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Latvian: Cēsis

Lat. Wenden; Estonian: Võnnu; Russian: Цесис (transliterated as Cesis)

The name ‘Wenden’ is of Finno-Ugric origin. It is attributed to the Finno-Ugric tribe of the Wends, who originated from the Livonian part of Courland on the River Windau (Latvian: Venta) and had been settling in the region since the 12th century. In the Middle Ages, the term ‘Wends’ was also used to refer to Slavs or foreign peoples who had been converted to Christianity. The place name ‘Wenden’ may be a combination of these meanings. The Livonian Wends have nothing in common with the West Slavic Wends.

Wenden is situated at 57° 19' north latitude and 25° 17' east longitude, approximately 77 km north of the Latvian capital, Riga/Rīga.

The town is situated in Latvia on the Livonian Aa (Gauja).

Livonia

Latvia. Cēsis is now part of the South Livonia (Vidzeme) region and is the social and administrative centre ofCēsis District.

Coat of arms of Wenden/Cēsis
[Image: www.cesis.lv]

 

The coat of arms, dating from 1383, depicts a red wall with five towers against a blue background. The open gate symbolises the town charter. Standing upon it is a warrior with outstretched arms, holding a sword in his right hand and a shield in his left.

When monks of the Order of the Sword Brothers (Fratres milicie Christi de Livonia) reached what is now the Wenden region in the early 13th century, they encountered the tribes of the Latgalians, Livonians and Wends. Although the Christianisation of Livonia was mostly accompanied by bloody battles, ‘[the Wends] rejoiced at the arrival of the priest’^[1] and converted for pragmatic reasons. In return, the brothers of the Order helped to fight the local population’s external enemies, the Estonians and Russians.

It is thought that from 1207 onwards, the Knights lived alongside the Wends on Nussberg (Riekstukalns). Around 1213/14, they built a stone castle on the neighbouring hill, the remains of which can still be seen today. A village sprang up to the south and east of this new stronghold of the Brothers of the Sword. In 1221, it was set alight by the Wends and the Brothers of the Sword after it proved unable to withstand a Russian attack. Around 1224/27, Wenden is mentioned as a ‘Hakelwerk’ (a non-agricultural settlement adjacent to a castle), where mainly German merchants settled. After a large number of the Brothers of the Sword were killed in the Battle of Saule against the Lithuanians in 1236, and the Livonian branch of the Order of the Brothers of the Sword had been incorporated into the German Order, the importance of the Wenden citadel continued to grow. From 1297 onwards, the castle became a frequent residence for the Livonian Masters of the Order.

In the first half of the 14th century, Wenden was granted Riga’s town charter and joined the Hanseatic League of merchants and towns.

From the early 1480s (the Riga citizens’ uprising) until the end of Livonia’s independence in 1560/61, Wenden replaced Riga as the principal stronghold of the Masters of the Order.^[2] The most famous of these was Wolter von Plettenberg (1494–1535).

Following the dissolution of the Livonian branch of the German Order in 1561, Wenden saw a succession of rulers. During the Livonian War (1558–1583) for supremacy in the former territory of the German Order in Livonia, the town was sacked by the Russians in 1560 and occupied by the Poles in 1562. In 1577, the town was once again besieged and sacked by the troops of the Russian Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible (1530–1584), an event that attracted considerable attention throughout Europe at the time: Fearing for their lives, more than 300 inhabitants of Wenden took refuge in the castle, where, after a five-day siege led by Heinrich Boismann, they blew themselves up.^[3]

In 1582, Wenden was incorporated into Poland; in 1601 into Sweden; and in 1703 it was once again conquered by the Russians, destroyed and incorporated into the Russian Tsardom. In 1710, Wenden suffered heavy losses due to a plague epidemic. In 1777, the castle passed to the noble family of von Sievers. The estate remained in the family’s possession until the agrarian reform of the Republic of Latvia in 1920.

Following the founding of the Republic of Latvia on 18 November 1918, Wenden became part of Latvia. After the First World War, the Latvian War of Independence took on the character of a civil war. On 16 April 1919, German Balts staged a coup in Libau/Liepāja and installed Andrievs Niedra, a man of Latvian descent, as the new Prime Minister. In June 1919, military clashes broke out between the two sides in Wenden: the combined Estonian and Latvian forces attacked the German troops from the north and defeated them on 22–23 June. The Allies deployed a military mission, and the Latvian government under Kārlis Ulmanis resumed its work. On 3 July, the Strasdenhof Armistice was agreed, and the German-Baltic groups were incorporated into the Latvian National Army.

In 1744, Wenden had 600 inhabitants; in 1836, 2,000; and in 1853, 1,632.^[4] In 1897, of the 6,356 inhabitants, 4,164 were Latvians, 872 Germans, 712 Russians, 326 Jews, 160 Poles and 85 Estonians. By 1914, the population had risen to 7,400. In 1920, 6,452 people still lived here, of whom 277 were Germans. By 1935, the population had risen to 8,747, comprising 8,020 Latvians, 221 Germans, 194 Russians and 180 Jews. In 1976, 19,400 people lived here.^[5] In 2013, Wenden had a population of 16,093.^[6]

Alongside Riga and Reval/Tallinn, Wenden was the third town in Livonia to be granted the right to mint coins from 1472 onwards. Its favourable location on theRiga–Dorpat/Tartu–Pleskau/Pskov trade route encouraged trade with Russia from an early stage. In the 16th century, the town became a major transhipment centre for salt and herring from the west and wax and furs from the east.

