Rezekne Castle Ruins
History
Archeological excavations reveal that between the 9th and 12th centuries a Latgalian wooden fortress was situated in the place where the castle ruins now stand. It is unknown when the Latgalian fortress was destroyed; however, in 1285, the master of the Livonian Order Vilhelms Šurborgs built a stone fortress on the Rositten stone hill. The fortress consisted of a two-story brick and stone castle with a three-storey towers and thick brick walls, functioning as the administrative seat of Rezekne.
The castle was ravaged and rebuilt many times. Between 1577 and 1579, it was occupied by Czar Ivan IV Vasilyevich, and after the war it became part of the Duchy of Livonia. During the Polish-Swedish War in 1601, and again from 1625 to 1626, the Rezekne castle was occupied by the Swedish army, during the Second Northern War. The battle took place in 1656, during which the Rezekne castle was finally destroyed as the Swedish troops managed to defeat the much larger Russian forces. In 1660 it was reinstated in the Inflantia, but the castle had lost its former military importance. From 1712 it was left in ruins.
See also
References
- ^ Ellen Chivers Davies (1937). A wayfarer in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. R.M. McBride & company. p. 160.
- ^ Valdis J. Zeps (1984). The placenames of Latgola: a dictionary of East Latvian toponyms. Baltic Studies Center. ISBN 978-0-918375-00-1. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
External links
- Media related to Rēzekne castle at Wikimedia Commons