LIVONIA, 1I-veini-a. (Ger. Livland; Russ. Livlandya), a former government of Russia and one of the three' Baltic provinces, bounded on the north by Esthonia, south by Courland, on the west by the Gulf of Riga and east by Lake Peipus and the governments of Petrograd, Pskov and Vitebsk. Together with Oesel, Mohn, Paternoster and some smaller islands in the Gulf of Riga the total area is about 17,500 square miles, with a population of 1,740,000 in 1914. Riga, the capital, is the most German town outside Germany and has a popu lation of 560,000. Consisting mainly of marsh and low sand, the territory has little fertility and few forests. Over 18 per cent of the area is meadow land, over which great herds of cattle are spread, particularly horses. There is an abundance of inland waterways, though only the Dvina, the Pernau and the Aa near the Embach are of any importance for communica tion. The Salis and the Pernau are only par tially navigable, owing to rapids, narrowness and shallow bottom. The one trunk line of railway runs from Rip through Dorpat and Taps to Petrograd. Little wheat is grown in Livonia; rye, potatoes and oats are standard crops; dairy farming, though extensively car ried on, yields btit little profit. Altogether the country is in a backward and neglected con dition. Some 400 factories were in operation before the war; Riga was the centre of the Russian flax and timber trade, also of rubber and textiles, foundries, pulp-mills and china manufacture. In 1915 the Russians started and dismantling all the machinery to prevent it from falling into German hands, leaving Riga little more than an empty shell.
The population of Livonia is predominantly Russian; about 8 or 10 per cent is German; the aborigines are of Finnish origin and are more closely allied to the Slays than the Germans. Letts, Swedes, Poles and Jews make up the remainder of the inhabitants. The Esthonians occupy the north and east portion of Livonia; the Letts the south and west. Most of the people are Protestants of the Augs burg Confession.
During the 12th and 13th centuries the Lett tribes of the Baltic were considered by the Russian princes and republics of the north west as their subjects or tributaries. Danes conquered Esthoma, and Yaroslav the Great founded Yuriev (Dorpat). With the German Hanseatic merchants Latin missionaries ap peared on the Baltic. The archbishop of Bremen sent the monk Meinhard to convert the Livonians. In 1187 the latter built a church at Ueickiill and a fortress round the church. From this day the tribes lost their lands and their liberty. The Livonians rose in revolt in 1198
and Meinhard's successor, the second bishop of Livonia, was killed in battle. The natives re turned to their heathen gods and plunged into the Dvina "to wash off the baptism they had received, and to send it back to Germany* (Rambaud). Pope Innocent III (reigned 1198 1216) preached a crusade against the Livonians and another bishop was appointed over the natives. He arrived with a fleet of 23 ships, built the town of Riga and made it his capital in 1200. This ecclesiastic, Albert of Bux hcevden, founded the German rule in Livonia. The natives implored the help of the princes of Polotsk and marched on Riga, where they were defeated in 1206. The Prince of Polotsk besieged the town during the bishop's absence, but it was saved by the arrival of a German flotilla. In 1410 the power of the Teutonic Knights was broken by the Poles under the Lithuanian kings. The expansion of Muscovy (Russia) turned the Tsar's desires toward the Baltic; between them and the goal, however, lay Sweden, the Livonian Knights, Lithuania and Poland. War broke out in 1554 under Ivan the Terrible and Gustav Vasa of Sweden. Four years later the Russians conquered a con siderable part of Livonia. The Poles come to the rescue, and by 1562 they had gained con trol over the Baltic provinces. Gustav Adolph of Sweden captured Riga in 1621, and Sweden enjoyed the supremacy of the Baltic for nearly a century. The war between Peter the Great assisted by Prussia and Charles XII resulted in the defeat of Sweden in 1709, and in 1721 Russia finally received Livonia, Esthonia, In gria, Carelia and part of Finland. For 196 years Livonia remained part of the Russian Empire, until it was overrun by the Germans in 1917, and Riga fell on 3 September. That event led the Kaiser to declare that the Ger manization of the Baltic lands was secure for all time.* Under the terms of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty, signed by the Bol shevist leaders on 3 March 1918, Russia agreed to abandon territories amounting to nearly a quarter of the total area of European Russia, in which Livonia, Esthonia and Courland were included. Under the terms of the armistice, dictated by the Allies to Germany on 11 Nov. 1918, all German troops were to be withdrawn from territories which had before the war be longed to Russia, as soon as the Allies should decide. On 15 Nov. 1918 it was announced that Livonia, Esthonia and Courland had decided to form a joint Baltic state.