Interwar Republic & Agrarian Land Reform

1861 - 1918

The Latvian National Awakening and railway integration era transformed Selonia from a manorial backwater into a connected landscape of Latvian-language cultural institutions. The Daugavpils-Tilsit railway (1873) linked Ilūkste to wider trade networks; the narrow-gauge railway (now preserved at Viesīte Museum) threaded through the Jēkabpils interior. Just two months after the First Nationwide Latvian Song Celebration, the first Selonian song festival was held at Sunākste rectory on August 22, 1873 — pastor Stender's literary works bridged Baltic German pastoral tradition and Latvian-language awakening. Jēkabpils, founded by Duke Jacob of Courland for exiles from Russia, grew into Selonia's primary trade center. The daina tradition was collected and standardized during this era, filtering local Selonian variants through a national-Latvian lens. Stand in Sunākste Lutheran Church where Selonian voices first sang collectively in their own language, or ride the narrow-gauge 'Little Engine' at Viesīte to feel the railway era that connected Selonian villages to the wider world.

1940 - 1991

Soviet occupation and industrial transformation scarred Selonia's landscape and erased communities, but also generated the first acts of civil resistance and new forms of cultural memory. The Pļaviņas Hydroelectric Dam (constructed 1961-1965) submerged the sacred Staburags cliff, villages, graves, and an entire cultural ecology of the Daugava gorge — the 1958 protests against it are now recognized as one of the first acts of civil society resistance in Soviet Latvia. People remain divided: the dam generates one quarter of Latvia's electricity, but its cost was the drowning of a national symbol. The Dieva auss ('God's Ear') memorial was created in 2003; divers visit the submerged cliff at 6.5m depth as informal pilgrimage. The Holocaust (1941-42) annihilated the Jewish communities of Jēkabpils, Ilūkste, Subate, and Krāslava, erasing centuries of Sabbath observance, High Holy Days, and Purim celebrations from the festival calendar. Soviet military installations occupied Krustpils Castle (Red Army, then Soviet aviation regiments). Stand at Vīgante Park where the Dieva auss memorial points down toward the submerged Staburags, or look at the Pļaviņas Dam wall to grasp the scale of what was lost.

1795 - 1861

The 1795 incorporation of Courland and Inflanty into the Russian Empire intensified the manorial economy across Selonia. Baltic German and Polish-Lithuanian landowning families — the Korffs at Krustpils, the Plater-Zyberks at Bebrene and Červonka, the von Budbergs at Gārsene — built or rebuilt their manor houses in the fashionable neo-Gothic and neo-Renaissance styles of the era. These estates extracted labor from Latvian, Lithuanian, and Belarusian peasant communities while Russian Old Believers settled along the Daugava, fleeing Nikon's reforms and bringing their Julian-calendar liturgical observances to towns like Subate and Jēkabpils. The St. Petersburg-Warsaw highway (1840) passed through Ilūkste, turning it into an important trade junction. Walk through the restored rooms of Svente Manor (completed 1912 by the von Plater-Sieberg family in neo-Baroque style) or Gārsene Manor (1856-1860, neo-Gothic, now a museum about the von Budberg family) to see the manorial world that shaped Selonia's rural economy until serfdom's legacy was finally broken.

From 1991

The restored independence and Selonian identity revival era has reconstructed a regional identity that had been suppressed under the Zemgale-subordination frame. The 2018 Law on Historical Regions of Latvia formally recognized Sēlija as a distinct historical land, though the law's annex lists most eastern Selonian parishes (Ilūkste, Subate, Svente, Bebrene, Vecsaliena) under Sēlija while Aglona parish is notably absent from the Sēlija list — its classification remains contested, with local and Catholic institutional identity firmly Latgale-identified (Latgalian: Aglyuna). Selonia Day (May 22) is celebrated with flag-raising and regional gatherings across Nereta, Ilūkste, Svente, and Staburags; the coat of arms (silver deer on red, adopted 2022) and 'Silver of Selonia' competition (annual since 2022) honor heritage contributors. The 'Sēlija rotā' folk dance and song festival (10th edition in 2025, held in Ilūkste) continues the song tradition begun at Sunākste in 1873. The annual Opening of the Selonia Tourism Season at Vīgante Park coincides with Pentecost celebrations. The Aglona pilgrimage (August 15, Assumption) draws tens of thousands from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus — the sacred spring at Lake Egle and the pre-Christian worship site beneath the basilica represent a syncretic layering that crosses regional boundaries. The Old Believer chapel in Subate maintains Julian-calendar observances alongside Lutheran and Catholic neighbors. This is a revival — partly rooted in real history and partly a constructive project — and the region's defining cultural feature is not a dominant confession but the coexistence of Lutheran, Catholic, Old Believer, and memorial-Jewish festival calendars across the historic Courland-Inflanty border.