Baltic Provinces Research Articles

“National Indifference” as a Political Strategy?

“National Indifference” as a Political Strategy? Alexei Miller (bio) The “national indifference” concept (or metaphor, depending on one’s point of view) made its way into historians’ vocabulary at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Scholars studying the history of Bohemia under the Habsburgs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the first to use the term. Bohemia was the ideal setting for exploring how large groups of people resisted attempts to draw them into a confrontation between two mobilized nationalisms—Czech and German. Jeremy King wrote about a local identity (Budweisers), which resisted the corrupting influence of nationalist confrontation, and used the notion of “national indifference” in this context.1 Pieter Judson spoke about “national indifference” as opposed to national activism, which sought to turn heterogeneous imperial borderlands into national property. He showed how census data about “native language” and maps drawn on that basis distorted and simplified the real situation.2 Tara Zahra spoke about the nationalists’ battle for control over children, especially orphans, and included the phrase “national indifference” in her title.3 She soon followed the book with an article that attempted to impart a conceptual nature to “national indifference” by regarding it as part not only of the late imperial period but also of any situation involving nationalist mobilization.4 Zahra argues that we should look for the notion of “national indifference” among nationalists who use [End Page 63] it and similar words to express their disappointment with the unwillingness or inability of “ordinary people” to provide active support for their efforts and with their unreadiness to unconditionally identify themselves with the national community, which the nationalists offer as an object of exclusive loyalty. In this sense, “national indifference” occurs when nationalist activism becomes part of the general situation. The focus is kept on “ordinary people” and on how previous pre-nationalist identities and structures of interaction “resisted” new times. In most cases, “national indifference” is used to describe either a situation in which a nationalist movement struggles to mobilize “ordinary people” or one in which two groups of nationalist activists compete, while “ordinary people” try to stand aside from the logic of this confrontation, which presupposes the destruction of “neutral” social spaces. As critics of the concept rightfully point out, the notion of “indifference” evokes an association with passivity, which may not always carry the right connotation.5 Zahra believes that “national indifference” describes three types of behavior: (1) “national agnosticism,” “complete absence of national loyalties as many individuals are identified more strongly with religious, class, local, regional, professional, or familial communities”; (2) “nationally ambivalent, opportunistic side-switching”; and (3) adherence to bilingualism and openness to marriages transcending ethnic borders.6 After the publication of Zahra’s article, the notion of “national indifference” seeped into literature dealing with other parts of Austria-Hungary as well as the German-Polish and German-French borderlands.7 In my opinion, the notion of “national indifference” cannot be viewed as an analytical category or an integral concept and should rather be used as a metaphor. This does not mean that we shall never have such a concept. However, since Zahra published her article, we have witnessed a significant expansion in the term’s use but not much conceptual clarification. The conference “Nations and Nationalism from the Margins,” held in Prague in the autumn of 2016, [End Page 64] attempted to do exactly this. It confirmed that efforts at conceptualization are being made, but also that much has to be done before we get to the endpoint.8 Nevertheless, the metaphor has proven quite useful, because it draws our attention to various means of avoiding nationalist mobilization and suggests new ways to overcome national narratives when studying identity politics in Eastern and Central Europe in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Some scholars, like Andrei Cusco, accept the notion of “national indifference” only with reservations (7); others, like Karsten Brüggemann or Katja Wezel, offer alternative concepts that they regard as more appropriate, such as “national ambiguity,” “anationalism,” or “hybridity” (42). Their articles in this issue of Kritika focusing on Bessarabia and the Baltic provinces are among the...

