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The town's history began in 1273 when the Livonian Order, led by Ernst von Ratzeburg, built the Dünaburg Castle on the site of a Lithuanian settlement of Naujinis (about 18 km from present-day Daugavpils). Between 1281 and 1313, Lithuania ruled Daugavpils, the lands up to Daugava and its surroundings. In 1561 it again became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, subsequently, of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569 (see Duchy of Livonia). In 1621 Daugavpils became the capital of the newly formed Inflanty Voivodeship, which existed until the First Partition of Poland (1772). In 1577 the Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible captured and destroyed Dünaburg castle.
Coat of arms of Daugavpils (then "Dyneburg") in 1582
That same year, a new castle and a town were built 20 km (12 mi) downriver, by the Polish King and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Stephen Báthory. In 1582 Daugavpils was granted Magdeburg town rights. In 1654, Russia invaded Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, seizing much of the eastern lands. Russian troops besieged Daugavpils in April and May 1655, but did not capture the city; it was only taken by Swedish troops on July 11, 1655, who invaded Poland at that time. When the Russo-Swedish war started, the Russians captured Daugavpils on 10 August 1656, renamed the town Borisoglebov and controlled the region for 11 years, between 1656 and 1667. Russia returned the area of Latgale to Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth following the Treaty of Andrusovo (1667). Called Dyneburg, the city became the capital of the Inflanty Voivodeship, also known as the Duchy of Livonia, and the starostwo of Dyneburg. It was a place of local sejmik's gatherings. Roman Catholic Bishop of Inflanty, who was always residing outside of diocese, moved his seat to Dyneburg at the end of 17th century. At the end of the 18th century, 540 people lived in the city itself, but counting the population of the suburbs the number was 1,373.
It became part of the Russian Empire after the First Partition of Poland in 1772. It was the uyezd administrative center as part of the Pskov Governorate (1772–1776), Polotsk (1776–1796), Belarusian (1796–1802), and finally Vitebsk (1802–1917), first as Dinaburg, then Dvinsk later during Russian rule.
From 1784 onwards, the city had a large and active Jewish population, among them a number of prominent figures. According to the Russian census of 1897, out of a total population of 69,700, Jews numbered 32,400 (ca. 44% percent).
The construction of the Daugavpils fortress began in 1810 and was completed in 1878. The new centre of the city was built southeast of the fortress in the 19th century according to the project endorsed in St. Petersburg in 1826. The city was located on the Saint Petersburg-Warsaw railway line, to which it was connected in 1860. As part of the Russian Empire, the city was called Dvinsk from 1893 to 1920.
A 1912 photo by Prokudin-Gorsky
During the Lithuanian Independence Wars, there were Lithuanian attempts to take Daugavpils (Dvinsk) due to a Lithuanian minority living there and the city's importance as a rail and road junction. However, Lithuania never made a full-scale military campaign to annex the city or directly control it. The newly independent Latvian state renamed it Daugavpils in 1920. Latvians, Poles and Soviet troops fought the Battle of Daugavpils in the area from 1919 to 1920.
Polish 5th Legions' Infantry Regiment in Daugavpils in 1920
Daugavpils and the whole of Latvia was under Soviet rule between 1940–41 and 1944–1991. Nazi Brandenburgers led the German attack against the town in 1941, speaking Russian and wearing Soviet uniforms, and Germany occupied it between 1941 and 1944. The Nazis established the Daugavpils Ghetto where the town's Jews were forced to live. Most were murdered. During the Cold War the Lociki air-base operated 12 km (7 mi) northeast of Daugavpils itself. In the late Soviet era, there was a proposal to build a hydroelectric power station on the Daugava river that was successfully opposed by the nascent environmental movement in Latvia.
On 16 April 2010 an assassin shot vice-mayor Grigorijs Ņemcovs in the center of the city. He died almost immediately and the crime remains unsolved.
Jewish history[edit]
Prior to 1941, Daugavpils, called Dvinsk by its Jewish inhabitants, was home to the most prominent Jewish community in eastern Latvia. The city was already a Jewish center as early as the 1780s and by the time of the 1897 census, they numbered 32,400 (44% of the overall population of the city). The Jews of the town were very prosperous and ran 32 factories and there were 4000 artisans among them. By 1911 they had increased to 50,000.[citation needed] However, tens of thousands of Jews migrated away from Daugavpils; in the last census taken prior to the Second World War, in 1935, the Jewish population of Daugavpils numbered only 11,106 (24.6% of the overall population of the city).
The city not only boasted a large Jewish population but a rich religious culture including 40 synagogues. The city was home to two of the most prominent rabbis of their time: Joseph Rosen (1858–1936), known as the Rogatchover Gaon (genius from Rahachow), was famed for his commentaries on the works of Maimonides and on the Talmud. Famed for his acidic wit and penetrating genius, he led the towns Hasidic Jews. His 'competitor', the leader of the local Misnagdim (non-Hasidic Jews) was the Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (1843–1926). Rabbi Meir Simcha was also renowned for his work on Maimonides (Or Somayach) as well as Bible commentary Meshech Chochma. In one famous comment he predicted that since some Jews had assimilated and viewed Berlin as their 'Jerusalem' they would suffer persecution originating in Berlin.
Sarah Azariahu was born here in 1873. She was a leading figure in establishing equal rights for women in pre-state Israel.
Another famous Jewish resident, moving in a very different direction, was the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Born in Daugavpils in 1903 he immigrated at the age of 10 to the United States where he painted over 800 paintings in his unique style.
Daugavpils Ghetto in July 1941
Rothko and many of his fellow Jews would have taken the train from Daugavpils to Liepāja, travelling westwards from Radviliškis on the Libau-Romny Railway, and would have crossed the seas by one of the steamships departing for New York via a regular service established in 1906 by the Russian American Line.
Jewish Daugavpils, a 16,000 strong community, already greatly diminished by emigration, came to an end following the Nazi German invasion on 26 June 1941. Falsely claiming that the Jews had conspired to set fire to the town and that they were assisting the Soviet army, the Germans and their Latvian collaborators carried out large executions on 28–29 June. During July the Jews were enslaved and forced to cut down timber. On 7–11 July Einsatzkommando 1b under Erich Ehrlinger executed many of the remaining Jews. Later in July the 14,000 remaining Jews were forced into a Ghetto along with those from nearby towns. By the end of August an additional 7000 Jews had died at the hands of the Nazis and the local Latvian collaborators. The largest execution took place in November 1941 and was followed by plagues that decimated the few survivors. Only about 1500 Jews remained in the city. These were murdered on 1 May 1942. When the town was liberated in 1944 only 100 survivors remained of a community of 16,000. For more on the Holocaust in Daugavpils see Daugavpils Ghetto.
