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Baltic tribespeople
settled along the Baltic Sea and, lacking a centralized
government, fell prey to more powerful peoples.
In the 13th century they were overcome by the
Livonian Brothers of the Sword, a German order
of knights whose mission was to conquer and Christianize
the Baltic region. The land became part of the
state of Livonia until 1561. Germans made up the
ruling class of Livonia and Baltic tribes made
up the peasantry. German became the official language
of the region.
Poland conquered
the territory in 1562 and occupied it until Sweden
took over the land in 1629, ruling over it until
1721. Then the land passed to Russia. From 1721
until 1918, the Latvians remained Russian subjects,
although they preserved their language, customs,
and folklore.
The Russian
Revolution of 1917 gave them their opportunity
for freedom, and the Latvian republic was proclaimed
on Nov. 18, 1918. The republic lasted little more
than 20 years. Plagued by political instability,
Latvia essentially became a dictatorship under
President Karlis Ulmanis. It was occupied by Russian
troops in 1939 and incorporated into the Soviet
Union in 1940. German armies occupied the nation
from 1941 to 1944. Of the 70,000 Jews living in
Latvia during World War II, 95% were massacred.
In 1944, Russia again took control of Latvia.
Latvia was
one of the most economically well-off and industrialized
parts of the Soviet Union. When a coup against
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev failed in 1991,
the Baltic nations saw an opportunity to free
themselves from Soviet domination and, following
the actions of Lithuania and Estonia, Latvia declared
its independence on Aug. 21, 1991. European and
most other nations quickly recognized their independence,
and on Sept. 2, 1991, President Bush announced
full diplomatic recognition for Latvia, Estonia,
and Lithuania. The Soviet Union recognized Latvia's
independence on Sept. 6, and UN membership followed
on Sept. 17, 1991.
Because
foreign rulers had quashed Latvians' ethnic identity
throughout its history, the new Latvian republic
set up strict citizenship laws, limiting citizenship
to ethnic Latvians and to those who had lived
in the region before Soviet rule in 1940. This
denied about 452,000 of the country's 740,000
ethnic Russians of citizenship.
Latvia's
bid to join the European Union required that it
speed up naturalization of minorities, in particular
its large number of Russians. In 1998, a referendum
passed easing the citizenship rules, although
it was still necessary to be competent in the
Latvian language, which many believe is unreasonable
to expect of older or poorly educated ethnic Russians.
To aid in admission to NATO, Parliament in 2002
passed a law no longer requiring parliamentary
candidates to speak Latvian. In June 2003, President
Vike-Freiberga easily won reelection. In Dec.
2004, Aigars Kalvitis became prime minister, forming
the twelfth government since Latvia's independence
from Russia. The nation became a member of both
the EU and NATO in 2004.
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