Adapting to Modernity: Family, Caste and Capitalism among the Baltic German Nobility 9783412322342, 3412101982, 9783412101985

Citation preview

Adapting to Modernity

Ostmitteleuropa in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart Herausgegeben vom Herder-Institut e.V. Band 22

Adapting to Modernity Family, Caste and Capitalism among the Baltic German Nobility

von

Heide W. Whelan

§ 1999

BÖHLAU VERLAG KÖLN WEIMAR WIEN

Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Bonn

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Whelan, Heide W.: Adapting to modernity : family, caste and capitalism among the Baltic German nobility / von Heide W. Whelan. Köln; Weimar; Wien : Böhlau, 1999 (Ostmitteleuropa in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart; 22) ISBN 3-412-10198-2 © 1999 by Böhlau Verlag GmbH & Cie, Köln Alle Rechte vorbehalten Gedruckt auf säure- und chlorfreiem Papier Umschlagabbildung: Asuppen (Kurland) (1820-23) Hahn Family; Frontal View (Pirang, vol. 2) Satz und Lithographie: Punkt für Punkt GmbH, Düsseldorf Druck und Weiterverarbeitung: Druckerei Runge GmbH, Cloppenburg Printed in Germany ISBN 3-412-10198-2

To Dennis, Lara Siobhan and, Devin Whelan

CONTENTS

Map of the Baltic Provinces Glossary Acknowledgments Introduction

X XI XIII 1

Part I: H i s t o r i c a l Background and O v e r v i e w Chapter I: The Road to Privilege

13

Exclusiveness: The Formation, Organization and Composition of the Matriculated Nobility (Stamm-Indigenatsadel) 18; Noble Self-Government in the Landesstaat 25 Chapter II: The Social Status of the Baltic German Nobility

29

Stand and Social Structure 30; Baltic Provincial Particularism 34; Social Differentiation within the Nobility 37 Chapter III: The Self-image of Baltic German Nobility

43

The Obligations of Stand 44; Land as the Basis of Status 46; The Exersise and Duties of Mastery 46; Honor 55; Loyalty 58; Manly Virtues 60 Conclusion

62

Part II: The C o n s o l i d a t i o n of N o b l e P o w e r and Status in the First Part of the N i n e t e e n t h C e n t u r y ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 5 5 ) Chapter IV: Consolidation of Power: The Political and Legal Status of the Baltic German Nobility in the First Part of the Century (1800-1855) .. 65 The Russian Tsars 68; The Nobility Consolidates its Power. Emancipation without Land 70; The Move toward Burgher Exclusion 72; Codification of Baltic Noble Privilege 76; Control of the Noble Registers 77; The Empire Strikes Back 81

Chapter V: The Economic Status and Position of Baltic German Nobility 1800-1855: Hard Time and Economic Innovation

83

Land, Soil and Climate 85; Good Times, Hard Liquor, Bad Debts 87; Hard Times and Economic Innovations. Credit Associatons 90; Price Breaks, Foreclosures, and Inherited Debt 92; The Nobles Turn to the State 96; Guaranteed Liquor Sales 98; Merino Sheep 100; Economic Innovation, Political Intransigence 102 Chapter VI: "Cult of Family" 1800-1855

103

The "Wider" and the "Narrower" Family 104; Statistics on Remarriage of Widows and Widowers 106; The "Characterization of the Sexes" 111; Husband and Wives 119 Divorce 122; Love 123 Chapter VII: The Family as Progenitor of the Social System

127

The Law of the Family 128; Husband and Wife 128; Parent and Child 131; Family and Inheritance 134; The Marital Market 139; Familial Interest and Career Choice 154 Chapter VIII: Upbringing and Education

163

Childhood 164; Birth to Age Five 167; At Home with Mother 170; Tutors and Governesses 172; Separation of the Sexes 173; Conclusion 179; Youth 180; Bildung 181; Gymnasium 184; Vacations 189; University and Career 190; Marriage 198; Confirmation and Young Womanhood 203; Sex 205

Part III: The Response to the Modern World Chapter IX: In the Bonds of the Past Standing Fast 210; Baits and Germans 211; Reform and Russification 214; Administrative Integration: The Loss of Power and Status 224; Education 226; Retreat to Home and Family 228

VIII

209

Chapter X: The Family Draws in upon Itself

233

Withdrawal to Hearth and Heimat 237; Family Foundations 239 Chapter XI: The Family Prepares its Children: 1855-1905

245

Childhood. Mother and Child 246; Nannies 250; Young Men. Education and Schooling 255; University 262; A New Professionalism 268; Young Women 273; Education and Schooling 274; New Careers 276; Marriage and Family 278 Chapter XII: From Ruling Stand to Economic Elite: The Nobility in the Modern World

283

The New Agrarian Crisis 284; The Loss of Manor Monopoly 286; Entailment 289; Agricultural Challenge and Agricultural Innovation 292; Agrarian Crisis and Response to Challenge 296; Profitability, Income, and Manor Management 301 Epilogue and Conclusion Bibliography Abbreviations List of Tables List of Illustrations Index

309 317 357 358 359 361

IX

-

. m

· W

a

··

*

g g f ; T U H S ^ s s Η.,***

c-

Λ

ν· -

\

OFeBin

ÖSEL Arensburg •

,

r

ijpkNarwa

lO^fiPATSCHEH I 3 OB

\

DORPAT

BERNAU SCI O B. ,

WALK!

f:" ' ί |WMH!

I

GOLOlWvJ GEN/

SSA ,

>

WIEK

,ν;-- FEILINSCI 3 kf~A I I 0 6

M k - ' I

·

" " p t f

WENDEN

ν ^ , , RIGASCHER D B t w i H O g N S C H E R O.-B

"-»r

>

Haeenpoth γ L AiN | oGwttr ϊ \ HASENPOTH^

D

Γ oSrtoo

I

; ϋ

i ubahnfi SeffJ"

ROSfrTEN

nMITAU " » « V

ehern, SELBURG [DÜNABURG

_

_. _

Provincial borders Borders of police regions

Borders of administrative districts •

Capitals of administrative districts

c

Capitals of police regions

GLOSSARY OF PLACE AND TERRITORIAL NAMES Dorpat (Ger.); Tartu (Est.); and between 1893 and 1917 Iur'ev (Rus.) Estland (Ger.); Eestimaa (Est.) Fellin (Ger.); Viljandi (Est.) Goldingen (Ger.); Kuldlga (Lat.) Hapsal (Ger.); Haapsalu (Est.) Hasenpoth (Ger.); Aizpute (Lat.) Kurland (Ger.); Kurzeme (Lat.) Libau (Ger.); Liepäja (Lat.) Livland (Ger.); Vidzeme (Lat.) Mitau (Ger.); Jelgava (Lat.) Osel (Ger.); Saaremaa (Est.) Pernau (Ger.); Pärnu (Est.) Reval (Ger.); Tallinn (Est.) Walk (Ger.); Valga (Est.) Wenden (Ger.); Cesis (Lat.) Werro (Ger.); Vöru (Est.) Wesenberg (Ger.); Rakvere (Est.) Windau (Ger.); Ventspils (Lat.) Wolmar (Ger.); Valmiera

