, a network of schools was established for the peasantry, and the power of the regional barons was diminished.[39][40]
Several important cultural changes occurred during this time. Under Swedish and largely German rule, western Latvia adopted Lutheranism as its main religion.[41] The ancient tribes of the Couronians, Semigallians, Selonians, Livs, and northern Latgallians assimilated to form the Latvian people, speaking one Latvian language.[42][43] Throughout all the centuries, however, an actual Latvian state had not been established, so the borders and definitions of who exactly fell within that group are largely subjective. Meanwhile, largely isolated from the rest of Latvia, southern Latgallians adopted Catholicism under Polish/Jesuit influence. The native dialect remained distinct, although it acquired many Polish and Russian loanwords.[44]
During the Great Northern War (1700–1721), up to 40 percent of Latvians died from famine and plague.[45] Half the residents of Riga were killed by plague in 1710–1711.[46] The capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710 and the Treaty of Nystad, ending the Great Northern War in 1721, gave Vidzeme to Russia (it became part of the Riga Governorate). The Latgale region remained part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as Inflanty Voivodeship until 1772, when it was incorporated into Russia. The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, a vassal state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was annexed by Russia in 1795 in the Third Partition of Poland, bringing all of what is now Latvia into the Russian Empire. All three Baltic provinces preserved local laws, German as the local official language and their own parliament, the Landtag.
The emancipation of the serfs took place in Courland in 1817 and in Vidzeme in 1819.[47] In practice, however, the emancipation was actually advantageous to the landowners and nobility, as it dispossessed peasants of their land without compensation, forcing them to return to work at the estates "of their own free will".
During these two centuries Latvia experienced economic and construction boom – ports were expanded (Riga became the largest port in the Russian Empire), railways built; new factories, banks, and a university were established; many residential, public (theatres and museums), and school buildings were erected; new parks formed; and so on. Riga's boulevards and some streets outside the Old Town date from this period.
Numeracy was also higher in the Livonian and Courlandian parts of the Russian Empire, which may have been influenced by the Protestant religion of the inhabitants.[48]
During the 19th century, the social structure changed dramatically.[49] A class of independent farmers established itself after reforms allowed the peasants to repurchase their land, but many landless peasants remained, quite a lot Latvians left for the cities and sought for education, industrial jobs.[49] There also developed a growing urban proletariat and an increasingly influential Latvian bourgeoisie.[49] The Young Latvian (Latvian: Jaunlatvieši) movement laid the groundwork for nationalism from the middle of the century, many of its leaders looking to the Slavophiles for support against the prevailing German-dominated social order.[50][51] The rise in use of the Latvian language in literature and society became known as the First National Awakening.[50] Russification began in Latgale after the Polish led the January Uprising in 1863: this spread to the rest of what is now Latvia by the 1880s. The Young Latvians were largely eclipsed by the New Current, a broad leftist social and political movement, in the 1890s.[52] Popular discontent exploded in the 1905 Russian Revolution, which took a nationalist character in the Baltic provinces.[53]
World War I devastated the territory of what became the state of Latvia, and other western parts of the Russian Empire. Demands for self-determination were initially confined to autonomy, until a power vacuum was created by the Russian Revolution in 1917, followed by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russia and Germany in March 1918, then the Allied armistice with Germany on 11 November 1918. On 18 November 1918, in Riga, the People's Council of Latvia proclaimed the independence of the new country and Kārlis Ulmanis was entrusted to set up a government and he took the position of prime minister.[54]
The General representative of Germany August Winnig formally handed over political power to the Latvian Provisional Government on 26 November. On 18 November, the Latvian People's Council entrusted him to set up the government. He took the office of Minister of Agriculture from 18 November to 19 December. He took a position of prime minister from 19 November 1918 to 13 July 1919.
The war of independence that followed was part of a general chaotic period of civil and new border wars in Eastern Europe. By the spring of 1919, there were actually three governments: the Provisional government headed by Kārlis Ulmanis, supported by the Tautas padome and the Inter-Allied Commission of Control; the Latvian Soviet government led by Pēteris Stučka, supported by the Red Army; and the Provisional government headed by Andrievs Niedra, supported by Baltic-German forces composed of the Baltische Landeswehr ("Baltic Defence Force") and the Freikorps formation Eiserne Division ("Iron Division").
Estonian and Latvian forces defeated the Germans at the Battle of Wenden in June 1919,[55] and a massive attack by a predominantly German force—the West Russian Volunteer Army—under Pavel Bermondt-Avalov was repelled in November. Eastern Latvia was cleared of Red Army forces by Latvian and Polish troops in early 1920 (from the Polish perspective the Battle of Daugavpils was a part of the Polish–Soviet War).
