Draft:Wesenberg Castle (Estonia)

The Wesenberg Castle (in German: Burg Wesenberg, in Estonian: Rakvere ordulinnus) is a ruined castle located next to Rakvere in the north of Estonia.

History
An Estonian fort named Tarnvape originally stood on this moraine hill. The Danes settled in this coastal region in 1219 and seized part of Livonia, while the Sword Brethren also Christianized the area. Their order merged with the Teutonic Knights in 1237.

The Danes built an initial stone castle in the mid-th century that took the form of a quadrangular medieval castle, surrounded by wooden palisades. It is first mentioned in writing under the name Rakovor in Russian chronicles.

The Kingdom of Denmark eventually sold its Livonian possessions to the Teutonic Order in 1346. The knights rebuilt the castle, which took the name Wesenberg and became the seat of a Vogt (bailiff, in German) of the Order, a sort of regional manager. The foundations were reinforced, two corner towers were built on the south side, as well as the Vorburg, or defensive building at the entrance of the castle. The knights also erected the round tower that can still be admired today at the beginning of the th century. The Russians captured the castle, which had been secularized for a few decades (the Teutonic Order having dissolved in the region in 1525, when Duke Albert of Brandenburg converted to the Lutheran religion), during the Livonian Wars of 1558-1581, and surrounded it with a high rampart. The castle lost its purpose in the th century, after being ravaged by the Poles in 1605, and gradually fell into disrepair, its last owner having turned it into a stone quarry in the th century.

The region was part of the Russian Empire from the early th century to 1917, of the Estonian republic from 1919 to 1939, of the USSR from 1939 to 1941, then it was occupied by the Wehrmacht from 1941 to 1944 and was again part of the USSR from 1944 to 1991. It is now in Estonia. Today, it is one of the country's most visited tourist monuments.