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My interest in the Baltic German nobility dates to previous work on the Russian autocracy and the bureaucracy of the Imperial State Council in the 1880's, when the imperial government moved toward dissolution of the autonomy of the Baltic provinces. The prominent presence of Baltic German nobles at the highest level of government raised questions about the background of this small yet enormously influential group in the Empire's history. In pursuing this work, I owe thanks to many individuals and many institutions from whom I received enormous assistance throughout the course of this work. In particular, I am deeply indebted to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which supported this project through a Klaus Eppstein Memorial Fellowship during the 1982-1983 academic year and again in the summer of 1985, and allowed me to work at the Herder Institute in Marburg, Germany. Professor Hans Lemberg of the Philipps-Universität, Marburg, kindly agreed to serve as my sponsor. The Humboldt grant was particularly crucial, for outside the former Soviet Union, where I was persona non grata until 1988, Germany has far and away the best holdings on matters related to the Baltic. Dartmouth College through its research grants also provided invaluable institutional support for the research needs of the project. I cannot adequately thank the many archivists and librarians at the Herder Institute and the Hessian State Archive, the Olaf Welding collection at the University of Bremen, the Lenin Library in Moscow, and the State Historical Archives of both Estonia and Latvia, where foreign scholars are welcomed with extraordinary courtesy. Most notably I owe thanks to Dr. Horst von Chmielewski, the director of the Herder Institute's library, who was unstinting with both help and hospitality during my many visits to the Institute. The Institute's archivist, Dr. Peter Wörster, assisted invaluably in working through the extensive family archive of the Campenhausen family. Balthasar Baron Campenhausen was kind enough to grant me permission to work on the family papers that the Campenhausens managed to save in almost complete form during the 1920's. Countess Freda Solms-Gersdorff also generously made her family's archive available as source material for the project. I owe another particular debt to Patricia Carter of Dartmouth's interlibrary loan, who tracked down with unsparing energy obscure sources that I would otherwise never have located. Dartmouth's Lois Krieger solved reference problems with equal despatch and energy. XIII

Special acknowledgments are due to the works of Gert von Pistohlkors, Edward C. Thaden, Dominic Lieven, and Heinz Reif, for without their observations and insights this work would have been impossible. Many colleagues have been kind enough to discuss this work with me and to give advice and suggestions for improvements. In this context I particularly owe thanks to Charles T. Wood, Andrejs Plakans, Anders Henriksson, and Gert von Pistohlkors. Cathy Frierson's insightful comments did an enormous amount to improve this work. I also owe thanks to Erik Amburger, Hellmuth Weiss, Michael Ermarth, and Elke Diener. I am grateful to Jacqueline Cochrane and Beth Hanlon for handling my home affairs while I was abroad. Brian Vasey, Devin Whelan, and Dennis Whelan repeatedly fixed my computer disasters. The head of publishing at the Herder Institute, Dr. Hans-Jürgen Karp and his editorial staff helped with the preparation of this manuscript. Dr. Csaba Janos Kenez systematized and proofread the manuscript with truly extraordinary care. In spite of all the help I received, I must stress of course that responsibility for the lapses and failure of the final version is solely mine. Throughout this book I use German place names as they occur in sources of the time, but I apply the term "Baltic German" instead of "Bait" to members of the group. The Baltic Germans came first to call themselves Baits in the period after the Great Reforms, when there arose among the intellectual segment of the Baltic German population a hopeful spirit of commonality shared by the Germans of all three provinces. After World War I the term changed its meaning and was applied to the newly independent Baltic peoples of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. In translations, however, I use the term "Bait" whenever it so appears in the original. Except where otherwise indicated, all translations from German, French, and Russian are my own. Last, but not least, my husband Dennis and children, Lara Siobhan and Devin, gave me unstinting support. Marburg tied us all together, and with the manuscript completed we will have to find another object for our family reminiscences. More than I can ever express, though, I owe everything I have been able to do to my husband Dennis, my greatest champion and most incisive critic. From the beginning of our long relationship, he has never hesitated to sacrifice his own interests for the sake of mine.

XIV

INTRODUCTION

Death dwells in our domain,/Brandishing Everything

his blood-red torch. we love has passed away, /All that's dear is threatened. Tears cover my face.

Tears were shed not only by Alexander von Mengden, the Baltic German nobleman who wrote these lines at the height of the revolutionary crisis in fall and winter of 1905-1906. Most of his German compatriots were just as shocked and traumatized, "ground down" as a German noblewoman wrote, "by this constant, frightening news that never ends." A fellow noble mourned that "what we have created over generations has been destroyed by wild mobs in the course of a few days."1 Insurgents from the Baltic rural underclass stormed the German noble manor houses (which in revolutionary parlance were the "tyrants' threatening castles (Zwingburgen), strongholds of the bloodsuckers, exploiters, and viceroys of the tsar"). One-hundred eighty-four German manor houses were burned to the ground. Many more were damaged. At least ninety Germans were murdered. The German population fled the countryside.2 The ever-escalating violence culminated in such dramatic and spectacular events as occurred at manor Roemershof, the estate of Max von Sivers, a man well known in provincial life. Farm laborers and overseers rebelled. Sivers' family was put under arrest, he himself barely escaped. In a series of trials the rebels then condemned the family to death - ten times repeated over the course of five days. The ordeal caused great stir and excitement, because while extreme, it was not unique. In the end the family escaped and the rebels burned the manor to the ground. When after three months' absence Sivers and his two grown sons returned in 1 In order of citation, Heimatstimmen 3 (1908): 21, FANNY VON ANREP, Briefe einer Livländerin aus den Jahren 1873-1909, ed. GERTRUD WESTERMANN (Landshut, 1990), p. 260; cited in C. LEONARD LUNDIN, "The Road from Tsar to Kaiser: Changing Loyalties of the Baltic Germans, 1905-1914", Journal of Central European Affairs 10, no. 3 (1950): 251. 2 Cited in GERT VON PLSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche Reformpolitik zwischen Russifizierung und Revolution: Historische Studien der deutschen Oberschicht in den Ostseeprovinzen Russlands im Krisenjahr 190}, Göttinger Bausteine zur Geschichtswissenschaft, no. 48 (Göttingen, 1978), p. 229.

1

March of 1906, he found himself not so much shaken by the sight of the ruins, as humiliated "that I had to set foot on my manor as a powerless stranger among my laborers, who went on living there undisturbed, watching me with grins on their faces." 3 There is no question that during the uprisings of 1905-06 incidents as frightening as this occurred also in the ethnic Russian regions of the Empire. There also social divisions and long - smoldering emnities and grievances against the old order led the peasants to rise against their local lords. But what made the Baltic rebellion especially fearsome was the ethnic gap between rulers and ruled. In the Baltic, it was not a Baltic overclass that ruled and oppressed a Baltic underclass, but a tiny group of ethnic German overlords who held dominion over a majority population of ethnic Latvians and Estonians. In contrast to their Russian counterparts, who made no claim to sovereign rights or to local autonomy, the Baltic German overlords saw themselves as a genuine nobility with true feudal sovereign rights. Their ancestors had conquered the lands of the Eastern Baltic in the thirteenth century, and they and their successors had then maintained dominion over the subject Latvians and Estonians for the next seven hundred years. Over this whole long period, it was the revolutionary events of 1905-06 that first presented a life or death challenge to German domination. And it was only the chaos of WW I, revolution, independence, and then again WW II that put an end to that domination forever. That a foreign nobility was able to survive with most of its archaic position and privileges intact even into the twentieth century is a sign of surprisingly successful adaptation. The present work is an examination of the challenges that faced this nobility and the manner in which it responded to the economic, social, and political challenges of modernization over the course of the nineteenth century. We shall look at the ways in which the Baltic German nobility manoeuvered in response to threats to its position over the course of the nineteenth century and at the various strategies - some thought out, some purely reactive - that it used to preserve its dominance. At the center of our investigation will be two mutually dependent institutions, the Stand (the nobiliar corporation of nobles or Ritterschaft) and the family. These were the institutions through which Baltic nobles created and preserved their identity and status. It was through its Stand that each class in the Baltic perceived and asserted its standing in the social order. Within this order, the classes of peasants, nobles, townsfolk, and professionals each had its own

3 GERT VON PLSTOHLKORS, "Führende Schicht oder nationale Minderheit? Die Revolution von 1905/06 und die Kennzeichnung der politischen Situation," Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 21 (1972): 607. This experience turned Sivers, already a pronounced Russophobe, into a foe of the Latvians also.

