German crusaders were sent, or more likely decided to go of their own accord as they were known to do. Saint Meinhard of Segeberg arrived in Ikšķile, in 1184, traveling with merchants to Livonia, on a Catholic mission to convert the population from their original pagan beliefs. Pope Celestine III had called for a crusade against pagans in Northern Europe in 1193. When peaceful means of conversion failed to produce results, Meinhard plotted to convert Livonians by force of arms.[26] At the beginning of the 13th century, Germans ruled large parts of what is currently Latvia.[25] The influx of German crusaders in the present-day Latvian territory especially increased in the second half of the 13th century following the decline and fall of the Crusader States in the Middle East.[27] Together with southern Estonia, these conquered areas formed the crusader state that became known as Terra Mariana (Medieval Latin for "Land of Mary") or Livonia.[28] In 1282, Riga, and later the cities of Cēsis, Limbaži, Koknese and Valmiera, became part of the Hanseatic League.[25] Riga became an important point of east–west trading[25] and formed close cultural links with Western Europe.[29] The first German settlers were knights from northern Germany and citizens of northern German towns who brought their Low German language to the region, which shaped many loanwords in the Latvian language.[30] Reformation period and Polish and Swedish rule Main articles: Swedish Livonia, Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, Duchy of Livonia, and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at its largest extent; modern-day boundaries are also shown. The Swedish Empire (1560–1815) After the Livonian War (1558–1583), Livonia (Northern Latvia & Southern Estonia) fell under the hegemony of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[25] The southern part of Estonia and the northern part of Latvia were ceded to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and formed into the Duchy of Livonia (Ducatus Livoniae Ultradunensis). Gotthard Kettler, the last Master of the Order of Livonia, formed the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia.[31] Though the duchy was a vassal state to the Lithuanian Grand Duchy and later of Poland–Lithuania, it retained a considerable degree of autonomy and experienced a golden age in the 16th century. Latgalia, the easternmost region of Latvia, became a part of the Inflanty Voivodeship of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[32] In the 17th and early 18th centuries, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden, and Russia struggled for supremacy in the eastern Baltic. After the Polish–Swedish War, northern Livonia (including Vidzeme) came under Swedish rule. Riga became the capital of Swedish Livonia and the largest city in the entire Swedish Empire.[33] Fighting continued sporadically between Sweden and Poland until the Truce of Altmark in 1629.[34][35] In Latvia, the Swedish period is generally remembered as positive; serfdom was eased, a network of schools was established for the peasantry, and the power of the regional barons was diminished.[36][37] Several important cultural changes occurred during this time. Under Swedish and largely German rule, western Latvia adopted Lutheranism as its main religion.[38] The ancient tribes of the Couronians, Semigallians, Selonians, Livs, and northern Latgallians assimilated to form the Latvian people, speaking one Latvian language.[39][40] Throughout all the centuries, however, an actual Latvian state had not been established, so the borders and definitions of who exactly fell within that group are largely subjective. Meanwhile, largely isolated from the rest of Latvia, southern Latgallians adopted Catholicism under Polish/Jesuit influence. The native dialect remained distinct, although it acquired many Polish and Russian loanwords.[41] Livonia and Courland in the Russian Empire (1795–1917) During the Great Northern War (1700–1721), up to 40 percent of Latvians died from famine and plague.[42] Half the residents of Riga were killed by plague in 1710–1711.[43] The capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710 and the Treaty of Nystad, ending the Great Northern War in 1721, gave Vidzeme to Russia (it became part of the Riga Governorate). The Latgale region remained part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as Inflanty Voivodeship until 1772, when it was incorporated into Russia. The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, a vassal state of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, was annexed by Russia in 1795 in the Third Partition of Poland, bringing all of what is now Latvia into the Russian Empire. All three Baltic provinces preserved local laws, German as the local official language and their own parliament, the Landtag. The emancipation of the serfs took place in Courland in 1817 and in Vidzeme in 1819.[44] In practice, however, the emancipation was actually advantageous to the landowners and nobility, as it dispossessed peasants of their land without compensation, forcing them to return to work at the estates "of their own free will".[45] During these two centuries Latvia experienced economic and construction boom – ports were expanded (Riga became the largest port in the Russian Empire), railways built; new factories, banks, and a university were established; many residential, public (theatres and museums), and school buildings were erected; new parks formed; and so on. Riga's boulevards and some streets outside the Old Town date from this period. Numeracy was also higher in the Livonian and Courlandian parts of the Russian Empire, which may have been influenced by the Protestant religion of the inhabitants.[46] Latvians national rally in Dundaga in 1905 During the 19th century, the social structure changed dramatically.[47] A class of independent farmers established itself after reforms allowed the peasants to repurchase their land, but many landless peasants remained. Many Latvians left for the cities and sought education and industrial jobs.[47] There also developed a growing urban proletariat and an increasingly influential Latvian bourgeoisie.[47] The Young Latvian (Latvian: Jaunlatvieši) movement laid the groundwork for nationalism from the middle of the century, many of its leaders looking to the Slavophiles for support against the prevailing German-dominated social order.[48][49] The rise in use of the Latvian language in literature and society became known as the First National Awakening.[48] Russification began in Latgale after the Polish led the January Uprising in 1863: this spread to the rest of what is now Latvia by the 1880s. The Young Latvians were largely eclipsed by the New Current, a broad leftist social and political movement, in the 1890s.[50] Popular discontent exploded in the 1905 Russian Revolution, which took a nationalist character in the Baltic provinces.[51][52][53] Declaration of independence and interwar period .mw-parser-output .ambox{border:1px solid #a2a9b1;border-left:10px solid #36c;background-color:#fbfbfb;box-sizing:border-box}.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+link+.ambox{margin-top:-1px}ht