Alright so in the future I will destroy Latvian literature for your amusement but first I need to give you some background on shit so you could understand the context better.
1000 years ago in this piece of land shaped like a piece of bitten rye bread, there were several tribes of pagans who lived simple lives, living in sheds, beating women, drinking something that resembles beer, molesting goats and playing kokle. What is kokle, you ask? It's a plank of wood with something resembling guitar strings. A lot of peoples have their own version of the kokle, even the chinese.
Now Latvia and it's nebhouring countries, Lithuania and Estonia are actually geographicaly located in a perfect place. There are no real natural threats here besides thunderstorms and occasional floods. No earthquakes, no volcanic activity, no tornados, nothing. The land is very fertile so the land can be cultivated to grow pretty much anything that fits in to this climate. There are woods and shit and stuff. It's also one of the places where you can get amber from the seaside too. However, today that doesn't really cut it since we also have almost no mineral resources or indeed anything. This place is only really suited for farming. Also the land is very flat, the highest point in the country is just measly 312 meters tall. Also the only waterfall we have is the widest waterfall in europe, but it's only like 1 meter high.
So anyway, for who knows how long the precursors of today's people here lived in their sheds doing nothing significant that we know about, in the 1100s the Pope and the Germans were preparing for another crusade. They had two choices. Ether they head in to the middle east and fight with muslims or they head up northeast for a bit and beat up the pagans that live there. For the crusaders, they had to chose between fighting organized moorish darkpersons who were all dedicated, trained and decently armed or fight a bunch of pagans armed with clubs dressed in clothes made from linen who they might just be able to bribe with shiny objects. So not only would winning in the territory that is now the baltic countries easier, but also the prize is better since the land is much more lush than some shitty desert where the only true gain is some place where Jesus might have been born.
So first the Germans sent some priests and shit to here and tried to convert in a peaceful manner. The locals didn't really mind the foregin preists, even pitching in when they wanted to build a chruch, but after the old men died, something like this happened.
''Jani, those old men in weird robes not made from linen who made us sit and listen to some strange tounge that sounded like my grandpa when he was foaming after that fox bit him have died. What should we do?''
''How about we make a bonfire to pay tribute to the Landmother and scare witches and vilkacis (latvian werewolves) away!''
''yay''
So they pretty much became pagans again, no, more like they never stopped being pagans. They only helped the missionaries since they didn't consider a bunch of old men in robes a threat which is why they didn't chase them away armed with wooden pitchforks.
So then they started sending knights and soldiers in to Baltia. After a few years of knights killing pagans, the germans became the rulers of the land and the territory of Baltia became Livonia, a part of the German empire.
In 1200 the Dome Church was built and the city of Riga was founded. So then a lot of cities were founded and they all were ruled by German knights and later the descendants of them. Meanwhile, the locals became slaves. Okay they're not really called slaves but they pretty much were.
For the average Latvian life was like this : farm turnips, get whipped by a german, on sundays sit in this weird brick house with a penis-shaped point sticking out of it and listen to something that doesn't sound nether like Latvian nor the language the guys with the whips curse at us, secretly pray to the Luckmother to have the whip men die horribly, beat children and wives, curse nebhour for having a better turnip, eat turnips and die ether of exhaustion at the old age of 38 or the plague, and this shit lasted more than 500 years.
Meanwhile, three kingdoms had territorial dispute over the territory of Livonia. Latvia is located in a very valuable place for the Russians. The Russians wanted the Latvian territory of Livonia in patricular since from the gulf of Riga you can sail out and sail anywhere. It was literaly Russia's window to Europe, otherwise if they wanted to trade goods with say, Germans in Germany, they would have to march like 5000 kilometers through several lands. With the gulf of Riga, they could make it so much easier and their biggest threat would be scurvy, impure thoughts about their crewmates when there is not a single woman in sight for weeks to months and the very, very very... (very x 13) unlikely chance of sea robbers.
The other two countries were the Germans who wanted nothing to change since they were living good and the Swedish, who I don't think had any real reason to want to own this land besides inflating the king's already cosmic ego and to troll the Russians.
And over the course of hundreds of years the land was owned by all of them at some point. Germans eventualy lost ownership of Livonia as a part of their empire, but the German lords that still lived here were still filthy rich, owned large stretches of land and still had more ''stinkige, drekige, letische dummkopfe''(stinky, dirty, latvian stupidheads) that they could whip farming turnips for them.