2

Stand. The peasants - for the most part native Latvians and Estonians - formed the lowest order, the Baltic German nobles the highest.4 A Baltic noble became a member of his Stand through his family, and his family a member of the Stand through the family's recognition by a Ritterschaft, or noble corporation. Membership in the Ritterschaft conferred rights that were guaranteed in law and were passed from generation to generation. With that membership came not only privileges, but also obligations meant to preserve the prestige and honor of the corporation and of its members. These obligations imposed precisely ordered patterns of behavior, custom, lifestyle, education, and social selection, particularly in regard to marriage and friendship.5 In the main the imposition was successful. The major pillar of support for the corporation in this endeavor, its very foundation, was the family, the most basic social institution. This investigation focuses for this reason on the family. As the central institution of Baltic German society, the family shaped its members' perceptions of their group and of their place in society. It was the family that taught its children to internalize the rules of familial life and social behavior. It was the family that defined the economic and institutional imperatives of education and professional training, of marriage, and of social duty: that is, of service to corporation and to the emperor. It was the family that provided social and historical continuity to each individual both along a horizontal line as the expanded family, and vertically as a genealogical line of generations. Thus it was the twin agencies of corporation and family that created and preserved identity and status for each individual Baltic noble. To understand these agencies we shall look at them both individually and in their interaction with the economic, political, legal, and cultural structures of Baltic society. This work, then, is a case study of the Baltic German nobility's response to modernity and beyond that also the study of a European nobility and its family history set within the context of an ethnic minority ruling over colonized peoples. At the same time it is a case study of imperialism in one of the more important regions of the European section of the Russian Empire. It examines how one colonial society functioned in the larger framework of Russia's Imperial vision and of the Empire's shift from a transnational ecumenical imperialism 4 See Chapter 3 for details. Nobles, burghers, and peasants formed the traditional Stände in early modern Germany. ROBERT BERDAHL, The Politics of the Prussian Nobility - The Development of a Conservative Ideology 1770-1848 (Princeton, 1988), p. 12. In distinguishing the Baltic area populations into natives/Germans I replicate the Latvian conceptualization of this matter though some Baltic Germans had started to think this way as well. 5 JÜRGEN KOCKA, "Stand-Klasse-Organisation-Strokturen sozialer Ungleichheit in Deutschland vom späten 18. bis zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert im Aufriss," in Klassen in der europäischen Sozialgeschichte, ed. HANS-ULRICH WEHLER (Göttingen, 1979), p. 138; cf. HEINZ REIF, Westfälischer Adel 1770-1860. Vom Herrschaftsstand zur regionalen Elite, Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft, no. 35 (Göttingen, 1979), p. 24.

3

to a narrow Russian national imperialism. In the process we try to explain how a colonial class within the Empire maintained its hold over a native population and how it developed the image it held of itself in that position; how the definition of family and gender roles within the family both reflected and supported the colonial nobility's self image, and how the shifting pressures of caste, economic conditions, and the competing nationalisms of different ethnic groups ultimately undermined the colonial noble minority. As a pre-history to the revolution of 1905 it will also help us understand why the events of 1905-1906 in the Baltic regions of the Russian Empire were so explosive and destructive. It is in these areas, then, that this work hopes to make its contribution. Even though Baltic German regional historiography probably ranks near the top of German, and also of Russian Imperial regional histories, there is no comprehensive social history of this area. Neither is there a history written from the perspective of modernity's challenges to the nobility within the context of family history. Part of the reason for this is that just as Nazism and the October Revolution dominate German and Russian historiography, so the traditional historiographical obsession of Baltic German historians has until recently been Russification, and this is the perspective from which most nineteenth century Baltic history has been written. Neither does the major study of structural change among the pre-WWI Baltic German nobility by Hermann Schlingensiepen directly address the challenge of modernity. 6 It is perhaps strange that no such study exists for the Junkers, either. In spite of individual works on economic, political, and ideological issues in the life of the Junkers in the German Empire, 7 no comprehensive study of the Junkers has been written after 1945, and this even though some German historians go so far as to attribute to this class all the woes of Germany in the twentieth century. Other German regional histories have been better served, as in Heinz Reifs outstanding study of the Westphalian Catholic nobility (1770-1860), based on rich source materials from family archives that a Baltic historian can only envy, or G.W. Pedlow's study of the Hessian nobility (1770-1870). 8 Both of these examine the challenges faced by the nobility in a period of socio-economic transformation, and I have had the advantage of being able to learn from each. The theme of nobilities' reaction to modernization is more recently pursued in Dominic Lieven's comparative 6 GEORG HERMANN SCHLINGENSIEPEN, Der Strukturwandel des Baltischen Adels in der Zeit vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg, Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ostmitteleuropas, no. 41 (Marburg, 1959). 7 FRANCIS L. CARSTEN, A History of the Prussian Junkers (Aldershot, 1989); Berdahl, The Politics·, WALTER GOERLITZ, Die Junker. Adel und Bauer im deutschen Osten (Limburg, 1964); HANNA SCHISSLER, "The Junkers: Notes on the Social and Historical Significance of the Agrarian Elite in Prussia," in Peasants and Lords in Modern Germany, ed. ROBERT G.

MOELLER ( L o n d o n , 1 9 8 6 ) . S

REIF, Westfälischer Adel·, GREGORY W. PEDLOW, The Survival of the Hessian Nobili-

ty 1 7 7 0 - 1 8 7 0 ( P r i n c e t o n , 1 9 8 8 ) .

4

study, The Aristocracy in Europe, 1815-1914. Despite the title, this work deals not with all of Europe but with the aristocracies of England, Russia, and of some of the German Länder. 9 Lieven is particularly strong in his analysis of wealth, a study which absorbs half his book. Lieven points out that while most aristocrats remained landowners to some extent or another, it was income from urban and industrial investments that was crucial to their financial survival. He concludes that aristocracy survived into the modern era because of the "traditional elite's capacity to adapt, together with its possession, even in 1815, of a number of values and skills which are thoroughly suited to the modern age."10 Lieven sheds useful light on the structure of wealth and power of the Russian nobility, a group about whom no comprehensive history has been written since the classic 1870 work of A. Romanovich-Slavatinskii that covers the period from the origins of the nobility to 1861. Coming closest, perhaps, is Seymour Becker's study of Nobility and Privilege in Late Imperial Russia (1985). N o t intended as a comprehensive history of the Russian nobility, this work examines several crucial aspects of its life in the era of socio-economic transformation from 1861 to 1914. In emphasizing social history to draw a portrait of the Russian nobility, Becker shares some of my own concerns. He looks at the changing relationship of the nobility to the land, the campaign waged by "selfappointed traditionalist defenders of noble interests," and "the emergence of a class of substantial landed proprietors out of the noble estate." 11 Becker seeks to revise the standard interpretation of the post-emancipation period as one of "decline of the nobility." He argues instead that the nobility made the transition to new ways of life quite successfully and that it was "not the passive victim of its own pathology and of external forces beyond its control," but instead was "an active participant in the process of adjustment to changing conditions." 12 Becker concedes that a majority of nobles sold their estates after 1861, they invested their capital in commerce and industry. They further shored up their fortunes through continued service in the military and administration and by adopting new career paths in the free professions of law and medicine, and in commerce and industry. The focus of Becker's book, though, is on those nobles, admittedly a minority, who remained on the land and became by the end of the nineteenth century successful "agrarian entrepreneurs." Here he may have overstated his case, since agrarian entrepreneurship does not seem an adequate description of a rural landscape in which, as Becker himself acknow-

9

DOMINIC LIEVEN, The Aristocracy in Europe, 1815-1914 (New York, 1992). Ibid., p. 248. 11 SEYMOUR BECKER, Nobility and Privilege in Late Imperial Russia (DeKalb, 1985), p. xiii. 12 Ibid., P. 13. 10

