Dikļi Parish () is an administrative unit of

Valmiera Municipality Valmiera Municipality () is one of the 35 Municipalities of Latvia, municipalities established in Latvia in 2021, located approximately west of the national capital Riga. Its first elected municipal council took office on 1 July 2021. Its seat i ...

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 ...

. Prior to the 2009 administrative reforms it was part of Valmiera district.

History

Dikli is a quiet rural village in the northern part of Latvia that is home to around only five hundred people. In Latvia, Dikļi is well known as the birthplace of the traditions of the Latvian theatre and song festivals. In 1818, Dikļi Palace was the venue for a performance of Friedrich Schiller's play “

The Robbers ''The Robbers'' (', ) is the first dramatic play by German playwright Friedrich Schiller. The play was published in 1781 and premiered on 13 January 1782 in Mannheim and was inspired by Leisewitz's earlier play '' Julius of Taranto''. It was wr ...

” translated by a servant on the estate, Janis Peitans, in which the local farmers resident in the vicinity of Dikli took to the stage as actors. During the summer festival of 1864, not far from the Dikļi Estate Park, the first-ever song festival took place organised by

clergyman Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

and writer, Juris Neikens. Dikļi is richly endowed with various historical objects. The avenue of oak trees leading from Dikļi Palace Hotel leads directly to a small wooden church built as a pile building back in 1722 which was transformed into a brick building in 1848 retaining its previous form. From 1857 to 1867, the vicar of this church was Juris Neikens. The church is home to one of the most ornamental of baroque era church altars in

(built in 1698) and a pulpit (built in 1699) which was created by a sculptor from the Riga sculptors’ workshop, J. D. Strauss who also worked on the stone figures that the feature in the portal of St. Peter's Church in Riga and who also created the interior elements of the church in Ugale. The pulpit was further developed from 1730 to 1750 by A. H. Konciuss who was based in

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

Towns, villages and settlements of Dikļi parish

References

Parishes in Valmiera Municipality Vidzeme {{Vidzeme-geo-stub