The history of the palace dates back to 1795, when Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, conferred Mežotne Manor to Charlotte Margarete von Lieven (1743–1828) as a reward for her services in educating her grandchildren. In 1797, Catherine the Great’s successor Paul I made it the Lievens’ family estate; in the same year Charlotte von Lieven decided to build a new residential house in Mežotne.
Before that, Mežotne Manor had been rented for several decades by Johann Friedrich von Medem, and it was here that his daughter Anna Charlotte Dorothea, the future Duchess of Courland and Semigallia, wife of Duke Peter, was born in 1761.
The construction of the palace began in 1798 under the supervision of the German architect Johann G. A. Berlitz. The design of the Eleja Palace by the Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi was used as a basis, to which Berlitz added the side transepts. The construction was completed in 1802, but the interior decoration (stucco work and paintings) continued until 1817.
In September 1818, Charlotte von Lieven accompanied Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia on a trip to Germany. The party arrived at Mežotne Palace but left early the next morning. It was the only time that the owner of the manor ever had the opportunity to visit her new home.
After Charlotte von Lieven’s death in 1828, the manor was inherited by her youngest son Johann Georg von Lieven (1775–1848), who finished the interiors of the palace, and after him by Paul Hermann (1821–1881), during whose ownership the farm complex at Mežotne Manor was completed.
In 1881 the manor was inherited by Paul Hermann’s son Anatol Lieven (1873–1937), who started his military career in St Petersburg, but left the army in 1908 and moved to Mežotne. In 1920, as a result of the agrarian reform pursued by the government of the newly independent Latvian Republic, Anatol Lieven lost all his properties, except for the Mazmežotne estate on the opposite bank of the Lielupe River, which the Lievens family owned until 1939.
In September 1944, the palace was partially destroyed by Red Army artillery shelling during the Second World War. Restoration work on the building began in 1959 and lasted until 1989. In 2001 the palace underwent reconstruction with the addition of a hotel on the second floor.
The courtyard façade with a four-column portico and the park façade with a half-rotunda correspond to the original Quarenghi’s design. The state rooms occupy the first floor. The centrepiece of the enfilade is the domed Main Hall. Modelled on the Roman Pantheon, it is the most important classical room in Latvia. The second floor contains living and guest rooms. According to archival material, the palace’s interiors were formerly filled with works of art and expensive furniture, reflecting the aristocratic ambition of the Lievens’ residence.
The ten hectares of parkland were developed at the same time as the palace. It is one of the best-designed and best-maintained landscape parks in Latvia.
18.07.2025