5

ledges, three-quarters of noble arable land and meadows were leased to the peasantry. Becker is eager to show that Russia shared in the pan-European development, if a bit delayed, of change from a society of orders to one of classes in which by the beginning of the twentieth century the noble estate "had virtually vanished ... its members absorbed into more modern social groupings." Among these the most visible, because it was mainly of noble origin, was the "class or interest group of intermediate and large landowners seriously devoted to agriculture." Becker concludes that the noble estate had been transformed into a class, very much aware of its economic interests, but willing to abandon its former privileges and rejecting the program of that tiny section of the nobility, the traditionalists (soslovniki), who "found Russia's evolution away from hereditary privilege and toward legal equality distasteful and alarming." Becker assigns responsibility for the crash of the old order not to the nobility, which adapted, but to the autocracy, which failed to do so. Perhaps he underrates the responsibility of the entire society from top to bottom for the collapse of the old order. Though he makes a good case that the nobles were more successful than has been acknowledged in adapting to modernity, many were indeed left behind. While both the Russian and Baltic German nobility faced similar problems of adjusting to modernity and its challenges, the Baltic German nobility never considered the Russian nobility as a reference point, model, or even ally in the struggle to retain privilege in the pre-1905 period. Even after 1905 their aim was directed toward the defense of feudal privileges rather than merely, or even primarily, of property rights. For though they were part of the overall imperial elite, the Baltic German nobility regarded itself above all as a regional elite, heirs of a feudal nobility with sovereign mastery over the native Latvians and Estonians. As autocratic rule was challenged by the socio-economic transformation that followed 1861, again and again the Baltic nobility stressed its abiding loyalty to the autocracy. Not from within its ranks was there any clamor for a constitutional regime, as was heard from segments of the Russian nobility. And as late as the crisis of 1905 it was still the hope of the Baltic nobility that their unique loyalty would move the autocracy to re-establish privileges lost in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Politically, the Baltic German nobility showed as much intransigence as did the Russian autocracy on whose fate it depended. It is perhaps no coincidence that both would disappear from the historical scene in the aftermath of 1917.

The Setting In the era before 1918, the ruling class of the Baltic lands that occupy roughly the area of today's Latvia and Estonia was composed not of native Baits - Esto6

nians and Latvians - but rather of Germans. These Germans traced their origins to the eastern Crusades that arose in Germany in the thirteenth century and that resulted in the occupation of Prussia and the consequent subjection of the native Prussians, the unsuccessful attack on Russia proper that was defeated by Aleksandr Nevskii at the battle of Lake Peipus, and the successful seizure of the lands on the south-east extremity of the Baltic Sea that became known in German as Livland, Kurland, Estland, and the isle of Osel. The dominant position of the Baltic Germans, and within that group of its nobility, was based on privileges originally seized by the sword and then confirmed by a succession of Polish, Swedish, and finally Russian suzerains. After Peter the Great's victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War of 1700-1721, the new Russian lord again confirmed the privileges of the Baltic Germans in his Empire in return for an expectation - fully realized - of loyalty to their new ruler. Successive tsars through Alexander II reconfirmed these privileges. Only in 1881, with the accession of Alexander III, did the tsar and his government restrict the special legal position of the Baltic Germans, and then only in part. By that time, the hierarchically stratified society of the Baltic provinces, in which the uppermost strata were occupied by German commoners in the towns and by German nobles in the countryside, all of whom together composed a fraction just under seven percent of the total population, was an anomaly in nineteenth century Europe that had an analog perhaps only in Ireland. This Baltic social structure took its origins in the medieval order of corporate estates (etats, Stände) established by the German occupiers in the centuries following their conquest. The corporate order of estates, the Ständestaat, resulted in the political, social, and economic domination of the countryside by no more than about three hundred German families. In the towns, a comparable level of control was exercised by a German burgher class, and specifically by a small number of urban self-styled "patricians." This medieval social and political anachronism produced in the nineteenth century an acute sense of dislocation on foreign visitors, as if they had entered a time machine. A German visitor, J. G. Kohl, commented in 1841 that in the Baltic provinces "the medieval condition exists a hundred times over." Thirty years later a Frenchman, A. Leroy-Beaulieu, echoed Kohl, writing that in the Baltic "the Germany of the medieval ages has been preserved alive."13 In most other European countries, including Germany itself, traditional domination based on status (Ständeherrschaft), where the nobility shared and limited the power of the prince, had been gradually eliminated during the seven13 JOHANN GEORG KOHL, Die deutsch-russischen Provinzen oder Natur- und Völkerlehen in Kur-, Liv- und Ehstland 2 vols. (Dresden and Leipzig, 1841), 2:334; ANATOLE LEROY-BEAULIEU, Das Reich der Zaren. Russland und die Russen, tr. L. PEZOLD (Sondershausen, 1887), p. 96.

7

teenth and eighteenth centuries by the growing power of an absolutist state. Most continental European nobilities had been tamed - turned into service nobilities like the Prussian, or into little more than exclusive social clubs like the Austrian or Swedish. These might continue to exercise considerable influence through their role and status in the bureaucracy and military, but they did not rule, certainly not in the manner of the late middle ages. Instead, by the eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth centuries the nobility was everywhere in decline, first as a consequence of the growing resources of the centralizing, leveling absolutist state, and then under the impact of Europe's economic transformation and the challenge to traditional ruling elites posed by the ideas that found their strongest voice in the turmoil of the French Revolution. The radical intellectuals of the Enlightenment rejected the traditional claim of a connection "between rank and power, between birth and claim to authority." Any necessary link of birth to hierarchy and power was denied in favor of talent, merit, utility, and humanity, principles enthusiastically embraced by such spokesmen for enlightened state power as the German cameralists.14 In this view, hierarchy and the claim of birth as principles for organizing a community were false and outmoded. If the nobility was to survive in this climate, nobles must show their usefulness to the community and become good, rational, hardworking, and worthy citizens. Nineteenth century secular ideologies pressed these claims further in the name of democratic equality. Economic changes such as the industrialization that created new wealth and unprecedented urban growth also played their part. 15 Europe was moving from a society of orders to a modern society of classes. Max Weber and Werner Sombart formulated the classic distinctions between Stand (order/estate) and class. Weber defined Stand as based on "social privilege, a distinct style of life, and a certain notion of honor," whereas class, he said, is based on a "cohesion of economic interests."16 Sombart pointed out that in a class society power and privilege derive from the "consequences of possession of wealth" whereas in "traditional society the possession of wealth had been the consequence of the possession of power and privilege."17 All across Europe, the old society of orders was being dissolved by the attack of the absolutist bureaucratic state and by the philosophies and doctrines of radical intellectuals, who themselves were representatives as well as spokesmen for Europe's emerging modern class and market society. The Baltic German nobility did not live in a world wholly isolated from these pan - European forces. Threats and challenges to its position came in the latter 14 JONATHAN PowiS, Aristocracy (Oxford, 1984), pp. 9 0 - 9 3 , 100, see also LLEVEN, The Aristocracy, pp. 1 - 2 0 . 15 PowiS, Aristocracy, pp. 100-101. 16 As described by BERDAHL, The Politics, p. 12; MAX WEBER, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, ed. JOHANN WLNCKELMANN, 4th ed. (Tübingen, 1956), 1:177-80, 2 8 5 - 3 1 4 , 2 : 5 3 1 ^ 0 . 17 Citing JEROME BLUM, "Russia," in European Landed Elites in the Nineteenth Century, ed. DAVID SPRING (Baltimore and London, 1977), p. 93.

