Monument to the Old Believer soldiers who fell for the liberation of Latvia
Memorial site

Located in the Jēkabpils city cemetery.

The monument erected by the Old Believer community to the soldiers - Old Believers who fell for the liberation of Latvia in 1918-1919 - can be viewed.

The Old Believer community included several families whose representatives had participated in the battles of 1918–1919, when the issue of gaining Latvia’s independence was at stake. After the Freedom Struggle, these soldiers were granted plots of land from the free land fund. For example, to the Latvian army officer Nikolajs Lebedevs. In 1935, at the proposal of the chairman of the Old Believer community, teacher Tarasija Makarova (1880–1953), it was decided to erect a monument to the fighters for Latvia’s independence. In the Jēkabpils city cemetery, on a cleared and graveled area, delimited by whitewashed posts, an almost three-meter-high oak cross was erected under a pine tree. Old Believer carpenters processed the wood and created an impressive eight-pointed cross. Following tradition, an explanatory inscription was created on a separate oak plaque at the foot of the cross. In Jēkabpils, in the furniture workshop of V. Lukomskis, an inscription was carved in Russian: “To the soldiers – Old Believers who fell for the liberation of Latvia. God, grant them eternal memory!” Initially, there were no burial grounds in the vicinity of the aforementioned cross – only a pine forest. In the 1950s, the cross was outdated. The then chairman of the Old Believer community, Vasily Yakovlevich Fedotov, received permission in the mid-1960s to restore the memorial site, only on the condition that the monument should not be in the shape of a cross and with the inscription: “For the Liberation of the Motherland”.

The restoration of the monument was entrusted to A. Blumbergs. He polished a large brown stone block in the form of a rectangular memorial stele and engraved an eight-pointed cross and oak branches on its front wall. Under the words: “Eternal memory of the fallen soldiers for the liberation of the Motherland”, the inscription “Jēkabpils Old Believers Community” was polished in much smaller letters. The monument was installed on a solid concrete base. In turn, the previous oak plaque with the inscription was protected by placing it in the church.

Since at the beginning of the Third Awakening, no other monument related to the proclamation of the Latvian state had survived in Jēkabpils. Therefore, on November 18, 1988, the people of Jēkabpils held a moment of remembrance with flowers and candles at the Old Believers' cemetery at the monument to the soldiers who fell in the Latvian War of Independence. Soon, the restored oak plaque returned to the foot of the memorial pillar. Soon, the oak plaque was replaced by a marble one with an identical reproduction of the original inscription. In 2013, at the initiative and project of the Belovodije association, the monument was restored and cleaned.