CONSTRUCTION HISTORY OF KRASLAVA CATHOLIC CHURCH AND MONASTERY IN THE REGIONAL HISTORICAL CONTEXT (Kraslavas katolu baznicas un klostera buvvesture novada vesturisko liktenu kopsakaribas)

Social, economical and political history is not always the most significant aspect in the study of architectural and artistic heritage. Still there are periods when the correlation between these factors and building activities acquires a special importance. Usually these are periods of changes when new political powers manifest their ideas that might concur with new conceptions of style and form as well as with involvement of masters coming from certain schools. The fortunes of Kraslava St. Louis' (Ludwik's) Church construction and artistic finish provide a good example. They have been influenced first of all by historical collisions concerning supervision and government of Eastern Latvia in the 18th and 19th centuries: independent principality of Polish Livonia included in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1562-1772) and the Western Province of the Russian Empire (since 1772). Parallel shifts of confessional balance influenced by re-catholisation processes happened in the region. They were related to the activities of particular Catholic spiritual orders in the 18th century. At the same time sequential shifts of historical stylistic paradigms are evident and local modifications of late Baroque are replaced by Neo-C1assicism in religious architecture and art by the end of the 18th century. Wooden church building in Kraslava has been mentioned already in the 16th century but in 1676 Jesuit Georg Ludinghausen-Wolff built a new wooden church on its place where Jesuit fathers subordinated to the Daugavpils residence of the order have served. Most significant changes in Kraslava started in 1729 when it passed to the Plater family. Initially Jesuits retained their positions in the Plater family properties and, possibly influenced by Jesuits, this German protestant family returned under the wing of the Catholic Church in the late 17th century. When Konstanty Ludwik Plater (1722-1778) took over the Kraslava manor, ambitious plans were carried out to build up the main family residence.