8

part of the eighteenth century from French ideas that were then deployed with renewed strength in the Sturm und Drang of German idealism. Additional attacks on the traditional order came from within Baltic German society itself. The greatest challenge appeared with the growth in the mid-nineteenth century of a centralizing and levelling Russian bureaucratic imperial state apparatus. But though the Baltic German nobility was often on the political, economic, and demographic defensive, it managed, uniquely among Europe's nobilities, to maintain until the 1880's its traditional exercise of domination based on status alone (Ständeherrschaft). Only in the 1880's, when the Russian imperial government moved to integrate the Baltic provinces fully into the structure of the Empire, was the traditional power of the Baltic German nobility decisively undercut. And even at that late date the imperial government was by no means able to remove all the political and economic rights of the Baltic German nobility as a separate order. Still, losses of corporate privilege there were. These occurred during a crucial time of Baltic industrialization and urbanization (a process promoted by the Baltic Germans themselves). The resulting combination of forces led to social and economic change, the emergence of a new class structure among all orders, and a new sense of nationhood among native Estonians and Latvians. Even so, until the very end - the cataclysms of World War I, Revolution, and Civil War - the Baltic German nobility retained its position at the topmost level of the newly emerging social structure. And though the Estonians and Latvians made many gains, they did so primarily on the lower levels of the petty bourgeoisie and the urban and rural working classes. Looking ahead to the start of the twentieth century, the situation in the Baltic countryside was tense. Social and economic injustices paralleled class and ethnic lines, and the class of native laborers and tenants was growing ever more dissatisfied.18 The nobility's unwillingness to consider even the landed native peasantry as a political ally was indicative of the factors that led to its extinction as a political actor in the time ahead.

The Framework The first part of this book examines the position of the noble corporation: its historical evolution, formation, organization, and composition, and also the forms of local government through which it exercised power. We also examine 18 We should note that in the revolutionary crisis of 1905 to 1907 native laborers in the countryside directed their hatred also toward well off native peasants, the so-called "grey barons." TöNU PARMING, "Population and Ethnicity as Intervening Variables in the 1905/1917 Revolutions in the Russian Baltic Provinces," in Die Baltischen Provinzen Russlands zwischen den Revolutionen von 1905 und 1917, ed. ANDREW EZERGAILLS, GERT VON PLSTOHLKORS (Cologne, 1982), pp. 2-5.

9

the self-image of the nobility as it developed under the influence of Enlightenment ideas and the nobility's social differentiation within the context of the social structure of the provinces. The second part of the book examines the larger framework within which the Baltic German noble family operated and the new cultural influences which affected its ethos during the first part of the nineteenth century. We look at the family support systems for the corporation, at education and upbringing, and at the reproduction of the social system, particularly in terms of law and inheritance, marriage and career. In the first half of the century the nobility was able to consolidate its political and legal position through the long-sought codification of its privileges. It was in this period also that it was able to secure the right to exclusive ownership of all land, the abolition of mortgage manor ownership, and the exclusion of burghers as well as the newly emancipated peasants from landholding. Economically, the nobility attempted to counter the agrarian crisis of the period by adopting new crops like flax and clover, new pursuits such as raising sheep, and by securing increased state subsidies and guaranteed state liquor purchases. As a result the Baltic German nobility was successful in maintaining and reinforcing its autonomous position, even with rural unrest in the countryside in the 1840's, and even with the introduction of new imperial educational and religious policies that were an assertion of the demand for greater integration of the provinces into the Empire. In the third part of the book we examine the response of the nobility to the challenges of political, economic, and social modernization during the second half of the nineteenth century and analyze their impact on the family at a time when the significance of the family rose as the position and role of the corporation declined during the period of transition to a new market oriented economy and to new structures in society. Politically, the Russian government undertook during this period a policy of administrative centralization following its own Great Reforms of the 1860's (though as Thaden has noted with regard to the western border provinces of the Empire, it did not pursue this policy "consistently and resolutely").19 19

EDWARD C . THADEN w i t h t h e c o l l a b o r a t i o n o f MARIANNA F . THADEN, Russia's

Wes-

tern Borderlands, 1710-1870 (Princeton, 1984), p. VII. On the problem of the term "Russification" see GERT VON PLSTOHLKORS, "'Russifizierung' in den Baltischen Provinzen und in Finnland im 19. und beginnenden 20. Jahrhundert: Neue westliche Darstellungen," Zeitschriftfür Ostforschung 33 (1984): 604—606 and Chapter 9. Imperial policies toward the western borderlands were never unified or consistent. The Baltic provinces for example, were not able to maintain their autonomy in the 1880's, whereas Finland was able to develop in the course of the nineteenth century its Diet, currency, and its own military and postal systems. As R. Schweitzer has argued based on Finland's case, that centralizing tendencies are not necessarily the decisive characteristics of a bureaucratic state, for it can respect well established claims of rights. Ibid., p. 594; ROBERT SCHWEITZER, Autonomie und Autokratie. Die Stellung des Grossfürstentums Finnland im russischen Reich in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (1863-1899), Marburger Abhandlungen zur Geschichte und Kultur Osteuropas, no. 19 (Glessen, 1978), p. 396.

10

Nonetheless, both contemporaries and later Baltic German historians see this period as one of "Russification," a term inadequate as a summary concept for the era, but that well expresses the fears and hopes of the participants. For while the central government did undercut the traditional position of the nobility and the autonomy of the provinces in the 1880's, and although there was cultural Russification directed against both the native and the German populations, the nobility was still left with such vital rights as control over communal government, its own credit associations, and the preservation of what can only be called feudal economic and tax privileges.20 Finally, at this point in its history the nobility proved unable to counter imperial measures with initiatives of its own; instead it reacted defensively, only reiterating over and again the need for "perseverance" and "steadfastness" in the face of imperial policies. It could, perhaps, have transformed its role from a position of ruling caste to that of political leadership, but this would have required political cooperation with the natives. This was rejected, and not only by most nobles: cooperation with the other side was becoming equally unacceptable among a native population that was creating its own political agenda. The result was that instead of engaging its opponents and neighbors with proposals for political reform, the nobility put its energy almost solely into trying to ensure its economic survival in the new capitalist order. And even under the threat of continued agricultural depression, it did on the whole succeed in transforming its agrarian estates into profitable capitalist enterprises. At the same time, and in contradiction to its economic modernism, it strove to use the archaic device of entailment to assure its economic preeminence. As the corporations lost their position as a provider of political status and personal identity, the family became even more important as a refuge and bulwark and guarantor of tradition a concept that increasingly came to mean a self-conscious Germanness. In one direction, families stressed their historical connections to the land, to their own past and traditions, and created family foundations both to preserve the traditions of the past and to secure the family's future. In the other, education, career choice, and marriage became more elastic as the family adapted to the requirements of a capitalist economy. By the end of the century the nobility had shown considerable skills of adaptation, quickly undergoing a partial embourgeoisement that allowed it to retain its leading economic position in a radically changing world. Even so, it is doubtful that the Baltic German nobility, given alone its diminishing numbers, could have maintained or extended its dominance long into the twentieth century. In the end, war and revolution produced ever more radical change that led finally to the expropriation of the nobility's manors and a change of position of their owners to a simple ethnic minority in the newly founded independent Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia. 20

See PlSTOHLKORS, "Russifizierung," pp. 605-606.

11

PARTI HISTORICAL B A C K G R O U N D A N D OVERVIEW

C h a p t e r I: T h e R o a d to P r i v i l e g e The political, legal, and social institutions of the Baltic Germans had their roots in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the Order of the Knights of Christ (also known as the Sword Brethren), which had merged in 1236 with the Teutonic Order, conquered the indigenous Latvian and Estonian populations.1 The German invaders established an order similar to the one they knew at home, with themselves as lords and the natives as serfs; as early as the thirteenth century non-noble German townsmen attached to the order established their own municipal institutions patterned on North German models. As the Teutonic Order and the bishops of the Livonian Confederation (Riga, Ösel and Dorpat) exhausted each other in battles and quarrels over modes of governing and territory, their vassals, the future Baltic German nobility, met first in a general diet in the fourteenth century and then gradually united into nobiliar corporations, called Ritterschaften. The attachment of each Ritterschaft to a specific local area promoted bonds of group and corporate loyalty and gave a foundation to claims of a privileged political role. The essential base for each member of this group was the knightly manor {Rittergut).2 From dominion over the manor grew dominion over the polity, and from both grew a sense of identity that bound each generation to the next. By the sixteenth century four separate noble corporations, or Stände, and four separate diets (Landtage), had formed in Kurland, Estland, Livland, and Ösel (an island which later, under Russian rule became part of Livland). With the collapse of the Livonian Confederation in 1561 and the consequent change of dominant confession from semi-monastic Catholicism to Luthera1 This section is based on EDWARD C . THADEN, Russia's Western Borderlands, 1710-1870 (Princeton, N.J., 1984); THADEN, ed. Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland (Princeton, N.J., 1981); REINHARD WLTTRAM, Baltische Geschichte. Die Ostseelande Livland, Estland, Kurland 1180-1918 (Munich, 1954); HASSO VON WEDEL, Die Estländische Ritterschaft und ihre Institutionen (Berlin, 1930); ALEXANDER VON TOBIEN, Die livländische Ritterschaft in ihrem Verhältnis zum Zarismus und russischen Nationalismus, 2 vols. (Riga, 1925, Berlin 1930); TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung Livlands im 19. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1899, Riga 1911). 2 This term did not come into use until the codification of Baltic law in 1845.

