Gauja Estonians (, ''Leivu maarahvas'' or ''leivud''; – '

Vidzeme Vidzeme (; Old Latvian orthography: ''Widda-semme'', ) is one of the Historical Latvian Lands. The capital of Latvia, Riga, is situated in the southwestern part of the region. Literally meaning "the Middle Land", it is situated in north-centra ...

Estonians' or ''leivi'') were

Estonians Estonians or Estonian people () are a Finnic ethnic group native to the Baltic Sea region in Northern Europe, primarily their nation state of Estonia. Estonians primarily speak the Estonian language, a language closely related to other Finni ...

who lived along

Gauja The Gauja River (, ) is a river in the Vidzeme region of Latvia. It is the only large river of Latvia that begins and ends its flow in Latvia. Its length is 460 km, of which 93.5 km (approximately one-fifth) are in Gauja National P ...

river in

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

History

Gauja Estonians are most likely native to their homelands. There are mentions of

Chudes Chud or Chude (, , ) is a term historically applied in the early East Slavic annals to several Baltic Finnic peoples in the area of what is now Estonia, Karelia and Northwestern Russia. It has also been used to refer to other Finno-Ugric peopl ...

living in Adzele county from 12th century Russian sources. There are later mentions of them living in the Gauja river area. According to August Wilhelm Hupel's book ''Topographische Nachrichten von Lief und Ehstland'' there were about thousand Estonians in 1777.

Anders Johan Sjögren Anders Johan Sjögren (also spelled Andreas Johan Sjögren, in Russian also known as Andrei Mikhailovich Shëgren, Андре́й Миха́йлович Шёгрен; May 8, 1794 in Iitti, Finland – January 18, 1855 in St. Petersburg, Russia) ...

claimed that there were 2,600 Gauja Estonians in 1849.

Heikki Ojansuu Heikki is a Finnish and Estonian male given name. It derives from a medieval vernacular form of the name Henrik. Notable people with the name include: * Heikki Aho (footballer) (born 1983), Finnish footballer * Heikki A. Alikoski (1912–1997), ...

counted only 116 when he made a trip to an area in 1911. According to Ojansuu's theory, Gauja Estonians were refugees of the

Great Northern War In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern Europe, Northern, Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the ant ...

from Southern Estonia, but today this theory has been largely discredited. According to Harri Moora and

Paul Ariste Paul Ariste (3 February 1905 – 2 February 1990) was an Estonian linguist renowned for his studies of the Finno-Ugric languages (especially Estonian and Votic), Yiddish and Baltic Romani language. He was born as Paul Berg, in Rääbise, V ...

, Gauja Estonians were the original inhabitants of their homelands.Seppo Zerterberg: Viro, Historia, kansa, kulttuuri Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura 1995 (Finnish)

Language

The last known speaker of local dialect, Anton Bok, died on April 20, 1988. The dialect was similar to those spoken in Southern Estonia, more accurately to southern Estonian subdialect of

Hargla Hargla (; ) is a village in Valga Parish, Valga County in southern Estonia. (retrieved 28 July 2021) As of the 2011 Estonian census, 2011 census, the settlement's population was 169. Gallery File:Hargla kõrtsihoone 2013.JPG, Hargla inn File: ...

. It had some grammatical and phonological loans from the Latvian language and possibly some from Livonian.

Östen Dahl Östen Dahl (; born 4 November 1945 in Stockholm) is a Swedish linguist and professor best known for pioneering a marker-based approach to tense and aspect in linguistic typology. Dahl finished his PhD at the University of Gothenburg and subsequ ...

Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (born 1957) is a Russian-born linguist and typologist who is Professor of General Linguistics at Stockholm University. Biography Originally from Moscow, Koptjevskaja-Tamm's interest in linguistics was stimulated when as a ...

: ''The Circum-Baltic Languages: Grammar and typology''
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References

{{Reflist Social history of Estonia Latvian people of Estonian descent Social history of Latvia