Usage of languages

It is of some interest for family history research to know what languages were used in the region of Latvia in the everyday life and by the official bodies, and in what languages the official documents were prepared, and what linguistic milieu the ancestors lived in, therefore I am proposing here a short review of the linguistic situation in the region of Latvia for the reference period beginning from 1800.

Russia Empire

Latgale, the eastern part of the region of Latvia, was part of Vitebskas province, and the main language in the state bodies there was Russian. I suppose that Polish language was also used, at least at the beginning of the 19^th century, but I do not have more detailed information.

In the Baltic provinces, that had some autonomy in the Russia Empire, the main language was German. Everybody who hoped for good career prospects or just wanted to be considered as an educated person should have had good command of German. This language was used in the main governmental bodies with a possible exception in the Police and the court systems, it was also used in the official bodies of the Lutheran Church. The language usage at the pagasts level depended on the ethnicity of the scribe. If a Latvian took this position, which became possible in 1830s, he could write the documents in Latvian for corresponding to other pagasts or to the Pastor of the parish. Some forms of official documents were printed in Russian and German. A form of pagasts passport in Kurzeme [Kurland], for example, was printed in 3 languages including Latvian.

Later on, the Tzar government began to introduce the Russian language as the state language also for the Baltic provinces. Usually this process quite correctly is called rusification, but it could be named also degermanization, I think. The secular institutions here were obliged to introduce Russian language in their regular work beginning of 1865, actually they did not. Later additional Laws were adopted. In 1885 all schools, except elementary pagasts schools, received an order to teach all subjects except religion in Russian. At the same time, pagasts courts and other authorities of pagasts level had to write all papers in Russian. It was ordered, however, that the accounting documents of the pagasts level should have been written in two languages - Russian and Latvian, to make possible the control of them by electives of pagasts who did not know Russian. Many scribes of pagasti did not know Russian well enough and lost the job. Gradually this knowledge was acquired, and the documents were issued in Russian. Some forms of documents, for example, receipts of taxes of pagasts level were printed in two languages (Russian and Latvian) but were filled up in Russian. As for passports and passport booklets, they were now printed and filled up in Russian. Many copies of person documents are available on this site andmore will be presented later.

Languages in the Churches

The Lutheran Church requires of their Pastors to preach in the local language, so in Latvia they knew Latvian even if they were ethnic Germans. Some of them did a good job for the investigation of the language and wrote school books for Latvian schools. Others had not so excellent knowledge, but even they had no serious problems to communicate with the members of their parishes. In the Catholic confession the divine services are going on in Latin language with exception of sermons and some prayers the parish is taking part in. In Latgale most Latvians were Catholic, and the Catholic priests were frequently Poles by ethnicity and spoke Polish with the parish members.

The priests of the Russian-Orthodox Church in many cases were Russians, but when the conversion of Latvians to this Church became intensive in the 1850s, and the Tzar allowed to lead divine services of the Orthodox Church in Latvian, the special Seminary was organized in Riga where Latvians and Estonians studied. A book about Russian Orthodox churches in Latgale claimed that the Orthodox religion was very successful in Latgale in the 1850-1860s, because the people were happy to hear divine services in Latvian. The statistics and other sources contradict to this assertion, however.

In this connection the letters of Pastor L.Heerwagen to his Orthodox colleague Pjatnickis are interesting. L.Heerwagen was a German by ethnicity and quite possibly was not good in the Russian language. Pjatnickis was a Russian and evidently did not understand German. I suppose this was the reason L.Heerwagen wrote his letters in Latvian - he had very good command of the language, and as I suppose this was the only language the both Priests could communicate in. I do not know what was the Latvian skills of Pjatnickis, but he could easy find a Latvian person in his parish to translate the messages.

The inscriptions in the church books of the Ev.-Luth. Church were made in German during almost all the 19^th century. The rules adopted in the 1850s prescribed that the civil registrations of the Jewish population were written in Hebrew and Russian, and this rule existed until 1917 (see /Svod/ vol.9). The situation for Christian confessions changed in 1891, when the Tzar decided that all of them should keep all population registers in Russian beginning from January 1, 1892. No doubt, it is very important to those who want to study original Church documents. As far as it is known, it was not easy to obey this order, because the Pastors had not good command of Russian and had great difficulties to write in the language. So it took some years till the problem was solved. And I have church documents of the 1910s written in good Russian by the Pastors who were Germans by ethnicity.