“Unfortunately, the Government Has Met Resistance, Not Support”: Senatorial Inspection of the Baltic Provinces

This article considers the policies of the Russian Empire in the provinces of the Ostsee region in the early 1880s, namely the experience of a senatorial inspection of Livonia and Kurland provinces by N. A. Manasein. The purpose of the paper is to establish the role of the senatorial inspection in the elaboration of a new policy with respect to the Baltic provinces during the reign of Alexander III and to determine its specific features in comparison with earlier revisions. In order to solve the problem, the authors suggest approaching it from the standpoint of new political history, shifting attention from specific acts of state power meant to change the judicial and educational systems of the imperial outskirts to the existing practices of organising interaction between the centre and the periphery when developing a programme of reforms. The study is based on various archival and published historical sources. Some archival materials have never been analysed previously, which allows the authors to examine both the interpersonal relations of representatives of the empire with the local community and the process of developing a programme of reforms in the Ostsee region in the 1880s. The authors conclude that the inspection was conducted in order to gather material in accordance with a programme of reforms prepared beforehand. The government was interested in obtaining the basis for a policy of administrative and political incorporation of the periphery into the empire. To achieve this goal, the Russian autocracy spared neither human nor material resources.

Ландратура Санкт-Петербургской губернии: штат, функции, место в системе управления (mатериалы к исследованию)

The article focuses on the institution of the landrat, i.e. one of the lower levels of local self-government in Russia which briefly functioned in the country following the administrative reform of Peter I. Its inclusion in the Tsar’s design was motivated by the institution of the same name which had functioned in the Baltic provinces of Sweden, ceded to Russia after the Great Northern War. The introduction of the landrat into a purely Russian system of local government was done against the backdrop of a contradictory and normatively uncertain legal order and was sensitive to regional variation in practice. The author seeks to reconstruct the institution of the landrat in the Saint Petersburg governorate on the basis of a document he uncovered, the “Register of landrat officials and commissars of the Saint Petersburg governorate” of 1717, and from incomplete information available in several extant documents and published sources. The article offers a general assessment of the role and position of the landrat in the administrative structure of Russia during the reign of Peter I, and an attempt to collate the similarities and differences in the organisation of the Saint Petersburg and Siberia governorates. The article provides preliminary generalisations on the available material, expected to serve as a basis for a monograph on the history of the landrat in Russia more generally.

Understanding of the Term "Codification" in the Baltic Legal Thought of the 19th Century

The article analyzes the problem of understanding codification processes by the doctrine of law in the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire. Taking into account the significance of the German legal thought for the legal doctrine of Baltic provinces, the views of German jurists are also examined. It is established that characteristic features of codification in German jurisprudence had already been formulated in a manner analogous to the present ones in the 19th century. In the 19th century, similar to modern times, codification seemed to be a comprehensive process both formally and substantively updated by means of legislative acts. No other sources of law, including customary law, should have acted along with codification. As a consequence, uncertainty of a common legal tradition was eliminated and comprehensive understandability was achieved. At the same time, it is recognized that representatives of the Baltic legal thought, despite German influence, understood the processes of codification on the basis of their own ideas that often were not at all correlated with the German doctrine, but were more in line with the general imperial Russian view of those phenomena. It is argued that the processes of systematization and codification of the Baltic law had encouraged the further development of legal thought both in the entire Russian Empire and in the Baltics. The situation examined in the study, in authors' opinion, shows only one thing. Law in the 19th century was formed not by practitioners or jurists (scholars), but by the law-maker (or the bodies prescribed and authorized by the law-maker). The Baltic law codification entailed changes for various sources of Baltic law that had operated so far. Meanwhile, those processes characterized not only the Baltic region, but were seen throughout Europe. Codification becomes the main, if not the only, source of law. Thus, the need for a common doctrine combining the sources of law and common law was lost.

Von Wistinghausen, Henning Freimaurer und Aufklärung im Russischen Reich. Die Revaler Logen 1773–1820, mit einem biographischen Lexikon (review)

