Courland

 ( Historical Regions In Latvia ) 

The Duchy was one of the smallest European nations to colonize overseas territories, establishing short-lived outposts on the Caribbean islands of Tobago and Trinidad and at the mouth of the Gambia River in Africa on what was then known as James Island.

In 1795, the last Duke, Peter von Biron, ceded the Duchy to the Russian Empire.

The former Bishopric of Courland was directly incorporated into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as the District of Pilten of the Wenden and later Inflanty Voivodeship.

From the time of the Northern Crusades in the early 13th century, most land was owned by nobles descended from the German invaders. In 1863, the Russian authorities issued laws to enable Latvians, who formed the bulk of the population, to acquire the farms which they held, and special banks were founded to help them. By this means, some occupants bought their farms, but the great mass of the population remained landless, and lived as hired labourers, occupying a low position in the social scale.

Agriculture was the chief occupation, with the principal crops being rye, barley, , wheat, flax, and . The large estates conducted agriculture with skill and scientific knowledge. Fruit grew well. Excellent breeds of cattle, sheep and pigs were kept. Liepāja and Jelgava operated as the principal industrial centres, with , agricultural machinery works, tanneries, glass and soap works. Flax spinning took place mostly as a domestic industry. Iron and limestone were the chief minerals; a little amber was found on the coast. The only seaports were Liepāja, Ventspils and Palanga, there being none on the Courland coast of the Gulf of Riga.

The chief towns of the ten districts were Jelgava (Mitau), Courland's capital (pop. 35,011 in 1897); Liepāja (Libau) (pop. 64,500 in 1897); Bauska (6,543); Jaunjelgava (Friedrichstadt) (5,223); Kuldīga (Goldingen) (9,733); Grobiņa (1,489); Aizpute (Hasenpoth) (3,338); Ilūkste (Illuxt) (2,340); Talsi (Talsen) (6,215); Tukums (Tuckum) (7542); and Ventspils (Windau) (7,132).

75% of the population belonged to the prevailing denomination, Lutheranism; the rest belonged to the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. There was a small but vigorous Jewish population.

As Russian rule in the rest of what is now Latvia began collapsing in 1917, Baltic Germans initiated a process of forming provincial councils between September 1917 and March 1918, competing with Latvians' moves toward independence. With the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 3 March 1918, the new Soviet Russia formally relinquished sovereignty over all lands to the west of the agreed demarcation line, thus effectively recognising German control over the wast region that included Courland, and also Lithuania and Poland. Already on 8 March 1918, the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was proclaimed a Baltic German Landesrat, offering the ducal crown to German emperor Wilhelm II. Germany recognised the independence of Courland that same month, but in reality the Duchy was operating as a German client state. On 5 November 1918, Courland was integrated into a wider Baltic polity, known as the United Baltic Duchy, but that attempted state failed to become a reality, since Germany lost the war on 11 November.

After World War I, Courland became one of five provinces of the newly formed nation of Latvia. These provinces corresponded to Latvia's four traditional regions plus Riga. In 1935, Courland had an area of and a population of 292,659 making it the least populous of the provinces.1935 census figures cited at Municipalities of Latvia at Statoids.com. retrieved 10 September 2015.

At the start of Operation Barbarossa in the summer of 1941, the German Wehrmacht's Army Group North headed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb overran Courland, along with the rest of the Baltic region littoral. During the German occupation Courland was administered as Liepāja County area ( Kreisgebiet Libau).

In 1944 the Red Army lifted the siege of Leningrad and re-conquered the Baltic countries along with much of Ukraine and Belarus. However, some 200,000 Germany troops held out in Courland. With their backs to the Baltic Sea, they remained trapped in what became known as the Courland Pocket, blockaded by the Red Army and by the Red Baltic Fleet. Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, the Chief of the German General Staff, pleaded with Adolf Hitler to allow evacuation of the troops in Courland by sea for use in the defense of Germany. Hitler refused and ordered the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine forces in Courland to continue the defense of the area. Germany’s naval capacity to evacuate these forces was restricted as it needed the majority of its transport ships to evacuate troops from East Prussia and maintain vital trade with Sweden. On January 15, 1945, Army Group Courland ( Heeresgruppe Kurland) formed under Colonel-General Dr. Lothar Rendulic. The blockade by elements of the Leningrad Front remained until May 8, 1945, when Army Group Courland, then under its last commander, Colonel-General Carl Hilpert, surrendered to Marshal Leonid Govorov, the commander of the Leningrad Front (reinforced by elements of the 2nd Baltic Front) on the Courland perimeter. At this time the group consisted of the remnants of some 31 divisions. After May 9, 1945, approximately 203,000 troops of Army Group Courland began to be moved to Soviet prison camps to the east. The majority of them never returned to Germany (Haupt, 1997).

Courland remained part of the Latvian SSR within the Soviet Union following World War II. Courland was no longer an administrative unit under the Soviets. Liepājas apgabals (1952-1953), one of three oblasts in Latvia, roughly corresponded to Courland.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Courland became part of independent Latvia once more and it remains so to this day. Although Courland is not an administrative entity today, the Courland (Kurzeme) Planning Region, with an area of and a population of 301,621 in 2008, includes much of the traditional region. The remainder of Courland is part of the planning regions of Riga and Semigallia (Zemgale).

• Ephraim Deinard (1846–1930), born in Valdemārpils, publisher and author.
• Reuven Dov Dessler (1863–1935), born in Grobiņa, rabbi and educator
• George Henry Loskiel (1740–1814), born in Angermuende in Courland, Moravian Church clergyman who obtained complete separation of the European and American branches of the church.
• Otto Mears, (1840–1931), pioneering road and railway builder in Colorado, United States; born in Courland.
  Mallory Hope Ferrell (1973). 9780871080578, Pruett Press, Inc.. ISBN 9780871080578
• Dorothea von Medem (1761–1821), Duchess of Courland, wife of the last Duke of Courland
• Elisa von der Recke (1754–1833), writer and poet

• Christiansen, Eric, The Northern Crusades – the Baltic & the Catholic Frontier 1100–1525, London, 1980,
• Haupt, Werner, Army Group North: The Wehrmacht in Russia 1941–1945, Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA., 1997.
• Hiden, John, The Baltic States and Weimar Ostpolitik, Cambridge University Press, 1987,
• Hiden, John W., & Patrick Salmon, The Baltic Nations & Europe, Longman, London, 1991,
• Hollmann, H, Kurlands Agrarverhältnisse, Riga, 1893.
• Kauffmann, Jean-Paul, A Journey to Nowhere: Detours and Riddles in the Lands and History of Courland, MacLehose Press, 2012
• Kirby, David, Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period – The Baltic World 1492 -1772, Longman, London, 1990,
• Murray, John, Russia, Poland, and Finland, – Handbook for Travellers, 3rd revised edition, London, 1875. (Includes Kurland).
• Seraphim, E, Geschichte Liv-, Esth-, und Kurlands, Reval, 1895–1896 (2 vols).

• Courland (Kurland) / Kurzeme
• Courland
• Courland 1641–1795
• Kurland Winter
• Ritterschaften der Familie in Kurland