A freely elected Constituent assembly convened on 1 May 1920, and adopted a liberal constitution, the Satversme, in February 1922.[56] The constitution was partly suspended by Kārlis Ulmanis after his coup in 1934 but reaffirmed in 1990. Since then, it has been amended and is still in effect in Latvia today. With most of Latvia's industrial base evacuated to the interior of Russia in 1915, radical land reform was the central political question for the young state. In 1897, 61.2% of the rural population had been landless; by 1936, that percentage had been reduced to 18%.[57]
By 1923, the extent of cultivated land surpassed the pre-war level. Innovation and rising productivity led to rapid growth of the economy, but it soon suffered from the effects of the Great Depression. Latvia showed signs of economic recovery, and the electorate had steadily moved toward the centre during the parliamentary period.[citation needed] On 15 May 1934, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup, establishing a nationalist dictatorship that lasted until 1940.[58] After 1934, Ulmanis established government corporations to buy up private firms with the aim of "Latvianising" the economy.[59]
Early in the morning of 24 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a 10-year non-aggression pact, called the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.[60] The pact contained a secret protocol, revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945, according to which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet "spheres of influence".[61] In the north, Latvia, Finland and Estonia were assigned to the Soviet sphere.[61] A week later, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland; on 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded Poland as well.[62]: 32
After the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, most of the Baltic Germans left Latvia by agreement between Ulmanis's government and Nazi Germany under the Heim ins Reich programme.[63] In total 50,000 Baltic Germans left by the deadline of December 1939, with 1,600 remaining to conclude business and 13,000 choosing to remain in Latvia.[63] Most of those who remained left for Germany in summer 1940, when a second resettlement scheme was agreed.[64] The racially approved being resettled mainly in Poland, being given land and businesses in exchange for the money they had received from the sale of their previous assets.[62]: 46
On 5 October 1939, Latvia was forced to accept a "mutual assistance" pact with the Soviet Union, granting the Soviets the right to station between 25,000 and 30,000 troops on Latvian territory.[65] State administrators were murdered and replaced by Soviet cadres.[66] Elections were held with single pro-Soviet candidates listed for many positions. The resulting people's assembly immediately requested admission into the USSR, which the Soviet Union granted.[66] Latvia, then a puppet government, was headed by Augusts Kirhenšteins.[67] The Soviet Union incorporated Latvia on 5 August 1940, as the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Soviets dealt harshly with their opponents – prior to Operation Barbarossa, in less than a year, at least 34,250 Latvians were deported or killed.[68] Most were deported to Siberia where deaths were estimated at 40 percent.[62]: 48
On 22 June 1941, German troops attacked Soviet forces in Operation Barbarossa.[69] There were some spontaneous uprisings by Latvians against the Red Army which helped the Germans. By 29 June Riga was reached and with Soviet troops killed, captured or retreating, Latvia was left under the control of German forces by early July.[70][62]: 78–96 The occupation was followed immediately by SS Einsatzgruppen troops, who were to act in accordance with the Nazi Generalplan Ost that required the population of Latvia to be cut by 50 percent.[62]: 64 [62]: 56
Under German occupation, Latvia was administered as part of Reichskommissariat Ostland.[71] Latvian paramilitary and Auxiliary Police units established by the occupation authority participated in the Holocaust and other atrocities.[58] 30,000 Jews were shot in Latvia in the autumn of 1941.[62]: 127 Another 30,000 Jews from the Riga ghetto were killed in the Rumbula Forest in November and December 1941, to reduce overpopulation in the ghetto and make room for more Jews being brought in from Germany and the West.[62]: 128 There was a pause in fighting, apart from partisan activity, until after the siege of Leningrad ended in January 1944, and the Soviet troops advanced, entering Latvia in July and eventually capturing Riga on 13 October 1944.[62]: 271
More than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II, including approximately 75,000 Latvian Jews murdered during the Nazi occupation.[58] Latvian soldiers fought on both sides of the conflict, mainly on the German side, with 140,000 men in the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS,[72] The 308th Latvian Rifle Division was formed by the Red Army in 1944. On occasions, especially in 1944, opposing Latvian troops faced each other in battle.[62]: 299
In the 23rd block of the Vorverker cemetery, a monument was erected after the Second World War for the people of Latvia who had died in Lübeck from 1945 to 1950.
