Litene () is the center of the Litene Parish of

Gulbene Municipality Gulbene Municipality () is a municipality in Vidzeme, Latvia. The municipality was formed in 2009 by merging Beļava parish, Dauksti parish, Druviena parish, Galgauska parish, Jaungulbene parish, Lejasciems parish, Litene parish, Lizums p ...

in the

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 ...

region of

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 ...

. Other names: Lytene, Myza Lytene.Litene, Latvia Page
A notable building is Litene Manor.

History

Litene became infamous in the summer of 1941, the "year of terror" of the

Soviet occupation During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into three differe ...

. Eleven hundred

Latvian army The Latvian Land Forces () together with the Latvian National Guard form the land warfare branch of the Latvian National Armed Forces. From 2007 to 2024, the Land Forces were organized as a fully professional standing army until the re-introduct ...

officers were arrested by the Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

in 1941. For it was at Litene Army camp that most of them were arrested under the pretext of a "training exercise".Valdis O. Luman
Latvia in World War II
Fordham Univ Press 547 pages, 2006 Two hundred Latvian officers were shot in Litene, 80 in Riga and 560 were deported to Siberian

gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

s. Only 90 of them returned from Siberia after

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

's death.Vieda Skultans (Vieda Skultāne
The Testimony of Lives: Narrative and Memory in Post-Soviet Latvia
Published by Routledge, 217 pages 1998
/ref> Latvianbr>No NKVD līdz KGB. Politiskās prāvas Latvijā 1940–1986: Noziegumos pret padomju valsti apsūdzēto Latvijas iedzīvotāju rādītājs
Latvijas Universitātes, Latvijas vēstures inst.; Red.: R. Vīksnes, K. Kanger; Sast.: Dz. Ērglis, R. Vīksne, A. Žvinklis, S. Boge.— Rīga, 1999.— XVIII, 975 lpp. In the spring of 1941, units of the disbanded Latvian Army now called the 24th Territorial Corps of the Red Army were sent for summer training to the former Latvian Army base at Litene.
/ref> On 14 June 1941, the remaining officers, while on a supposed training mission, were disarmed, arrested and deported to forced labor at

Norillag Norillag, Norilsk Corrective Labor Camp () was a gulag labor camp set by Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia and headquartered there. It existed from June 25, 1935 to August 22, 1956. *Karlo Štajner (1902-1992), Croatian writer *Nikolay Urvantsev ( ...

, north of the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the northernmost of the five major circle of latitude, circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth at about 66° 34' N. Its southern counterpart is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circl ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, where they were sentenced to death or long-term imprisonment. In 1988, excavation was undertaken at the former Latvian Army summer camp in Litene. The excavators uncovered the remains of 11 individuals, evidently officers of the 24th Territorial Corps. During commemoration ceremonies on 14 June 2001 at Litene fraternal cemetery Latvian Defence Minister

Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis (born 19 February 1962) is a Latvian politician. He is a member of the centre-right Unity party. Kristovskis has served in Latvian cabinets, as the Minister for the Interior from 3 August 1993 to 28 October 1994, when h ...

unveiled a memorial to the Latvian officers killed in 1941.Latvia marks 60 years since Communist regime deportations.
/ref>

List of Latvian Army officers killed at Litene

* First Lieutenant Fridrichs Feldmanis;
according to the Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Senior Lieutenant Feldmanis was shot dead while trying to escape between August 1 and 10, 1941. The last place of his military service is shown as 183 Infantry Division of the Red Army.Foundation (''fond'' or фонд) 33, volume (''opis or опись) 11458, case (''delo'' or дело) 7.

Litene tragedy in music and art

Litene : ballad for 12-voiced chorus
composed by

Pēteris Vasks Pēteris Vasks (born 16 April 1946) is a Latvian composer. Biography Vasks was born in Aizpute, Latvia, into the family of a Baptist pastor. He trained as a violinist at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, as a double-bass player wit ...

to a text by

Uldis Bērziņš Uldis Bērziņš (17 May 1944 – 24 March 2021) was a Latvian poet and translator. Biography He studied Latvian philology at the University of Latvia and published his first collection of poetry in 1980. Bērziņš studied Turkish in Leningra ...

(1993). ISMN M-001-10158-5 EAN 7318590011454

References

{{Coord, 57, 11, N, 27, 02, E, region:LV_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki, display=title Villages in Vidzeme Political repression in the Soviet Union Massacres in the Soviet Union NKVD World War II prisoner of war massacres by the Soviet Union Populated places in Gulbene Municipality Occupation of the Baltic states Valka county

History

List of Latvian Army officers killed at Litene

Litene tragedy in music and art

See also

References