| Sumario: | The purpose of the article is, by analyzing the descriptions of the geographical and natural environment, to determine the peculiarities of the Jesuits' perception of the territory of Latgale. "The Jesuits of Riga and Cēsis" was published in 1941 by the Dutch Jesuit J. Kleijntjens. The statistical analysis of the publication content showed that they have a great informative potential for studying various topics, but one of the most frequently mentioned topics is the geographical and natural environment of Latgale. From the founding of the Riga collegium to the closing of the Cēsis residence, 6 out of 59 reports were mentioned, but the description ranged from 6 to 18 sentences, which is 5-25% of the texts of the respective reports. The diversity of geographical objects mentioned in the reports is not great, in total, only 5 objects. Thus, in their reports, the Jesuits created an image of Latgale as a spatially empty place. Among the natural objects mentioned in the reports, the Jesuits paid special attention to the forest. Missionaries used four different epithets to describe the forest: 'dense' (denissima), 'widest' (latissima), 'impenetrable' (invia), and 'most terrible' (horridissimis). The epithets used in the reports indicate that the forest evoked negative emotions and a sense of threat. The analysis of the archives of the Jesuits of Riga and Cēsis revealed that both external and internal factors influenced the formation of the first missionaries' ideas about Latgale. Among the external factors, the major ones are the peripheral status of the territory, underdeveloped infrastructure, war damage, and sparse population. From internal factors, the Jesuits' perception of the territory was influenced by the Christian worldview and the doctrines and interests of the Roman Catholic Church. Under the influence of these factors, the Jesuits had the impression that Latgale was a distant, uncivilized, pagan land covered with dangerous forests, thus a negative image of the territory was created and represented.
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