University of Daugavpils
university in Latvia
The University of Daugavpils (Latvian: Daugavpils Universitāte, DU) is a public university in Daugavpils, Latvia, and the largest regional university in the country.
History
The university was founded in 1921 as a teachers’ college. Its director between 1923 and 1940 was Valērija Seile.
Chronology of nomenclature:
1921–1923 Daugavpils Teachers' Seminary (Daugavpils skolotāju seminārs)
1923–1952 Daugavpils State Teachers' Institute (Daugavpils Valsts skolotāju institūts)
1952–1993 Daugavpils Pedagogical Institute (Daugavpils Pedagoģiskais institūts)
1993–2001 Daugavpils Pedagogical University (Daugavpils Pedagoģiskā Universitāte)
DU received its present name on 13 October 2001. It has become the largest educational institution in Eastern Latvia and is a member of the European University Association and EU²S², the European Union association of universities of small member states. Since 2004 it has benefited from EU Structural Funds for campus expansion and renovation.
On 1 March 2018 the Daugavpils Medical College (lv) was integrated into the university as an autonomous institution. The college was established in 1945.
It is planned to merge the university with the University of Latvia.
Organisation
Faculties and departments
The University consists of five faculties:
Faculty of Humanities
Department of English Philology and Translatology
Department of Russian and Slavic Linguistics
Department of Latvian Literature and Culture
Department of Latvian Language
Department of Foreign Languages
Department of History
Faculty of Social Sciences
Department of Economics and Sociology
Department of Social Psychology
Department of Law
Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
Department of Information Science
Department of Physics
Department of Mathematics
Department of Chemistry and Geography
Department of Anatomy and Physiology
Faculty of Music and Arts
Department of Music
Faculty of Education and Management
Department of Pedagogy and Pedagogical Psychology
Department of Sport
Institutes and centres
Centre of Lithuanistics
Centre of Russian Language and Culture
Oral History Centre
Regional German Language and Country Studies Centre for Further Education
Guntis Liberts Innovative Microscopy Centre
Institute of Ecology
Institute of Systematic Biology
Institute of Art
Daugavpils Medical College
This agency of the university offers study programs in:
Nursing
Physician assistance
Social caregiving
Social rehabilitation
Nurse assistance
Therapeutic massage
Rectors
The following have served as university rectors/institute directors:
Jānis Jirgens (1921–1922)
Eižens Vietnieks (1922–1923)
Valērija Seile (1923–1940)
Closed 1940–1944
Leontijs Viškarevs (1944–1946)
Vitālijs Pautovs (1946–1952)
Ivans Petrovs (1952–1953)
Krišs Grašmanis (1953–1958)
Vitālijs Bauskis (1958–1962)
Anna Kalnbērziņa (1962–1971)
Gunārs Gulbis (1971–1977)
Oļegs Roždestvenskis (1977–1992)
Bruno Jansons (1992–1998)
Jānis Pokulis (1998–2002)
Zaiga Ikere (2002–2007)
Arvīds Barševskis (lv) (2007–2018)
Irēna Kokina (2018–2023)
Arvīds Barševskis (2023–present)
Enrollment
In 2008 more than 4200 students were enrolled in study programs.
“University of Daugavpils” enters the record as university in Latvia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what University, Daugavpils and university can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1854796. VIAF identifies the subject as 148091550. The Library of Congress control number is no2003060376. Authority coordinates are 55.869, 26.517. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 1923, 1940 and 1952.
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This entry incorporates text from “University of Daugavpils” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.