13

nism, the corporations were left as the only effective power in the countryside. These moved quickly to consolidate their power through a system of government in which they arrogated to themselves complete control over all judicial, administrative, police, and parish institutions in the countryside. In the towns, meanwhile, German burghers asserted comparable rights. When the area fell successively under Polish (1561-1621 for Livland, 1561-1795, for Kurland),3 Swedish (1561-1710 for Estland, 1621-1710 for Livland), and then Russian domination (1710-1918), each of the new rulers in turn, in exchange for a bond of loyalty, confirmed the special rights and privileges of the German nobility and townsmen.4 Swedish rule promoted the firm establishment and organization of the Lutheran Church, allowed the establishment of the first university at Dorpat, and reformed an archaic system of courts, laws, and local government along Swedish models. Swedish rule also improved the lot of the enserfed native population by regulating economic relations between serfs and landowners (Sweden's peasantry was free) and by encouraging literacy. Even so, the dominant position of the nobility over local affairs was not threatened, not even by Charles XI's imposition in the 1680's of legislation that all land held in feudal tenure must revert to the crown; this resulted in the loss of one third of the land of Estland's nobles and five sixths of Livland's. When the nobles resisted, especially in Livland, the Swedish government retaliated and abolished the most important administrative organs of the nobility, the Council of the Diet and the post of marshal of the nobility (both of which were restored by Tsar Peter in 1710). Under Charles XI's successor, Charles XII, and with the start of the Great Northern War, Swedish policy relaxed, and perhaps in consequence Sweden retained the loyalty of the Baltic German nobility until the Russian conquest in 1710. After victory in the Baltic, the new Russian government consolidated its position in the provinces by concluding a series of capitulation agreements (1710-1712) both with the ruling German townsmen and with the corporations 3 Kurland remained under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a semi-independent duchy until 1795, when it was annexed by Russia. The island of Ösel and the bishopric of Pilten remained under the government of its last bishop, the Danish prince Magnus, but after his death in 1582 came under Danish rule. Pilten was passed on to Poland in 1585 without being united with the duchy of Kurland, and both were annexed by Russia in 1795. 4 The political frontiers between and among the provinces were shaped over several centuries by frequent wars and conquests between and among Germans, Danes, Swedes, Poles and Russians. T h e area was divided into three provinces, though these did not follow native ethnic lines, since Estonians lived in Estland as well as Northern Livland, while Latvians could be found in southern Livland and Kurland as well as Lettgallia (a Polish province which became part of the Russian guberniia of Vitebsk in the 19th century). The territory of the three provinces covered about 36,513 square miles, an area about twice the size of Denmark, or about exactly the size of the old German kingdoms of Württemberg and Bavaria. Livland was the largest with 18,160 square miles, Kurland had 10,535 square miles, and Estland 7,818 square miles.

14

of the nobility. The corporations gained confirmation of nearly all their rights and privileges, for noble land confiscated under the Swedes was restored to its former owners and nobles were given additionally the exclusive right to own manor land. 5 Culturally, the Russians guaranteed the rights of the Lutheran Church, the Landeskirche,

(although Lutheranism lost its position as the only

tolerated religion) and confirmed German as the only language of the courts and the administrative apparatus, including the provincial governmental bureaucracy. Politically, Russia recognized the nobles' autonomous government through their corporate estates, the Ritterschaften,

and confirmed noble control

of the countryside through control of local government, police, the courts, and the Church. The towns in turn received similar confirmation of their privileges. 6 Though Peter had been generous in fulfilling the requests of the nobility, the Livland corporation was nonetheless dissatisfied with Peter's insertion of two formal reservations in his confirmation of their privileges. Peter limited his confirmation to privileges " t o the extent they are appropriate t o the current Government and time... [and are] without prejudice and detriment to Ours and O u r State, Highness, and law." 7 These reservations did not appear in the tsar's 5 In Riga's capitulation agreements, her privileged estates of townsmen were also granted the right to manor acquisition; this led to a good deal of controversy over the next century and a half. See Part II for details. 6 As in medieval German cities, the privileged burghers constituted only a small part of the population. As a result, many Germans (and all Latvians and Estonians ) were excluded from participation in town government. Russians were marginalized in pre-1877 Baltic municipal government rather than excluded. More than 600 Russians belonged to Riga's Great Guild in the nineteenth century, although none appear to have been admitted to the more selective brotherhood (Bruderschaft). In Baltic cities, the town council (Stadtrat) and the two guilds of merchants and artisans were the only political estates. Four mayors and sixteen councilors composed the council in Riga (in Reval four mayors, fourteen councilors and a syndic, in smaller towns fewer members). The town council exercised legislative, administrative and judicial functions. The guilds participated in city administration. The two civic corporations (the guilds presided over by a board of elders) dealt with town and corporate affairs at their assemblies. In Riga each guild was divided into a wider circle of burghers and a narrower one, the brotherhood, whose obligation it was to work conscientiously and without pay for the well-being of town and corporation. WLTTRAM, Baltische

Geschichte,

p.140; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung,

2: 233; ANDERS HENRIKSSON,

The

Tsar's Loyal Germans. The Riga German Community: Social Change and the Nationality Question, 1855-190}, East European Monographs, no. 131 (New York, 1983), pp. 1-8. In 1803 only about three percent of the inhabitants of Riga had political rights (in 1865 only 1.8 %). Riga had 30,000 inhabitants of whom about 13,000 (43 %) were German in 1800. GUNTRAM PHILIPP, Die Wirksamkeit der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine unter den Esten und Letten zur Zeit der Bauernbefreiung (vom Ausgang des 18. bis über die Mitte des 19. Jhs.) (Cologne, 1974), pp. 64, 70. 7 Cited in MICHAEL Η. HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," in Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, ed. EDWARD C. THADEN (Princeton, 1981), p. 112. The capitulation agreements were confirmed without restriction in the treaties of Nystad (1721) and Abo (1743). In its negotiations, the Livland corporation based its case on the Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti issued by the Polish king in 1562, which the Livland corporation came to regard as its fundamental law. WLTTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p. 77. 15

confirmation agreements with the Estland and Ösel corporations nor in those of the cities of Riga and Reval. The Livland corporation's protest over this wording was rejected, though in compensation Russia granted the Livland corporation's request that the governor of their province be either a Baltic German or at least someone who spoke German. 8 While the Baltic Germans considered the capitulation agreements to be contractually binding, it is doubtful that the Russian government ever did, even though all of Russia's rulers through Alexander II confirmed them in succession. 9 Catherine the Great, for example made the confirmation upon her accession, though in the latter part of her rule she had no difficulty in abolishing Baltic provincial autonomy and other special rights and privileges. Catherine's rationale was that as an enlightened ruler she was seeking uniformity, centralization, and rationality throughout the Empire, and she could not exclude a small section like the Baltic. She overcame the resistance of the corporations to her plans to extend the Imperial Provincial Reform Act of 1775 (for which she had studied Baltic models) and the Charter of the Nobility (1785) by raising the question of uncertain legal titles to manors held as fiefs (and also by questioning noble treatment of serfs, for there had been a significant rise in peasant unrest in 1783 and 1785). The land question caused great fears, especially in Livland, where the titles to about one third of manors were under a cloud. As an incentive Catherine converted all fiefs to hereditary tenure or allodia (votchina), followed by a stick two months later when she extended the Provincial Charter to include the Baltic provinces (1783). Two years later she did the same with the Charter of the Nobility, while during the same period she also imposed the Imperial Towns Charter on Baltic towns. 10 Through these steps Catherine seriously diminished the political supremacy of the exclusive corporations and the urban patriciate; at the same time she left untouched the special position of the provinces in the areas of language, education, and religion, and did not attempt any form of social restructuring: the nobility and patriciate retained their privileged positions relative to the balance of society. Still the overall effect was that imperial organs and offices replaced those of the corporations, 8 The Estland corporation had been granted this right in its agreement. HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," pp. 112-113. 9 Die livländischen Landesprivilegien und deren Confirmationen, ed. OTTO MÜLLER

