Riga: Hansa city at the Baltic crossroads
Neil Taylor discusses how political change has left its mark on the Latvian capital’s Town Hall Square.
Some cities have an obvious historical centre where architecture and politics have combined to give it this role. Berlin’s Schlossplatz and Peking’s Tiananmen Square are such places. Events that took place there affected for ever their country’s history.
Riga is different in that most decisions affecting it were made in Berlin, St Petersburg or Moscow, with some seventeenth-century intervention from Stockholm. Even if a decision was made locally, it would have been largely by Baltic Germans and less frequently by Russians or Swedes. Only between 1920 and 1940, and now again since 1991, have decisions about Riga been taken by Latvians for Latvians. However, Riga’s Town Hall Square repays study because it is a more instructive guide to the city’s history, particularly since 1945, than are most written accounts.
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