Latvian National History Museum at Riga Castle presents a programme for national holidays

On 11 November, Lāčplēsis Day, the Latvian National History Museum will, as usual, mark the occasion with a festive programme for the general public. Admission to the museum is free that day. From 10:00 to 20:00 on 11 November, a rarity will once again be on display at the museum in Riga Castle: the only complete set of the Order of Lāčplēsis known to exist in Latvia, awarded to General Jānis Balodis (1881–1965) of the Latvian Army. The tradition of exhibiting it on Lāčplēsis Day dates back to 1988. This year, visitors can also see a tea (coffee) service bearing the order’s insignia, once owned by the family of Order of Lāčplēsis recipient Jāzeps Sikora and now held in the museum’s collection. During the day, the Latvian National History Museum’s numismatists will lead several guided tours of the exhibition “The Order of Lāčplēsis”, discussing the order’s creation, its recipients, and traditions for marking the day in interwar Latvia and in exile. The tours begin at 11:00, 15:00, 17:00, 18:30 and 19:30; advance booking is not required. Visitors can also view photographs from the Latvian War of Independence, showing both battle scenes and the daily lives of Latvian Army soldiers. At 18:00, a concert will begin at the museum, featuring the mixed choir of Jāzeps Mediņš Music Secondary School, students from its String Instruments Department, and the percussion ensemble “Echo”. This will be followed at 19:00 by a concert by the mixed choir “Cilts” of Rīgas Jāņa Šteinhauera Secondary School. The museum warns that the exhibition “Livonian Castles” in the vaulted cellars will be open on 11 November only until 18:00!

The Latvian National History Museum is the third-oldest museum in Latvia and the only museum of Latvian history in the world. It has become the largest repository of Latvian material heritage, with more than a million objects in its collections: artefacts recovered in archaeological excavations, hoards of jewellery and coins, folk costumes, traditional tools, folk applied-art objects, household items, photographs, documents, maps, engravings, paintings and other evidence of Latvia’s history. The museum’s mission is to collect, preserve, research and promote, in the interests of the Latvian state and its people, evidence of the spiritual and material culture of Latvia and the world, from the earliest times to the present day, with significance for archaeology, ethnography, numismatics, history or art history. The museum’s collections trace their origins to the Knowledge Commission of the Riga Latvian Society, founded in 1869, and its collection of ethnographic artefacts, which led to the establishment of the Latvian Museum. In February 1920, the newly established Latvian state took it over to continue developing it as a national cultural and memory institution under the name Latvian Ethnographic Museum; in 1924 it was renamed the State Historical Museum. The museum has been housed in Riga Castle since 1920, except from 2013 to 2024, while the castle’s premises were being renovated. The museum has returned to Riga Castle, while its collections, administration and specialists are based at the Museum Repository at Pulka iela 8. The Latvian National History Museum is an important research centre and an active promoter of Latvian history and culture.