( 2 n d . ed.; Leipzig, 1 8 7 0 ) , pp. 9 9 - 1 0 0 . See HALTZEL, " T h e B a l t i c G e r m a n s , " p. 1 8 4 f o r the

exact citations from the Russian legal code. 10 The Charter of the Nobility contained clauses on the personal rights and privileges of the Russian nobility, similar to nobilities elsewhere, protected nobles' property, personal rights, granted them corporate status and organization, and required the keeping of genealogical registers. Noble status in the provinces was now determined by the Table of Ranks and the Charter of the Nobility, a move which increased the number of nobles who could participate in local affairs. The Baltic corporations had restricted membership in its rolls since the 1740's. See Section 2.

16

and new diets were established that extended rights to all nobles in the countryside, including the upstart "service nobility" that had gained noble status through the application of the Table of Ranks rather than blood lines. Upon Catherine's death in 1796, her son Paul demonstrated the capriciousness of autocratic power (and a son's hatred for his mother) by restoring Baltic German privileges and rights in full, even extending them to Kurland, which Catherine had annexed from Poland and then incorporated into the new Baltic provincial order. 11 After Paul's assassination in 1801, his son (and Catherine's favorite grandson) Alexander I confirmed Baltic German rights and privileges, but only insofar as they did not conflict with the Empire's "general decrees and laws," thus giving notice of possible changes in the future. 12 In that same year Alexander nonetheless acknowledged a special position for the provinces when he united them in a single vice-royalty under a governor-general who was to reside in Riga. 13 A decade later the term "ostzeiskie provintsii" (derived from the German name for the Baltic Sea, Ostsee or Eastern Sea) came into use among Russian officials, thus further underlining the provinces' separate and special status. There were specific reasons for the generous treatment of the vanquished Baltic Germans by the victorious Russians, as also for the continued respect that accorded a special position in the Empire to the Baltic provinces. For one, as Edward Thaden notes, there was Peter's high regard for the political institutions of the provinces, which he wished to emulate in his own reform program, not to mention his perception of Russia's need for the western scientific, technological, military, and administrative expertise possessed by the many Baltic Germans educated in the German lands. In addition, Russia's foreign policy needs, her involvement in the larger affairs of the Baltic region, and new marriage alliances with North German ruling houses all required German speaking 11 In hindsight, given the rise of nationalism and the Imperial drive for modernization after the 1850's, the preservation of Catherine's reforms might have somewhat moderated the nationalistic antagonisms and hatreds and benefitted not only all the Germans who lived in the provinces, but also the Latvians and Estonians who would have had a better chance for justice in their dealings with Baltic nobles than under the local court system of the Provincial Charter. At the same time, Catherine increased the burden on the native population by introducing the poll tax, a move not protested by the corporations as it did not affect them, but nonetheless a break with the principles of Baltic German rights. See THADEN'S evaluation of Catherine's policies, Russia's, pp. 2 1 - 3 1 . When Paul restored Baltic German rights he availed himself also of the opportunity to extend the harsh Russian recruitment law to the provinces; this required twenty-five year military service of the enserfed Latvians and Estonians, one recruit per 350 to 500 male souls. The corporations loudly protested this measure, since it directly affected their pocketbooks. 1 2 THADEN, Russia's, p. 9 8 . 13 Estland and Livland were under one administration after 1710. In 1713 the Riga guberniia was formed and in 1719 the Reval. The governor-general was the head of the highest administrative office staffed by the Imperial government, the so-called Gouvernementsregierung. He was the main representative of the Emperor, and had the important task of mediating conflicts between the corporations and the state. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1 : 4 8 , 3 0 3 ; W E D E L , Die ... Institutionen, pp. 15, 4 3 .

17

elites with ties across the whole region. Finally, the provinces were strategically located between Peter's new capital of St. Petersburg and the German lands and were thus a natural outlet for improving Russia's commercial and financial prospects, since the Russian hinterland was well connected with the Baltic by the region's Western Dvina river (augmented almost two centuries later by railroads to the ports of Riga, Reval, Windau, and Libau).14 The Baltic German nobility, in turn, had a long tradition of service and welcomed the opportunity to serve Russian rulers, continuing to do so into the first half of the nineteenth century in numbers vastly out of proportion to their proportion of the population of the Empire. This numerical overrepresentation diminished only after the modernizing and more assertive Empire made service both more competitive and less desirable. Service to the Empire also provided the nobility with much needed income, since the Northern War had devastated the provinces and economic recovery did not really take hold until the third quarter of the 18th century, some sixty years after the last battles. The Baltic Germans' prominence in Imperial service also assured influence and connections vital to the maintenance of the privileged corporate estate order of the provinces. The Empire thus provided the Baltic German nobility with an increased level both of security and economic well being in a stretch of land that had been a battleground of nations for centuries. Overall, the Baltic German nobility did well for itself in submitting to the burgeoning Russian Empire, confirming and even strengthening the privileged position it had enjoyed under Sweden. This was particularly evident in the decades following Peter the Great's death, when the Imperial Government agreed to the establishment of the principle of exclusiveness (Abschliessung) of the Baltic German nobility.

E x c l u s i v e n e s s : T h e F o r m a t i o n , O r g a n i z a t i o n , and C o m p o s i t i o n of t h e M a t r i c u l a t e d N o b i l i t y (Stamm-Indigenatsadel) The Baltic corporate nobility, in contrast to the nobility of the Russian Empire, which by the end of the 18th century was largely a service nobility, regarded itself as a "true" nobility of birth, with autonomous corporate institutions and traditions that had their origins in the Middle Ages.15 But though the German THADEN, Russia's, pp. 9-13. A recent collection of essays explores the question whether the Russian and West European nobilities can be compared. The concept of nobility only appeared in Russia in the reign of Peter I. The eighteenth century Russian nobility was not only a service nobility, but also a hereditary formation. For a discussion of this and other themes concerning the Russian nobility from the sixteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, see Noblesse, etat et societe en Russie XVIe-debut du XIXe Steele. Special edition of Cahiers du monde russe etsovietique X X X I V , nos. 1-2 (January-June 1993). 14

