latviski
What, and where is Latvia, and who are the Latvians?
If you aren't finding much about "Latvians" in the historical record, you need only look to Cole Porter↗ for why, because fans of his songs have been humming and singing about Latvians for ninety-eight years, since his musical Paris↗ debuted on New York City's Broadway in 1928.
Birds do it, bees do it,
Even educated fleas do it,
Let's do it, let's fall in love.
In Spain, the best upper sets do it,
Lithuanians and Letts do it,
Let's do it, let's fall in love!↗"
Despite her obscurity during the last half of the 20th century, shrouded behind the Iron Curtain↗, illegally annexed↗ into the Soviet Union, Latvia has been a part of Western civilization since the Crusades↗ went north into the Baltics in the late 12th and early 13th centuries after the Latvian pagans refused to be converted by more gentler means.
In the prologue of The Canterbury Tales↗, Chaucer↗ (1340-1400) mentions Latvia in The Knight's Tale↗1:
Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bigonne
Aboven alle nacions in pruce;
In lettow hadde he reysed and in ruce, ...Full oft the table's roster he'd begun
Above all nations' knights in Prussia.
In Latviaa raided he, and Russia, ...
a In the interest of full disclosure, as much as we like this scholarly translation from the middle English,"lettow" can also refer to Lithuania, Latvia's sister country and culture.
Chaucer's reputed model for the Knight, Henry Bolingbroke, then the Duke of Hereford, later King Henry IV of England↗, made it to the Baltics in 1390 as part of the Crusades while temporarily attached to the Knights of the Livonian Order↗. He attempted to capture Vilnius↗, but while the city was stormed and looted, the hilltop castle remained uncaptured. However, Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila had married Queen Jadwiga↗ of Poland four years earlier and converted to Catholicism, now co-ruling with Jadwiga as Władysław II Jagiełło↗. Ironically, not knowing Polish politics or language, Henry was attacking Christians, not converting heathens. Henry returned in 1392 to try again even though Boniface IX↗ had already absolved him of his crusading vow and the natives had already converted. Even earlier, a Latvian who had come to England with a party of Norse invaders wound up battling against William the Conqueror↗ around 1070.
To find the earliest mention of the Baltics and Latvia, Tacitus↗ (56-117 to 120) writes of the Aesti (the Estonians are called the "Eesti" in their own language), who collected amber from the Baltic Sea and traded it. Roman coins unearthed in Latvia — and which we've seen on display at the history museum in Cēsis↗ — attest to Roman merchants making the long and arduous trek north. And a Baltic amber figure dating to perhaps a millennium earlier has been found along the Tigris↗.
Latvia's eventual capital, Rīga, was already known as Duna urbs in the second century, becoming a thriving center of commerce in the Middle Ages along the Dvina (Daugava↗)-Dnieper↗ trade route to Byzantium. Latvia became an object of desire and target for conversion to Catholicism after a Bremen trading vessel carrying German merchants shipwrecked at the mouth of the Daugava in 1158. And once the pagans failed to convert — killing crusading bishop Berthold of Hanover↗ in 1198 — Pope Innocent III↗ issued a bull against the "Livonians," promising forgiveness of sins to all participants. It has been at the cross-roads of commerce and conflict between regional powers ever since.
Under the Germans, the crusading nobles never returned home, being granted vast swaths of land. Riga↗ became a nexus for Euro-Russian (and southeastern Europe) commerce, joining the Hanseatic League↗ of traders, which controlled commerce on the Baltic and North Seas, in 1282. Riga attained the status of a "free city"3 in 1561. This was short-lived, however, as the Swedish empire swept in, conquering the Northern Baltics, along with Riga, in 1629↗. Riga instantly became the largest city in the Swedish empire. It was Latvia's first golden era in terms of the rights of the Latvian people. Courland (Kurzeme) achieved autonomy under Poland-Lithuania↗, from 1561 to 1795↗, and established a reputation as a naval power, establishing colonies in the Caribbean (Tobago↗) and on the African Gold Coast (Gambia↗).
Latvia and the Latvians made a name for themselves during Latvia's first, brief, period of independence between the world wars.
- Latvians achieved one of the highest literacy rates in Europe.
- Latvians invented the Latvian "brown cow↗", registered since 1885 and internationally as an independent bred in 1922 — famous for its milk, and especially the richness and sweetness of its butter.
- More generally, Latvia was renowned for its agricultural and farm products — the British had quite the craving for Latvian bacon, and the Germans, for the afore-mentioned Latvian butter.
- Latvians invented the Minox↗ "spy" camera — mint condition Riga-produced originals now fetch a thousand dollars and more.
Not to mention Latvia's Jūrmala↗ beaches, the "Riviera of the Baltics," and its scenic Gauja↗ river valley, the "Livonian Switzerland."
We do freely admit that Latvia's sister, Lithuania, does hold ultimate boasting rights. It was once an empire that stretched from the Baltic to Black Seas!
Some quick statistics:
- Latvia is east across the Baltic↗ from Sweden↗.
- Latvia is due south of Estonia↗, which is due south of Finland↗.
- Latvia is north of Lithuania, which is north of Königsberg↗ (Kaliningrad↗, thanks to Sovietization) and Poland.
- Latvia is about the size of West Virginia↗, or Belgium↗ plus the Netherlands↗.
- About 1,830,000 (2023) people live in Latvia, majority Latvian, and including about ⅓ rd Russian, the result of intense Russification↗ during the 50 year Soviet occupation; students of history will note this was not the first campaign to Russify Latvia, the prior one being conducted by Czar Alexander III↗ in the late 1800's—motivated more by fear of Germanic ambitions, but also a time during which uttering Latvian in public was grounds for imprisonment.
Read more
Thirty-four years after declaring the restoration of its independence from the collapsing Soviet Union, Latvia remains shrouded in mystery, misunderstanding, and propaganda. We suggest the brief history of Latvia, formerly at the Latvian U.S. embassy website, which we have archived. For a deeper read, we recommend Dr. Arveds Švābe's informative and opinionated The Story of Latvia, also on our site.
For more on the dawn of Latvia in the "Western" consciousness via its center of commerce, Rīga, we recommend our rewrite of the introduction and initial sections of the History of Riga↗ at Wikipedia. You're recognize it by the copious footnotes.
We author or curate several topic-specific sites dealing with Latvia's history leading up to and including Latvia in WWII:
- aizsargi.org↗About the 1919-1940 national guard
- latvianlegion.org↗History, media analysis, and the Cold War hunt for Latvian "Nazis"
- zedelgem-pow-camp.be↗British-run POW camp holding Latvian Legionnaires after WWII
- holocaustinlatvia.org↗Official site of Prof. Andrew Ezergailis's↗ scholarship
- academia.edu↗Our papers and reviews
| 1 | The Canterbury Tales, The General Prologue↗, at towson.edu. |
| 2 | At Encyclopedia of Ukraine↗ |
| 3 | Free Hanseatic City of Riga. The League essentially disbanded at the end of the 17th century, but formally continued to exist until 1862. Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen retain the words "Hanseatic City" in their official German titles to this day. |
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