Anarchism in Latvia
Anarchism in Latvia emerged from the Latvian National Awakening and saw its apex during the 1905 Russian Revolution. Eventually the Latvian anarchist movement was suppressed by a series of authoritarian regimes in the country. History During the time of the Livonian Confederation, peasants retained personal freedom and self-government, but after the Livonian War the power of landowners was expanded, culminating in the establishment of the Duchies of Livonia, Courland and Semigallia under the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, when the peasant class was brought into serfdom. When Livonia was brought under the rule of the Swedish Empire, the abolition of serfdom was briefly proposed, but it was rejected by the region's ruling Baltic German nobility, which desired to retain ownership of the peasants. After the end of the Great Northern War in 1721, the Baltic region was brought under the rule of the Russian Empire, but the peasants continued to be administered by the Baltic German nobility under a feudal Landtag. Serfdom was subsequently expanded under Catherine the Great, after the defeat of Pugachev's Rebellion. In response, local voices such as Johann Georg Eisen von Schwarzenberg and Garlieb Merkel began to advocate for the abolition of serfdom. After the suppression of the Kauguri