SEER, 96, 2, APRIL 2018 364 critical discussion of and contextualization within the rich field of scholarship on both the Russian and Western European Enlightenments (John Robertson’s study on Naples and Scotland, two other peripheral and economically underdeveloped European states, comes to mind). Hamburg chooses instead to quote his sources at length, framing their interpretation within a wealth of detailed biographical information which, however, is not always directly relevant to an understanding of the source at hand. For any scholar interested in Russia’s intellectual history, the chance to corroborate and verify a reconstruction of the development of intellectual life and currents of thought against a solid body of existing research is essential (a comprehensive bibliography is missing in the book). However, this might be an unreasonable expectation given that Hamburg’s book is the first to trace the history of Russian political thought from medieval times until the end of the eighteenth century. As such it is an important, erudite and informative contribution to the field which will be appreciated by intellectual historians as well as historians of Europe and Russia. Basel Charlotte Henze vonWistinghausen,Henning.FreimaurerundAufklärungimRussischenReich. Die Revaler Logen 1773–1820, mit einem biographischen Lexikon. 3 vols. Böhlau, Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2016. 1061 + 356 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. €150.00. This is a major contribution to the history of Freemasonry in the Russian Empire. Henning von Wistinghausen is a German career diplomat who is also an erudite historian of his family’s native Estonia, with numerous publications to his name on its Imperial Russian past and especially the ‘Kotzebue time’ (late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries). Here Wistinghausen chronicles in great detail the history of the Masonic lodges in Reval (Tallinn), placing them firmly in the context of Imperial Russian Freemasonry from its beginnings around the 1740s to its final prohibition in 1822: volume one takes the story to approximately 1800, volume two covers the reign of Alexander I. He has ranged across Europe in search of sources and deploys a huge array of archival and rare published material, much of it previously unused, as well as demonstrating sovereign familiarity with the literature of the subject. The third of his three volumes is a biographical lexicon which provides extensive personal information on the over 400 individuals identified as Masons in Estland and mentioned in the monograph’s text. The Estonian narrative is woven together with the more familiar events in Russia proper — the interaction between the competing Masonic systems REVIEWS 365 and national allegiances of Reichel, Elagin, Gagarin and Melissino, the search for higher degrees and ‘true’ Masonry, and developments leading to the first closure of the lodges in the 1790s. (Wistinghausen cites approvingly Faggionato’s explanation of Catherine II’s crack-down on Novikov and his circle.) In particular the role of foreigners is highlighted, especially the hitherto underappreciated part played in Russian Masonry of the time by the brothers Georg and Wilhelm von Rosenberg. Catherine’s Baltic provinces had a number of lodges, in Dorpat/Tartu, Mitau/Jelgava and Riga as well as in Reval/ Tallinn; many young Baltic German nobles met Masonry while studying in Germany. Reval at this time was an important port but a provincial backwater; one of the features well portrayed here is the change over time of its culture and intellectual life, the gradual penetration of ‘Enlightenment’. The first of the four Reval lodges, Isis (1773–92), which inducted ninety-two members over its initial lifetime, was composed mainly of well-educated incomers, finding little resonance either in Reval’s stuffy merchant society or among the surrounding landed nobility. The Brotherly Love lodge (1777–88), established by an officer of the Kazan´ Cuirassier Regiment, relied heavily upon other regimental officers for its membership. The Three Polehammers (1778-85) followed the Strict Observance and the Swedish system, and did not survive the latter’s demise in Russia. The ephemeral fourth lodge, Hope at Innocence (1788–91?), was plagued by internal conflict. Isis, the only lodge to survive into the 1790s, maintained a skeleton life after 1792 to look after its property and continue its support for the poor. Under Alexander I Freemasonry revived, but once again...

Framing, valuing, and assessing the environment: August Wilhelm Hupel’s perceptions of Baltic nature and settings for human activities

ABSTRACTThis article addresses early modern Baltic environmental history and historical geography by interpreting the public writings of August Wilhelm Hupel within the theoretical framework of framing, valuing, and assessing nature and the environment. Hupel’s broad series of publications, issued during the heyday of Baltic Enlightenment, not only contributed to the emergence of Baltic geographical studies but also played a pioneering role in placing the knowledge on Estonian and Livonian topography and nature to order. Although Hupel concerned physical geographical aspects in his writings to some extent, his primary interest definitely focused on human relations with and across space and place. The cameralist thoroughness and calculativeness within that geographical field of enquiry brought about an endeavor to catalogue the parts of nature by using their utility or harmfulness as the measure. However, in Hupel’s opinion the then-prevailing civilisation also contained certain responsibilities for and to nature, particularly regarding forests and their sustainable use (‘nachhaltende Nutzung’), which Hupel wished to promote in the Baltic provinces of Russia.

