History of Latvia: Encyclopedia II - History of Latvia - Russian Period

History of Latvia - Russian Period

At the beginning of the 1700s, the Great Northern War broke out. The course of this war was directly linked with today's Latvian territory and the territorial claims of the Russian Empire. One of its goals was to secure the famous and rich town of Riga. In 1710, the Russian Tsar, Peter I, managed to secure Vidzeme. Through Vidzeme to Riga, Russia obtained a clear passage to Europe. By the end of the 18th century, due to the Polish Partitions, all of Latvia's territory was under Russian rule.

Serfdom was abolished in Courland in 1818 and Vidzeme in 1819. In 1849, a law granted a legal basis for the creation of peasant-owned farms. Reforms were slower in Latgale where serfdom was only abolished in 1861. Industry developed quickly and the number of the inhabitants grew. Latvia became one of Russia's most developed provinces.

In the 19th century, the first Latvian National Awakening began among ethnic Latvian intellectuals, a movement that partly reflected similar nationalist trends elsewhere in Europe. This revival was led by the so-called "New Latvians" (in Latvian: jaunlatvieši) from the 1850s to the 1880s. Primarily a literary and cultural movement with significant political implications, the Young Latvians soon came into severe conflict with the Baltic Germans.

With increasing pauperization in rural areas and growing urbanization, a loose but broad leftist movement called the "New Current" arose in the late 1880s. Led by Rainis and Pēteris Stučka, editors of the newspaper Dienas Lapa, this movement was soon influenced by Marxism and led to the creation of the Latvian Social Democratic Labour Party.

Latvia in the 20th Century saw an explosion of popular discontent in the 1905 Revolution.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Russian Period", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki