COURLAND, LIVONIA AND ESTHONIA

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SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS

Political

Government of the Baltic Provinces

Prior to the war, Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia formed three ‘ Governments ’ of the Russian Empire, divided in the usual way into ‘ districts The three Governments constituted the Postal Division of Riga and formed a part of the Juridical Division of Petrograd. Esthonia and Livonia without the Riga district belonged for military purposes to Petrograd ; Riga and Courland, to Vilna. Each had at its head a Governor appointed by the Tsar and subjected to the supervision of the Senate, to whom appeals could be made. The towns were Russian, organized for self-government on the basis of a property qualification, and endowed with a permanent assembly which the citizens elected and against which they could appeal. But in place of the zemstvo and the mir the Provinces possessed peasant communes grouped together with the manor to which they originally belonged, thus forming a composite unit; and of these units usually from eight to twelve were combined into a parish. The peasant communes exercised a considerable measure of self-government under the control of the Russian officials. They had their own meetings, their own elected headman, courts, schools, rates, and poor relief, and they each appointed a delegate to the assembly of the parish. This contained also the proprietors of the manors and the local clergy, and elected the pastors, controlled the parochial schools, the rural doctors, and the roads. 27

The Province as a whole, however, was still represented by a Diet consisting simply of the proprietors of the manors. This purely aristocratic body retained the right of initiating civil and administrative decrees over a wide field. To it fell the right of proposing measures dealing with education, communications, and agriculture ; and it possessed a far-reaching power of levying taxes upon the country-side and of expending their produce. Thus in Livonia some 900 proprietors acted for themselves and the remainder of the rural population, which included some 40,000 peasants holding land.

The sole exception to this German control of provincial government above the commune was offered by the towns, in which the assembly elected the mayor and town council, subject to confirmation by the Governor.

The Provinces, though never regarded internationally as in any way distinct from the mass of the Russian Empire, have preserved their own code of civil laws. These, like the institutions of local government, are less liberal than the Russian, notably in respect to the position of married women and of minors. Criminal law is substantially the same over the whole Empire. That the three Provinces have not been regarded as forming one corpus appears from their division for various purposes of government. Thus, besides the partition of Livonia for military purposes mentioned above, natives of Courland and Prussian subjects resident in that province had a special liability to summary expulsion in certain cases; while in Courland and Livonia foreign Jews had a conditional right of settlement, and special limitations were imposed upon the succession of foreigners to real estate.

The three Provinces of course received the normal representation of Russian subjects in the Duma, in accordance with the legislation of 1906 and 1907. With the exception of the army and of labourers in 28 small works who were not enrolled as lodgers, all law-abiding males over 25 years of age received the right to vote. But these, the primary voters, were divided into five classes according to their status and wealth; and the electors proper, chosen by them, were thus anything but a democratic body. The choice of the actual members of the Duma was, again, restricted by law. The net result in the Baltic Provinces has been that the Germans have enjoyed a representation disproportionate to their numbers and have formed a solid national clique independent of Russian parties. The native races in the large towns have elected Social Democrats, and the peasants have manifested little interest in the matter.

Literary Movement

The recent development of literary activity among the Esthonians and Letts deserves mention here, as an important expression of the growth of racial self-consciousness among these peoples. Esthonian literature is the product of the last two generations. It possesses a great store of folk-songs. Good literary work has also been done by the newspapers and journals, of which forty are published in Esthonian.

The literature of the Letts is slightly older, and considerably more voluminous. It possesses a genuine folk-poetry, and the output of poetry of other kinds is important. At the beginning of the war the Letts had sixty newspapers and journals of their own, one at least of which could boast a circulation of 100,000 copies.

Religious

When the Baltic Provinces were incorporated with Russia — Livonia and Esthonia in 1721, Courland in 1795 — the whole population, German and native, belonged 29 to the Lutheran Church. But with the government of the Tsar came also the Orthodox Russian Church, of which he was the titular head ; and, although he at once granted religious freedom, which theoretically has since prevailed, there was henceforward a new religious influence which tended to identify itself with the movement for spreading Russian institutions in the Baltic Provinces. The cross-currents of race and religion, of Lutheran and German as against Orthodox and Russian, which soon showed themselves, have considerably modified in practice the toleration originally granted and formally renewed in 1874. Orthodoxy and Lutheranism competed for the religious allegiance of the people. The struggle grew more acute after 1883, when it became the policy of the administration to represent the Orthodox Church as endangered by Lutheran propaganda. Mixed marriages were prohibited (1886) except where written guarantees were given that the children should be brought up in the Orthodox faith; and at the same period proceedings were taken against Lutheran pastors who recognized re-converts from the Orthodox Church.

The great majority of the population have, however, remained Protestant. The Lutheran Church is governed by its own Synod, and the parish assemblies elect the pastors.

Educational

Since 1721 the educational system of the Provinces has been in the hands of the Russian Administration, and has not differed from that prevailing in other ‘ Governments ’, but the earlier period of German dominance has left its impress on higher education.

The University of Dorpat, founded in 1632 by Gustavus Adolphus, was a centre of German culture; and, although it disappeared for a time during the wars of 30 the eighteenth century, it was reinstated in 1802 by Alexander I on the model of a German University, and the monopoly of the Germans was not seriously challenged until the establishment of the German Empire antagonized the Russian Government. By 1889 Russian influence prevailed in the University, and German protest took the form of closing educational establishments which had provided higher education. No steps were taken by the Government to provide substitutes for these schools; and the Germans maintained that the spread of revolutionary ideas was the direct consequence of leaving the native races without suitable training at a time when they were exposed to the new influences of nationality and social democracy.

This protest was possibly not very disinterested, for the attack on German monopoly had meant a fresh opportunity for Lett and Esthonian ; and their success in developing a more scientific agriculture, and in taking part in local government, in social organization, and in commerce, indicate talent and power remarkable after six centuries of repression. When the Revolution of 1905 caused a reaction against the native races, German institutions were again regarded with favour; and in 1906 a German Union came into being in each of the three provinces, partly with the object of founding new schools, and German was recognized as a permissible language of instruction in Baltic private schools.