Yearning for Social Change: The Russian Revolution in the Baltic Provinces

AbstractIn general, histories of the Russian Revolution do not touch upon events in the Baltic provinces of the empire in any detail. Only the apparently exceptionally large number of Latvians who supported the Bolsheviks in the election to the Russian Constituent Assembly (72%) is mentioned. This paper argues with Ronald G. Suny's typologization of imperial ethnic groups according to their relationship to ‘class’ and ‘nationalism’ in order to qualify the latter's conclusion that the Latvians in 1917 turned towards Bolshevism whereas the Estonians moved towards nationalism. In fact, closer investigation proves that the difference was not so clear cut. There was certainly much sympathy for social revolution in the littoral as a whole, as had been proven in the elections in late 1917, but there was no sympathy for class war. The emergence of a nationally oriented Estonian and Latvian social democracy ultimately covered the gap between ‘revolutionaries’ and ‘nationalists’ and paved the way to the foundation of nation‐states. Thus in both cases, this article argues, ‘class’ and ‘nationalism’ reinforced each other, rather than operating as antagonistic categories.

EASTERN LATVIA IN THE GEOSPATIAL POETICS OF NATIONAL ROMATICISTS

The collected efforts of the national romanticists mark a longing for one’s own path within the Latvian cultural landscape, and emphasise the use and understanding of geography and space. The goal of this study is to ascertain – whether and how the created geo-spatiality of the national romanticists stands within the context of Eastern Latvia, which was administratively separated from the rest of the ethnographically collective territories, being a constitutive part of the Vitebsk Governorate. The organic tethering of separated regions was already torn in the 17th century, when Eastern Latvia remained under the control of Poland after the conquering of the collapsed remains of Livonia. Catholicism, idiosyncratic agricultural traditions, unprecedented development of language and writing – the peculiarities discerning Eastern Latvia from the coastal territories are justifiably multifarious. However, one must as well keep in mind the underlying similarities of east and west with the forming of the Latvian nation in the 19th century. The main topic of this paper is the geospatial poetics of the national romanticism, though for the sake of a broader historical context and understanding, it is prefaced by a chapter of “An Account of Associative Preconceptions and Histories of Eastern Latvia in Context of Baltic Provinces”, paying attention to the specific vernacular with which the Latvian landscape is described during the 19th century and closer inspection still to the administrative border between the Baltic provinces and the Governorate of Vitebsk, which holds the Eastern Latvian territories. In the second chapter – “Vitebsk-Latvian Identity from the Viewpoint of Latvian Nationalist Ideological Leaders” – reviews the pre-existing notions which are found in the writings of Krišjānis Valdemārs and Atis Kronvalds and reveals on the one hand a deep vocation of the destiny of the Vitebsk Latvians, though on the other – a somewhat simplified overview. The third chapter directly examines how these preconceived and associative ideas were produced in the many periodicals and publications by the various Latvian communities of the Baltic provinces. The most significant textual sources are travel notes, in which the spatial differences and also visually distinctive features in agricultural tradition are emphasized. The fourth chapter looks at the collectively written works of the national romanticists within the aspects of geospatial imagery, bringing out three levels – the motifs of rivers and lakes, motifs of mountains, alleys and fields, as well as the motif of ancient historical locations, which all together make the illusory mythos of Latvia, within which Eastern Latvia resides. Nevertheless, the geospatial contours of Latvia are only complete with the addition of Eastern Latvia’s local identity – Latgale – which colours the collective Latvian borders with unique geospatial impressions (imagery).

