Monument to Peter the Great and the annexation of Livland to Russia in 1710 in Riga

Pictures and text by Mark R. Hatlie

These pictures were taken in Riga during the first week of September, 2007. This memorial was built in 1910 for the 200th anniversary of the Russian conquest of Livland at the location where the Freedom Monument now stands. It was evacuated in 1915 and sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The story of how it got to where it now stands - the parking lot of a private firm out on Brivibas iela, several kilometers from down town - will be recounted here later.

I recount the 1910 unveiling of this statue in some detail in Hatlie, Mark R.: Flags and Bayonets: Mass celebrations in Riga, 1910-1920. Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung 51/4, 475-499. There is also an analysis of the event in von Hirschhausen, Ulrike: Die Grenzen der Gemeinsamkeit: Deutsche, Letten, Russen und Juden in Riga 1860-1914. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Göttingen, 2006.