After a decline in importance due to war, the town experienced an economic revival in the mid-19th century. A lime kiln, a brickworks, a quarry and dye works began operations. As part of industrialisation, Wenden was connected to the Riga–Walk/Valka railway line in 1889.

The brewery in Wenden is the oldest in Latvia – beer had been brewed in the castle as early as 1590. In 1878, Count Emanuel von Sievers built a new brewery outside the castle walls.

During the Reformation, a paradoxical situation arose in Livonia under the Master of the Order, Wolter von Plettenberg (c. 1450–1535): in this state governed by the Catholic Church, Lutherans were granted freedom of religion. As early as 1524, the clergyman Bernhard Brugmann preached the Lutheran faith in Wenden, which was very well received by the local nobility and the town’s citizens. As the peasants’ religious affiliation depended on the denominational choice of their landlords, the serfs reacted with indifference to Protestant teachings.

The only museum in Wenden is the History and Art Museum (Cēsu vēstures un mākslas muzejs), which is housed within the castle complex.

The Gothic St John’s Church, the largest Latvian church building outside Riga, was probably built between 1281 and 1284 as a three-nave, towerless hall church with an elongated chancel and a polygonal apse. As the main church of the German Order, it houses the tombs of Grand Masters of the Order, including Wolter von Plettenberg. It was modernised and enlarged in the 15th century, but collapsed in the 17th century. The neo-Gothic altar dates from 1858; the altarpiece *Golgotha* (1860) was painted by the Estonian artist J. P. Keller-Vyliandi (1826–1899).

Ruins of the Teutonic Order castle in Wenden/Cēsis, 2013
[Photo: A. Godlinski].

The castle complex, including the castle of the Masters of the Teutonic Order (13th century), forms the historic town centre of Wenden. Today, two limestone wings of the building remain. Converted into a convent in the early 15th century, the castle was fitted with round artillery towers in the first quarter of the 16th century, whilst the Grand Masters’ living quarters in the main tower were given a richly decorated late-Gothic star vault under Wolter von Plettenberg. Fifty years after it was blown up in 1577, the castle was restored and reoccupied. It fell into disrepair from the beginning of the 18th century. Count Carl Gustav von Sievers (1772–1856) moved the family residence to the so-called ‘Neue Burg’, a two-storey mansion with a mansard roof. The castle ruins were complemented by picturesque parkland to create a unique cultural landscape. His son, Emanuel von Sievers (1817–1909), left behind an extensive body of artistic work featuring views of the castle and park.

The castle of the Master of the Teutonic Order, the Neue Burg, St John’s Church, the park and the historic town centre of Wenden are archaeological and architectural monuments of national importance in Latvia.

In 2006, Wenden celebrated its 800th anniversary. In 2009, it put itself forward as a candidate for the title of European Capital of Culture 2014, but had to give way to Riga. Wenden and Achim, near Bremen, have been twin towns since 1991.

• Wenden. In: Hans Feldmann, Richard von Kymmel, Dagmar Lydike, Heinz von zur Mühlen, Clara Redlich, Sigrid Weikert-Girgensohn: Historical Encyclopaedia of Baltic Places. Vol. 2: Latvia (Southern Livonia and Courland). Cologne 1990 (Sources and Studies on Baltic History 8/II), p. 690–693.
• Kaspars Kļaviņš: Cēsis – a symbol of Latvian history. Cēsis 2012.
• C(onstantin) Mettig: Baltic Towns. Sketches from the History of Livonia, Estonia and Courland. 2nd, expanded edition. Riga 1905. p. 115–129.
• Klaus Neitmann: Riga and Wenden as Residences of the Livonian Grand Master in the 15th Century. In: Udo Arnold (ed.): City and Order. The Relationship between the German Order and the Cities in Livonia, Prussia and the German Empire. Marburg 1993 (Sources and Studies on the History of the German Order 44), pp. 59–93.
• Jegor von Sivers: Wenden, its Past and Present. A Contribution to the History of Livonia. Riga 1857 (reprinted in Hanover-Döhren 1975).

• www.cesis.lv/de (Cēsis town website)
• www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q107582 (Images relating to Wenden/Cēsis in the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)

[1] Heinrici: *Chronicon Livoniae*, X, 14, p. 67.

[2] Neitmann: Riga and the Wends.

[3] Mettig: Baltic Cities, pp. 115–129.

[4] Sivers: The Wends, p. 7.

[5] Wends. In: Baltic Historical Gazetteer, p. 690 ff.

[6] Data from the 2013 census. See http://data.csb.gov.lv/Table.aspx?layout=tableViewLayout1&px_tableid=Sociala%5cIkgad%c4%93jie+statistikas+dati%5cIedz%c4%abvot%c4%81ji%5cIedz%c4%abvot%c4%81ji+skaits+un+t%c4%81+izmai%c5%86as%5cIS0150.px&px_language=lv&px_type=PX&px_db=Sociala&rxid=992a0682-2c7d-4148-b242-7b48ff9fe0c2 (accessed 28 November 2013).

Anda Godlinski: Wenden/Cēsis. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2013. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32436 (as at 30 July 2021).