In the Baltic provinces (Esthonia, Livonia and Courland) the prevailing population is Esthonian, Kuronian or Lettish, the Germans being respectively only 3.8, 7.6 and 8.2% of the population.
In 1916-7 there were 735,000 Lettish refugees in Russia, and 250,000 men aged 20-40 are supposed to have perished between 1914-20.
Lectures are delivered in Lettish, Russian and German, and nearly all the staff is Latvian.
16 1920); (b) about 40,000 owners of small holdings, averaging from 26 to 150 ac., formed the backbone of the Lettish middle class, and the liberal professions (nicknamed the " grey barons ") were partly supported by about 10,000 tenants of small farms; (c) the owners of very small holdings in Latgalia and Courland numbered some 10,600.
In 1916-7 there were 735,000 Lettish refugees in Russia.
Lettish man-power suffered more particularly.
Soviet Russia found many soldiers among the Lettish refugees, and retained the Lettish rifle division which had fought during the war.
History of Latvian Independence.-With the outbreak of the World War in 1914 a prospect of some kind of national existence opened out to the Lettish intelligentsia, whose antipathy to Germany did not imply a readiness to die for Russia.
The Russian Government permitted the formation on July 13 1915 of a Lettish rifle division 50,000 men strong.
The German occupation did not prevent the Lettish National Council, on June 26-29 1918, from claiming the reunion of all Lettish territories in accordance with the protest addressed to the German Chancellor on April 4.
30 on behalf of Lettish independence.
And Ulmanis, under the pressure of a Bolshevik invasion and Bolshevik influence among the Letts, did not succeed in forming an anti-Bolshevik Lettish defence force, but on Dec. 7 consented to the creation of a Baltic Landeswehr.
Lettish units were shelled on Dec. 30 from a British mine-layer in the harbour of the new capital - Riga.
The murder of three men of the Baltic Landeswehr led to the coup of April 16 1919, by the proclamation of the Government of a Lettish clergyman, Needra.
The Baltic Landeswehr, unsupported by the other units, were engaged with Esthonian and Lettish forces near Wenden, and were defeated.
The Esthonians were hailed as liberators of Riga by the Lettish Assembly.
Alexander, became a unit of the Lettish army (Olai agreement on July 15 1919) to be formed by Gen.
The Lettish Government decided to stop the advance on Dvinsk and Rezhitsa at any cost, as a danger to Latvia's independence, and succeeded in obtaining British and Esthonian support.
Ballod's Lettish troops played a minor part on this front.
In the Memel area 565,000 persons are under temporary French occupation; in the Polangen district 3,000 under Lettish governance.
In the disputed Illuxt area 53,000 persons are also under Lettish rule.
The New English Dictionary connects it with a Teutonic stem meaning "holy"; from which is derived the Lithuanian szwentas, and Lettish swats.
Konopel; Lettish and Lithuanian, kannapes; Sla y.
WENDEN (Lettish Tseziz), a town of western Russia, in the government of Livonia, 60 m.
Anciently Courland was inhabited by the Cours or Kurs, a Lettish tribe, who were subdued and converted to Christianity by the Brethren of the Sword, a German military order, in the first quarter of the 13th century.
Ehstland and Esshland, Esthonian Eestimaa and Meie-maa, also Viroma and Rahvama; Lettish Iggaun Senna), a Baltic province of Russia, stretching along the south coast of the Gulf of Finland, and having Lake Peipus and Livonia on the S.
Their native language, of Finnish origin, is rapidly disappearing, their present language being a Lettish patois.
YURIEV (formerly Dorpat, also Dorpt; Russian, Derpt; Esthonian, Tarto and Tartolin; in Lettish, Tehrbata), a town of W.