Baltic governorates

The Ostseegouvernements (Russian Остзейские губернии ) were Estonia, Livonia and Courland.

They had the Russian Empire a special position since they were marked Protestant and German as a result of the centuries-long domination of the Baltic German nobility. The urban self-government was more developed than in the rest of the Tsarist Empire and serfdom has already been abolished in the early 19th century.

For Russia, the province had in addition to their strategic and economic importance also a certain character model. The term " window to the West" can be as good as on Saint Petersburg apply to them. Landlordism and the city bourgeoisie were consistently in German, but also Estonians and Latvians were influenced by Lutheran Protestantism.

Historically these provinces correspond to the area of the Sword Brothers, who came up in 1237 in the Teutonic Order. The term Livonia was often used in the late Middle Ages for Livonia, Courland and Estonia together. 1561 state of the Order of Livonia was converted into a secular duchy. Later, northern Estonia was Swedish, and the rest of Livonia with Kurland placed himself under the suzerainty of Poland-Lithuania, but most of Livonia 1620 was also Swedish.

After the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, these two northern regions came to Russia, Courland remained an autonomous duchy under Polish suzerainty ( fief ) until the dissolution of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth 1795.

In 1919 came the southern part of Livonia ( with Courland) to Latvia. The northern part of Livonia formed, along with the previous government of the new state of Estonia Estonia. When the Soviet Union annexed these states as a result of the Hitler- Stalin pact after 1939, the German Balts had to move into the German sphere.