Daugavpils

Daugavpils stands where the Daugava marks the meeting of Latgale and Selonia, close to both Lithuania and Belarus and on a corridor between Riga and Minsk. The first stronghold was not the present city. In 1273 the Livonian Order built Dünaburg Castle above the river near an older Lithuanian settlement, about 18 kilometres from the present city centre. Lithuania ruled the district in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and later the position drew Russian, Swedish and Polish-Lithuanian armies as the frontier moved around it. Ivan the Terrible captured and destroyed the original castle in 1577. Stephen Báthory then founded a new castle and town about 20 kilometres downriver and granted the town Magdeburg rights in 1582. As Dyneburg it served as the capital of Polish Livonia, hosted local assemblies and became the seat of the Inflanty bishop. The First Partition of Poland placed the city in the Russian Empire in 1772. In the nineteenth century a fortress begun in 1810 maintained the military role, while a prominent Jewish community added a layer of urban life to the river crossing.