Familienkapellen auf dem Kirchhof und dem Gutshoffriedhof

The 1772 cemetery reform of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, resulted in great changes in the cemetery culture of Russia’s Baltic provinces. The ban on burials in churches and the vicinity of churches resulted in the rapid development of cemetery parks outside of settlements. The strong political relations of Estonia’s manor owners with the Russian central government resulted in the nobles being given the privilege to establish burial plots in the churchyards, but in Livonia, this was strictly prohibited. Simultaneously with the parish cemeteries, the owners of private manors established family cemeteries on their manors. The new cemeteries were not only places to bury the dead, but, inspired by contemporary poets, they were seen as family altars, which were visited regularly and which was accessed by path that was attuned to contemplation.The cemetery is complex, which includes a garden, chapel and allée, and if possible, a body of water. Noble trees were planted along the path leading to the cemetery. Oaks were preferred, which due their mighty shape were considered to be the symbol of family and nobility. Influenced by the poetry of the Enlightenment, evergreens – silver firs, thuja trees, and spruces – were called “sad trees”. The French poet Jacques Delille, whose works were popular among the Baltic Germans, sees women as mourners. And many family cemeteries were established at the initiative of women. Examples of Ancient Greek architecture, in the form of temples with porticos or antas, or the small-scale copies of the Pantheon from Ancient Rome, dominated in cemetery architecture. The chapel was comprised of underground burial chambers and above-ground memorials. A so-called memorial altar was located in the end wall of the chapel, which have survived until the present day in a few places. The Barclay de Tolly monument is the most majestic in Estonia.Already in the 1830s, the family chapels became memorials and burials no longer took place there. However, chapels continued to be built until in Estonia until the early 20th century.

The Unruly Buffer Zone

This article discusses the province of Ingria, part of Sweden from 1617 until 1704, and its position in the Swedish Kingdom in the late 17th century. The main purpose is to examine how Sweden implemented its centralization and unification policy in Ingria and what reactions it triggered at the local level. Court records and other administrative documents have been used as source material. Ingria was a borderland that was primarily of military importance for Sweden as a buffer zone against Russia. A strong defence was also essential in order to secure the profitable Russian transit trade, in which the Ingrian towns of Narva and Nyen played a pivotal role. Sweden’s centralization and unification policy, which peaked in the middle of the 1680s, aimed particularly at strengthening its military presence in Ingria. Resources were obtained by confiscating fiefs and later privatizing the administration of manors, to be handled by leaseholders. Tax farming resulted in peasant unrest, and eventually the Crown had to regulate the taxation. Ultimately, the Crown was not strong enough to carry out a coherent integration policy. Ingria remained a borderland province that formed a link between the core areas of Sweden and the Baltic provinces.

Wrecking Peasants and Salvaging Landlords – Or Vice Versa? Wrecking in the Russian Baltic Provinces of Estland and Livland, 1780–1870

AbstractThis article is a case study of wrecking, based on a database of hundreds of shipwrecks that occurred between 1780 and 1870, in what is today Estonia. Through a qualitative analysis of narrative sources, it examines the wrecking activities of manorial lords as well as of their peasants. Contrary to the international scholarly tradition, which views wrecking as an activity of the common people, this article sheds light on the deceptive and opportunistic activities of manorial lords, who were responsible for enforcing the law at the local level by performing police and court functions, but who, at the same time, benefited on a large scale from wrecking. The article contrasts this with the opportunities coastal peasants had to wreck for their own profit. In wrecking and salvage, the three characteristic elements of peasant-landlord relationships – exploitation, partnership, and patronage – emerge. In contrast with studies focusing on the friction between peasants and their lords in regions dominated by manorialism, this article argues that, in wrecking, their collaboration apparently proceeded without much conflict in this period.

Attempts of political participation versus loyalty manifestations? German women in the process of nationalization in the Baltic provinces of the Russian empire (1880–1920)

ABSTRACTThe political transformations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries changed the political orientation of the German population and their relationship toward the Russian tsar and the German Empire. This study examines three examples in which German women used public spaces for political and national statements: the new language policy of the Russian government with its new forms of teaching in the 1890s; the Revolution of 1905/06, when associations initiated by German women were founded; and the care for prisoners of war during WWI. This paper argues that the path from national indifference to national self-understanding was closely related to fluid gender constructions in public discourses as well as to individual gender identification.

The Russian Imperial Practices of Language and Religion in the Classroom in the Baltic Provinces: The Case of the Orthodox Schools in Livland (1880-1914)

Abstract The article evaluates the impact of the Russian linguistic policy in the Baltic provinces focusing on the Orthodox schools in the nineteenth century. The article argues that, firstly, this policy had been limited because of the resistance of the local communities, lack of resources and an inadequate communication. Second, the reforms have contributed to emergence of bilingual cultural elites. Thirdly, the educational reforms had denigrated the role of religion and weakened the role of the clergy in education. The attempt of the state to communicate directly with its subjects using the Russian language was an energetic but unsuccessful attempt.

