Baltic Noble Corporations - History

History

The Teutonic Knights entered the area of what is now Latvia and Estonia in the beginning of the 13th century in order to Christianize the region. After the conquest much of the Order's land was divided among the German noble families originally from Westphalia and regions along the Rhine river. The towns also saw the development of a German mercantile class. The noble families constituted a minority amongst the local German-speaking population, and overall, the German-speakers constituted a small minority of the total population. During the second half of the 16th century, this area fell under the sovereignty of Sweden and Poland, which at that time dominated the Baltic Sea. While this resulted of the suppression of the Teutonic Order, local self-government remained in the hands of the four aristocratic corporations of Livonia, Estonia, Courland and Oesel.

With the growth of Russian power following the defeat of Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700-1721), Livonia, Estonia (with the island of Oesel (Saaremaa)) and Courland (obtained in the second half of the 18th century from Poland) all became Russian provinces. Imperial Russia recognized the four aristocratic corporations' traditional privileges - German language, Lutheran religion and self-government.

The growth of Latvian and Estonian nationalism and the collapse of the Russian Empire led to the founding in 1918 of Latvia and Estonia as independent nations. As a result, the traditional aristocratic corporations lost their legal privileges and political status, and were reduced to charitable organizations. Most of the property belonging to the Baltic Germans, including their estates, was confiscated. Many of these families emigrated, the majority to Germany but also overseas. In 1939, following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the agreement between Hitler and Stalin to divide up Poland and the Baltic states, the remaining Baltic Germans were evacuated to German-occupied Poland.