Daugavpils
Daugavpils is a city in southeastern Latvia on the Daugava River. It is Latvia’s second-largest city and a major center of Latgale.
Daugavpils Fortress: A nineteenth-century fortification in Daugavpils, built around a planned military town on the Daugava’s banks. The fortress is the city’s defining historic landmark and one of Europe’s largest surviving fortifications.
Dinaburg: The historical German name for the settlement and fortress that became Daugavpils. The city’s earlier name links its origins to Livonian and later Russian rule.
Mark Rothko: A Latvian-born American painter associated with abstract expressionism and large fields of color. Rothko was born in Daugavpils in 1903, before emigrating with his family to the United States.
Daugava: A major river flowing through Russia, Belarus, and Latvia before reaching the Gulf of Riga. The river shaped Daugavpils’s location, defenses, and role in regional transport.
Mark Rothko Art Centre: An art museum and cultural center in Daugavpils Fortress, named for the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Rothko was born in Daugavpils, and the center anchors the city’s international art profile.
Livonian Order: A medieval Catholic military order that ruled parts of present-day Latvia and Estonia. The order founded a fortress at the site of present-day Daugavpils in the thirteenth century.
Semyon Dezhnev: A seventeenth-century Russian explorer who sailed through the strait between Asia and North America. Dezhnev was born in the region around Daugavpils, then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Riga: The capital and largest city of Latvia, situated on the Gulf of Riga. Riga is Daugavpils’s principal national counterpart and the main destination on its rail corridor.
Daugavpils University: A public university in Daugavpils, Latvia, with programs in education, humanities, and natural sciences. The university is a major educational and research institution in the city.
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: A federal state in Central and Eastern Europe that existed from 1569 to 1795. Daugavpils, then called Dyneburg, became an important regional center under its rule.