Population

The peasant, generally protestant population comprised the peoples of the Livs and Cours, for whom the provinces Livonia and Courland were named, and the Latvians. The other group living in Courland was the German minority essentially made up of the nobility and the so-called Literaten (literary class), i.e. commoners who had pursued academic careers as pastors, medical doctors, and teachers. These two groups combined represented less than 10 % of the total population. The 'germanization' that characterizes the history of other parts of Eastern Europe under German rule, i.e. the assimilation of the indigenous populace to the German culture, did not take place here. Quite the contrary: in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, German pastors not only translated the Bible and the Hymnal into Latvian, but also created a written Latvian language in which the sagas and folk tales were recorded (Gotthard Fr. Stender).