Calendar riots ( 1584 - 1589 ) - a protest movement of medieval Riga residents against the annexed city of the Polish-Lithuanian Union . They became the result of acute political, socio-economic, and ethno-religious contradictions that arose after the inclusion of Riga in the Commonwealth in 1581 . Despite the fact that calendar unrest was suppressed, the discontent of the German bourgeoisie persisted and ultimately led to the overthrow of the Polish government in 1621 .
Content
Background
The burgher estate of Riga, which consisted of the Baltic Germans who accepted the Lutheranism of the Baltic Germans at the beginning of the 16th century , rebelled against the new patrician elite of the city magistrate , subordinated to the Polish-Catholic Commonwealth . Prior to this, the free city of Riga for 20 years defended its relative independence from the Polish-Lithuanian Union, which, after the fall of the Livonian Order, surrounded Riga on all sides except the sea.
The reason for the "Calendar riots" was the decree of the Polish king Stefan Batory , sent to the Riga Rat , who was instructed to introduce the new Gregorian calendar in Riga as soon as possible, as well as restore the former privileges of the Catholic Jesuit order , which was banned after the Reformation. Since the new calendar was proposed by Pope Gregory XIII , Riga Germans - Protestants took him with hostility. The active phase of calendar protests lasted from the end of 1584 to the summer of 1589 [1] .
It was attended by Riga bourgeois bourgeois, merchants of the Great Guild, as well as large and small guild artisans of the Lesser Guild. They sought to limit the powers of the magistrate, to maintain control over the city box office, as well as the land holdings of the city ( Riga land phogy ) and others. The German elite was also partly supported by urban mob, mainly consisting of Latvians, who together with the Germans adopted Lutheranism in the early 16th century. The movement was eventually suppressed by the forces of the combined Polish-Lithuanian army, but the German discontent remained. 40 years later, in 1621, Protestant Sweden captured the 15,000th city. Swedish Livonia lasted until 1710 , when the city became part of the Russian Empire .
In the XVII – XVIII centuries, “calendar” frictions were noted in other regions of Europe , for example, in Switzerland , between predominantly Catholic French and predominantly Protestant German cantons .
Notes
- ↑ Calendar riots - article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia .
Literature
- Encyclopedia "Riga". Riga: Main Edition of Encyclopedias, 1989. ISBN 5-89960-002-0 p. 351
See also
- Protestantism in Latvia