Extract
[...] But their inevitable decline will sound the death knell of their glorious epic. It is then that Teutonic knights from the Livonian Order, a junior branch of the Teutonic Order, make their appearance. We are now in the Middle Ages. The Baltic Crusades aim to colonize and Christianize the lands near the Baltic Sea. These monk-soldiers from Germany will do what is necessary for this to happen, even if it means doing so by force and massacring the recalcitrants. They will achieve their goal. [...]
[...] These people make up a third of Latvia's population and will only be able to benefit from a temporary residence permit for many. In April 2004, Latvia will join NATO. On May Latvia will join the European Union. The President of Latvia, once courted like its neighbors, Lithuania and Estonia, by Poland, Sweden, Russia and Germany, is called Edgars Rink?vi?s. He has been president since July elected for a four-year renewable term. The currency of Latvia is the euro and its capital is Riga. [...]
[...] However, the Kingdom of Sweden, led by Gustav II, coveted the territories and militarily defeated the Poles and Lithuanians despite their alliance. Gustav II thus became the new master of Latvia and other Baltic territories. In 1632, some time before his death on a battlefield, the King of Sweden became the founder of the University of Tartu. The official journal of the Swedish government was even published in Riga and in Latvian. In 1655, the King of Sweden, now King of Sweden-Finland, Charles X Gustav, asked a favor of the Baltic-German barons, to swear allegiance to him. [...]
[...] Misfortune for the Latvians, who were once again invaded by the Soviets. In June 1940, secret agreements were made between the Third Reich and the USSR, under the German-Soviet Pact. The USSR could now annex Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia would suffer the same fate. The excuse found for the annexation was to say that it was ratified by plebiscite. It was a means of legitimizing it. However, the United States, the European Parliament, non-communist countries that are members of the UN, and many other nations and international entities did not fall for it and refused to recognize Latvia and its Baltic neighbors as new Soviet republics. [...]
[...] In the 18th century, it was now the Russian Empire that was the master of Latvian territories. Livonia and Courland came under their control as soon as the Treaty of Nystad was signed. But the Russians still left the large German-Baltic landowners and the German language, combined with the Russian language, remain in Latvia, a common currency, until 1917. Because within the Russian Empire, nothing was going well and a civil war broke out, it would last until 1922. In parallel, the First World War broke out from 1914 to 1918. [...]