The Swedish ruled here for some time and these times are written in history books as ''good times'', since during these times the Swedish were convinced they would be staying, which is why they paved roads with stone bricks that have lasted to this very day when my dad drives a struck over them, cursing at them as they shake all the glass jars of honey in the back jitter so hard he fears that they might break. In short, fuck those bricks, fuck them. Also, altough it isn't today's Latvian territory, they founded the first university in Baltia, which is where all the smart people supposedly came from. But while it really does seem like the Swedish intended to stay, they only lasted like 50 years at best before being chased away by the Russians. After that point the territory was more or less Russian land up until the collapse of the Russian empire in the 20th century.
But there was still a very strong German influence in these lands, as the rich dukes and counts and lords and shit still had pollitical power, this remained so up until World War I where they all quickly fleed to somewhere else since this place became a battlezone.
A significant point in European history is when in Germany Martin Luther (not the black one) told the catholic curch ''fuck you guys'', made a simplified version of Christian doctorine and translated the bible to German so that the farmers could finally make true sense of why they are forced to listen stupid shit those guys in black robes talk about every Sunday. Hell, who knows, maybe then they would stop paying tribute to the Forest King and understand why fucking their daughters is not cool.
So then old man Stender, a german priest who had to read the bible to the farmers in lativian territory translated the bible to Latvian. Disregard what the book is but there is still a very, very important thing about it that is very significant to Latvia to this day. Stender pretty much invented written latvian language, since there was no such thing before this translation.
Up until the 19th century it was territorial disputes, trade disputes and occasional wars. The Latvian farmers didn't really give a fuck at all, since no matter who's in charge, they're still the ones who are out there in the feild, farming vegetables, the only thing they think to themselves is ''I don't really care or understand what this ''politics'' thing means but I do hope that the next lord will whip me less.''
Indeed, the best thing to happen to the average latvian farmer folk was the day when they started farming potatoes instead of turnips.
Okay well, no, not all latvians were farmers, some of them lived in cities and were craftsmen who did things like make barrels or brew booze or tailored shit or something. These city latvians had it better since for them it was much more likely that they could one day own their own shop or something. Some of them became rich traders, but then the first thing they did was hide their turnip farming roots and pretend to be germans. And some latvian farmers actually owned their own land which was independant from the rulers so they wouldn't get whipped. But still the majority was poor and lived on the lord's land and worked for the landlords.
In the 19th century the rulerships entirely let go of their grip over the latvians and they could do what they want. It was okay for them to become scholars, become rich and own significant buisnesses like say newspapers or something. During this time, true, intelligent latvian culture was born.
So suddenly there were smart, well-situated Latvians who weren't limited by poor education or the government stopping them from having a buisness more significant than a small barrel workshop.
Okay so no, there were still poorly-educated potato farmers and the bulk of city folk worked in the factories, but atleast for once there was culture that wasn't teaspoon-shallow myths about old magic ladies who troll farmers with sausages passed down from parent of turnip farmer to child of turnip farmer through centuries.
So then the latvian intelligence started rallying their felllow people with ideals of having their own country and shit. The Russian empire was also weakening all the time. Then, in the 20th century, it happened.
World War I. WW1 left the Russian empire in shambles after the heavy loss of both human and economic resources. At this weakend state, after the end of the war, the latvians declared independance.
Then, the most significant and successful Latvian battle occured. So there was this german warlord Bermont who wanted to claim the land for uhh... Well anyway there was a war in Latvia, which to this day remains the only battle the Latvians have won, and win they did.
After this followed the 20 happiest years in latvian history. So the latvians finally had their own country where they could do as they please without being put down by the russian or the fat german. This was the most productive time
But then, World War II came and the Soviets took over. All of the latvian intelligence quickly escaped to places like the Americas or Australia, and everyone else... well...
Latvia was a frontline with a lot of struggles between the nazis and the soviets. Latvians were enlisted in both sides. During this time the Latvians became nazi sympathisers. Now before the jews start demanding compensation for the moral damage that sentance and the russians come here and shoot me dead, think about it like this.
Now my grandparents all experienced WW2 as children and at the sympathy for the nazis was based off of their experence. Now I can't verify this all for realz but this is what they told me.
The german soldiers were all stoic, organized, tidy men who even shared their rations with starving children. The russians were dirty drunks who will rob your village blind as they pass through it. Which seems better to you?
So then the war was over and Latvia became a part of the soviet union. During this time the latvians were at a very low point after the days of success in their own country.
Soviet times were pretty shitty, with serious lack of supplies. I might talk more in depth about them some other time. I'm also not going to talk about today's Latvia ether anytime soon.