Social-political aspects of German periodicals in Russia of the XIX century

This article contains an analysis of social-politically oriented German regional press in Russia in the 30-60s of the 19 th century. The main purpose of this study is to determine its characteristics and trends discussed in the context of the state censorship reaction. The author establishes the subject scope of periodicals in general and their articles. The issues raised by German authors cover the social-political problems of the Baltic provinces, their relationships with government, foreign political situation, especially in Prussia, etc. This research work is a result of a synthesis of historical facts based on archival documents, including documents of censorial departments, which existed in the 19 th century at the Russian Ministry of National Education and the Ministry for Internal Affairs. Through a comprehensive analysis of official documents, the author identifies several criterions, according to which different political periodicals were evaluated by censorship: periodicals main character, content of particular newspapers or magazines, editions structure and presence of political headings in them.

Nälg ja ränne: 1868.–1869. aasta väljarändeliikumine Eestimaa kubermangus [Famine and migration: the migration movement in the province of Estland in 1868–1869

This article deals with the rural migration movement during the years of the last major famine (1867–69) in Estonia. Famine was particularly severe in the province of Estland and in the Saaremaa district of the province of Livland. A new wave of migration movement also began in Estland on the island of Hiiumaa in Western Estonia where the misery was greatest. The article studies the migration movement during one year starting with the moment when the movement entered the public spotlight in the summer 1868 until the summer of 1869 when the movement subsided. This short period stands out because of the attention of the state authorities and the publicity that the movement attracted. This article seeks to answer the question of what the standpoint of the state authorities was. Was migration seen as famine relief or something that had to be prevented? The main sources are thematic correspondence in archives of the institutions that guided and controlled the migration movement on the local and central levels from Estonian, Latvian and Russian archives. The Baltic Governor-General Pyotr Albedinsky suggested that peasants who had lost their source of subsistence due to famine should be given land in the inland governorates of the empire and settled there with the state support. The central government and the tsar himself did not support his programme. The migration movement was a source of discomfort for the authorities because it drew the attention of the Russian Slavophile public to agrarian relations in the Baltic provinces. When discussing possible solutions for dealing with the migration movement, the main intention of the Russian Empire’s Minister of the Interior was to prevent poor peasants from flocking to Saint Petersburg, the capital of the empire. There was no intention to reorganise the principles of land ownership in the Baltic provinces. For the central government of the Russian Empire, it was also important to prevent precedents of settlement with state support that would have increased migration flow throughout the empire, strengthening the belief among peasants that the state would financially support their migration. The nobility of Estland (Ritterschaft) considered the only causes of the widespread migration movement to be the state’s inadequate passport policy, incapability to restrict illegal emigration and unwillingness to take resolute measures against it. Roughly 4500 peasants from Estland registered themselves for migration to southern provinces of the Russian Empire. Approximately 2000 peasants, who were distrustful of local officials and landlords, headed for Saint Petersburg. Those that were sent back sometimes repeatedly returned to the capital. Both numbers say little about those who actually emigrated from Estland during the famine. Measures implemented by the authorities such as restrictions on issuing passports and hindering moving onward from Saint Petersburg (even with required passports) put peasants in a difficult situation. Large numbers of peasants departed without applying for any assistance from the authorities. Those who made it to the province of Stavropol in Caucasia had an advantage since most of the arrivals were given land. Officials of the province of origin and those of the province of destination regarded migration differently. Areas of colonisation were willing to accept peasants who wished to cultivate the fields in order to gain additional manpower. About 300 Estonian peasants who had assembled in Saint Petersburg to obtain state support for migrating to Caucasia were forcibly settled in the province of Novgorod at state expense at the end of 1868 and beginning of 1869. A third of them died shortly after relocation and another third were minors. This forcible settlement was not carried out in the hope of improving the subsistence of peasants or to stimulate the economy of the province of Novgorod but rather was an emergency measure to prevent the spread of disease in the capital.

