My background is varied professional experience in the translation industry. Originally from Latvia, I have also lived in Estonia and elsewhere in Europe for several years and accordingly I speak Latvian, English, Russian, conversational Estonian and some German and French.
On Wikipedia, I have contributed mostly to Latvian Wikipedia where I used to be an admin from 2005 until 2012 when gave up my role voluntarily and relinquished the admin rights. See also my accounts on Meta and English Wiktionary.
Here are some articles I have found in Wikipedia. I used to add them to my watchlist but it has grown just too much to be able to follow and differentiate between the stuff that really needs following and simply great articles that most possibly are already watched by knowledgeable Wikipedians.
Some of these articles simply crave for attention, others are a great read, and for some of them I have no idea why I've listed them. :)
This list is not necessarily alphabetised or otherwise prioritised but it should be. Or maybe it is. Nor this list should be regarded as an accurate reflection of my world view or interests. This is merely a fraction of it. Or maybe it isn't related to me at all.
Amélie of Leuchtenberg (1812–1873) was a French noblewoman and Empress of Brazil as the wife of Emperor Pedro I. She was the fourth child of Eugène de Beauharnais and his wife Princess Augusta of Bavaria. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, her father, having been granted the title of Duke of Leuchtenberg by his father-in-law, settled in Munich. When Pedro's first wife, Maria Leopoldina of Austria, died in 1826, he sent an ambassador to Europe to find him a second. Pedro's relatively poor reputation in Europe led to several refusals by princesses, and his union with Amélie resulted from a lowering of his strict conditions. They were married in 1829 and she moved to Brazil to be presented in court. Her husband abdicated the throne in 1831 and the couple returned to Europe. Their daughter Maria Amélia was born shortly after. Pedro died in 1834 and Amélie did not remarry, living the rest of her life in Portugal. This oil-on-canvas portrait of Amélie, produced in the 1830s by the German painter Friedrich Dürck, is now in the Soares dos Reis National Museum in Porto, Portugal.Painting credit: Friedrich Dürck