Tartu ülikool kui eestlaste mälupaik [The University of Tartu as a memory site for Estonians

Tartu ülikool kui eestlaste mälupaik [The University of Tartu as a memory site for Estonians

Als „Latwija“ zu einem politischen Begriff wurde. Die Revision von 1882/83 durch Senator Nikolaj Manassein und das politische Denken der lettischen Nationalbewegung

This article deals with the development of territorial conceptions in early Latvian nationalist thought. ‘Latwija’ (Latvia) initially appeared in the Latvian press in the early 1860s as an ethnographic term designating the territory inhabited by ethnic Latvians. However, it acquired a connotation of political and administrative autonomy around 20 years later, when, after a prolonged debate on reforms in the Baltic provinces, the Tsarist Government organized a revision of social, economic and political conditions in Livonia and Courland. The revision, conducted in 1882-1883 by senator N. A. Manassein, served as an incentive for the Riga Latvian Association (RLA), the organizational centre of the Latvian national movement, to formulate its territorial and political program. It also had to define its stance towards the already existing self-government rights of the Baltic provinces in the Tsarist Empire, until now exercised only by the Baltic German nobilities. In order to explore the crystallization of the politico-territorial views, special attention is paid to the memorandum written by prominent RLA members and submitted to Manassein in 1882. Starting from late 1850s, the ‘Great reforms’ of Alexander II galvanized lively debates on future developments in the Empire’s non-Russian Western regions. In the Baltic provinces these debates took place in a very specific multicultural and multiethnic setting. This can also be seen from the crystallization of the concept of a territorially autonomous ‘Latwija’. Initially, the proposal to divide the three Baltic provinces (Livonia, Estonia, and Courland) along ethnic lines and to create two (an Estonian and a Latvian) governorates came from the Estonian neighbours. A group of Estonian activists, led by Carl Robert Jakobson, suggested a similar idea in its address to tsar Alexander III immediately after his ascension to the throne in 1881. The RLA greeted this idea as a wise plan and included it in its memorandum to Manassein, inviting to name the new Latvian gouvernement ‘Latwija’. The idea that the future gouvernement ‘Latwija’ should inherit the political privileges of Baltic German nobilities has deeper roots. It was already extensively discussed in the so-called ‘reform debate’ of 1877-1880, when a group of liberal Baltic German nobles proposed to extend the Livonian Landtag, the aristocratic quasi-parliament, to include the representatives of Latvian and Estonian peasantry. The Latvian nationalist press joined the Baltic German discussion, whereby the enlargement of the Landtag was discussed along with the introduction of Russian zemstvos. Although these reforms were never put into practice, the autonomy and special status of the Baltic provinces vis-a-vis the rest of the empire became a significant part of the Latvian political debate. The first program of autonomy of ‘Latwija’, formulated in the RLA memorandum to Manassein, helped to set the stage for further development of territorial-political concepts in the Latvian public sphere. E.g., the later fights about the territorial autonomy among the Latvian Social Democrats around the turn of the 20th century have their roots in the same distinction: the confidence in the modernizing potential of the Russian state versus the awareness of the cultural and economic superiority of the Baltic provinces.

Te-aftnar i nationens tjänst

The Baltic German women’s movement was deeply involved in the Baltic German national project between 1905 and 1919. By that time the traditional elite position of the Baltic Germans in the Baltic provinces of Imperial Russia was increasingly challenged and questioned, also with violent means. Therefore the Baltic Germans felt threatened, and the women’s organisations saw as their special mission to protect and advocate their own national character. Using Nira Yuval-Davis’s theoretical framework regarding a gendered understanding of national projects, as well as a hermeneutical approach, this article examines the relationship between the Baltic German women’s movement and the Baltic German national project between 1905 and 1919. Three examples are analysed: the establishment of the Frauenbunde in 1905, especially the Deutsche Frauenbund zu Riga; the tea evenings arranged by the Frauenbund; and finally their petition for a German annexation of the Baltic Provinces in 1917. In the endeavour to advocate their own group, the Baltic Germans drew heavily on their 700-year history and their self-image as a civilizing force. The Frauenbund worked hard to stabilise the group, for instance by actively trying to prevent that the poorer segment of the group lost their German-ness and disappeared into the Latvian nation.

Artistic Alliances and Revolutionary Rivalries in the Baltic Art World, 1890–1914

In the areas now known as Estonia and Latvia, art remained a field for the Baltic German minority throughout the nineteenth century. When ethnic Estonian and Latvian artists gained prominence in the late 1890s, their presence threatened Baltic German hegemony over the region’s culture. In 1905, revolution in the Russian Empire spilled over into the Baltic Provinces, sparking widespread anti-German violence. The revolution also galvanized Latvian and Estonian artists towards greater cultural autonomy and independence from Baltic German artistic institutions. This article argues that the situation for artists before and after the 1905 revolution was not simply divisive along ethnic lines, as some nationalist historians have suggested. Instead, this paper examines how Baltic German, Estonian and Latvian artists oscillated between common interests, inspiring rivalries, and politicized conflicts, questioning the legitimacy of art as a universalizing language in multicultural societies.

EMIL KRAEPELIN AND GERMAN PSYCHIATRY IN MULTICULTURAL DORPAT/TARTU, 1886–1891

1. Languages in the psychiatric microcosm--Introduction her novel of 1955, dedicated 'to my home town of Dorpat', it seemed only right to the writer Else Hueck-Dehio (1897-1976), with her romanticising memories, that the figure of a Baltic German medical professor in Dorpat shortly before the First World War should be portrayed in a conversation with a patient speaking Estonian (Hueck-Dehio 1955:46-47). As the daughter of a well-known physician for internal medicine pathology in Dorpat, Karl Dehio (1851-1927), who not only played an important role in the 'Medical Society of Dorpat' (EAA 3576.1.4, Meeting minutes of the Medical Society of Dorpat), but also at the University there since he was called in 1886, the author could well have obtained a view of medical practice in the city that she was to leave after the war. Her fictional figure, Professor Erhard Haller, understands the Estonian words of his patient, a peasant woman, who represents the native population its demands. I want him to be clever like you, Herr Professor, she says of her son, and like all the many Saksad (Germans) living in their white houses, who understand everything better. The dear Lord did not create cleverness just for you. That is why we send our sons to the secondary school in the town. The professor in the novel, worried as he is about the future of the German-speaking elite their culture in the Baltic region, still understands not only the words, but also the intention of the Estonian patient: In his just heart he could not refuse the demand for social equality which the words of the peasant woman so clearly conveyed, the directness of it going straight to the heart, as does all that is primitive. He had been well acquainted with this phenomenon for years, namely the Estonian peasant sons who sat on the school benches, writing excellent examinations by means of iron-hard work. He saw here a development which not only could not be stopped, but was justified. Over 30 years after the rather abrupt end of Baltic German privilege in the Baltic provinces that had now long belonged to Russia, the author portrayed in a rather unreflective manner the elitist position of a professor towards the Estonian population, which was regarded as lower-class, but with whom he at least tried to communicate in their native language. But this was probably not a matter of course. For a long time, the Medical Faculty in particular had been dominated by professors of the German Reich, who often saw their time in Dorpat as a temporary step on the career ladder therefore paid little attention to the multicultural situation, even less to the native language (Tammiksaar 2016). To learn Estonian--this was attempted only briefly even by the thirty-year-old psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin, who had been called to the university in 1886 from the German Empire to Dorpat. This foreign language seemed too difficult to him, neither did he learn much of the official language, Russian. The academic language at the time at one of the leading universities of the northwestern part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century was, to a great extent, still German, a matter that, however, increasingly found refusal on the part of the Russian authorities responsible for education universities, at the latest from the reign of Czar Alexander III (1881-1894). As is well-known, within a few years this was to change--the University of Dorpat was reorganised into the Russian University of Yur'ev in 1893, Russian was established as the language of education in the course of the university reform (Donnert 2007:15, 29-69). The policy of enforced Russification caused difficulties particularly for the professors who came from the German Reich, but it also called up more or less open opposition among the Baltic Germans to the measures taken by the government in St. Petersburg (Donnert 2007:58-73). The language debate at the University of Dorpat expressed a general change of policy towards the Baltic regions on the part of the government in St. …