15

18

noble vassals had already formed corporate organizations (Ritterschaften) under the Livonian Confederation, no formal registers or rolls of membership {Ritterbank or Matrikel) establishing the exclusiveness of the "genuine" nobles existed for Estland, Livland, and Ösel until the first part of the eighteenth century. The principle of exclusiveness had been successfully introduced by the corporations of Kurland and the bishopric of Pilten (united into one corporation in 1819) between 1620 and 1634 in order to ward off unwelcome newcomers. The reason for the establishment of the Kurland registry was contained in its statement of purpose: "it [the registry] should also stop the abuse of creating nobility in the future, so that no kingly privilege should have validity" that did not have the sanction of the Duke of Kurland and the diet of the corporation.16 When the Polish king confirmed this regulation, the corporation appeared to have secured its ranks from penetration by outsiders. The first rolls included only one hundred and fifteen families, while over the entire history of the Kurland corporation no more than 396 families were registered (and of these onethird died out over time or left the province permanently). Over its entire existence the Kurland corporation remained the most exclusive and selective of all the Ritterschaften. Between 1778-1803, for example, it admitted only eight families who had acquired the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire (Reichsadel) through a grant of the Viennese Court, though this was a frequent method of access to the other Baltic corporations.17 Kurland's exclusiveness reflected its long existence as a semi-independent duchy under Poland, and, partly, the weakness of its towns, a weakness that allowed the registered nobility great domination in the affairs of the duchy.18 In contrast to Kurland, the corporations of Estland, Livland, and Osel were able to compile noble registers only later: in 1741 for Ösel, 1743 for Estland, and 1747 for Livland. Fear of being overwhelmed by the Empire's service nobles of German, Russian, or other origin and by influential and socially ambitious German burghers who did not share the corporate culture, traditions, and connections motivated the corporations to close the registers quickly. Under the pressure of threats to their political dominance, the corporations began the 16 CARL ARVID VON KLINGSPOR, Baltisches Wappenbuch (Stockholm, 1882), p. 21; EDUARD VON FIRCKS, "Die Ritterbanken in Kurland nach dem Original-Protokolle von 1618-1648," in Jahrbuch für Genealogie, Heraldik und Sphragistik (Mitau, 1895): 1; ROLAND SEEBERG-ELVERFELDT, "Die kurländische Ritterschaft im Jahre 1631," Ostdeutsche Familienkunde 13 (1965): 97. 17 ARTHUR HOHEISEL, "Die deutsche Bevölkerung Kurlands," Ostdeutsche Familienkunde 26 (1978): 225-226. 18 In contrast to Livland, there was no wealthy urban patriciate in Kurland that could purchase imperial nobility and gain access to the rolls. Only seven families of the Imperial Russian service nobility, for example, ever managed to establish themselves on a permanent basis as members of the Kurland corporation. In general, Kurland had class lines drawn even sharper than in the other provinces. Ibid.

19

work of registration in 1727; the Russian government obligingly confirmed their conclusions in the 1740's. Still, full legal confirmation of the rules setting out qualifications and conditions for registration into the corporations had to await the codification of Baltic corporate law (Ständerecht). For a century the corporations pressed for codification of their registry and of their administrative and civil law, the whole body of which formed the basis for their privileged status. The corporate and administrative codes were finally confirmed, but only in 1845 in the context of the great work of codification of Imperial Russian law under Count M.M. Speransky. The last element, the civil code was confirmed only in 1864.19 Registration was the crucial step in establishing exclusive noble status and depended on written, certified proofs such as diplomas or other deeds of noble ancestry. In Livland and Osel candidates were also required to own a manor, though this was a requirement the corporation could waive. Requests for admission could be initiated either by the candidates themselves or by the corporation.20 Acceptance required a three-fourths majority in the diets of each Livland, Osel, and Estland, but only a simple majority in Kurland; exclusion of families once registered required a two-thirds vote everywhere. The rights secured by membership in the corporation came to individuals by birth, by marriage, or by matriculation and passed to descendants of both sexes. An agreement of mutual recognition or comity (the so-called Cartell or Erbverbrüderung) existed among the corporations of Estland, Livland, and Osel and allowed the cross-registration of members without prior vote and without ownership of a manor, but this applied only to families who had been registered before 1784.21 An individual who had received the imperial gift of a manor in any of the provinces became automatically a registered noble in that province. A foreigner could be registered only by Imperial sanction obtained through the offices of the provincial governor and the ministry of interior. Finally, the diet could register by acclamation a person who was distinguished by service and "virtue," but only if he was of the ancient nobility of the Empire, which in most instances meant a descendant of the first Russian, Lithuanian, Tatar, and Georgian princes, these being the only families that the Baltic German nobility recognized as equals. When the first rolls of the Estland, Osel and Livland corporations were completed, they included 127 families in Estland, 172 families in Livland, and 19 Provinzialrecht der Ostseegouvernements (hereinafter PRO), 3 vols. (SPb., 1845,1865), 2: Ständerecht·, see articles 10 to 30 for rules on registration. Despite repeated attempts, the empire did not manage codification until the 1830's under the rule of Nicholas I. See Chapter IV. 20 A fee of 100 Ducats for Livland, 100 for Ösel and 200 Rbl.S. for Estland was charged to an individual who requested admission. This fee could be waved by the diets. 21 This Cartell agreement was in force in the 1740's and was adjusted to the new date later.

20

twenty five families in Ösel. 22 Numbers changed over the next decades and centuries as families died out, left the provinces or were added to the rolls. It appears, however, that matriculated families did not exceed the four-hundred mark at any one time. The changing picture of the membership of the Livland corporation from the time of registration in 1747 to 1918 is not atypical. Table 1: Number of registered Livland families N o . of

N o . of

Date of

Families

Extinctions

Matriculation

Period of Order 1207-1561

49

19

1747

Polish Period 1 5 6 1 - 1 6 2 6

15

10

1747

Swedish Period 1 6 2 6 - 1 7 1 0

44

28

1747

Russian Era 1710-1918

321

205

1747-1914

Total

429

262

O f the 429 families registered over the whole history of the Livland corporation, forty-six were matriculated for "honor's

sake" (mostly

ancient

Russian nobility) and fifty-five as a result of the Cartell agreement. In addition, 262 families of the 429 died out or failed to stay in the provinces into the twentieth century. 23 The largest number of matriculations occurred in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when sixty-five families were regis-

WLTTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p. 128; THADEN, Russia's, p. 15. Some families died out after the collapse of the Empire. Exact dates are not available for all families. Table composed on materials Zur Geschichte der Ritterschaften von Livland 22

23

und

Oesel,

ed. G E O R G VON KRUSENSTJERN ( P f a f f e n h o f e n / I l m , 1 9 7 4 ) , p p . 1 2 1 - 1 5 5 . T h e S e -

cond Section of His Majesty's Chancellery, which worked on the codification of Baltic law, composed a table of the number of families in the corporations in 1841. Total number of families of the four corporations was listed as 685, of which 253 were alloted to Livland, 53 to Osel, 225 to Estland, and 154 to Kurland. These figures are inconclusive, since neither extinction rates nor "honorable" and Cartell matriculations are taken into account. Note, however, the large size of registrations in the Russian era. Baron A.E. NOL'DE, Ocherkipo istorii kodifikatsii mestnykh grazhdanskikh zakonov pri Gräfe Speranskim, 2 vols. (SPb., 1906-1914), 2:341. By 1865, 1069 families had been matriculated (Estland 300, Livland 384, Osel 88, Kurland-Pilten 297), but these figures neither reflect extinctions nor Cartell registrations. Cited in PLSTOHLKORS, "Inversion of Ethnic Group Status in the Baltic Region: Governments and Rural Ethnic Conflicts in Russia's Baltic Provinces and in the Independent States of Estonia and Latvia, 1850-1940," in Roots of Rural Ethnic Mobilization, ed. DAVID HOWELL i n c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t h G E R T VON PISTOHLKORS a n d E L L E N WIEGANDT,

Comparative Studies on Governments and Non-Dominant Ethnic Groups in Europe, 1850-1940, no. 7 (Aldershot, 1993), p. 160. These figures are based on ERNST VON MÜHLEN-

DAHL and Baron HEINER V. HOYNINGEN-HUENE, Die baltischen Ritterschaften burg/Lahn, 1973), pp. 20, 34, 50, 56.

(Lim-

21

tered.24 The membership of the Livland corporation probably did not exceed the two-hundred mark at any one time in its history and extinction rates alone suggest that filling out its ranks was a necessity for survival. Prominent among applicants for admission were the wealthy patricians of the cities of Riga and Reval who for small fortunes purchased Holy Roman Imperial patents of nobility in Vienna, where the court welcomed the extra income. The respected town councilor and merchant Bernhard Heinrich zur Mühlen, for example, achieved matriculation into the Estland corporation through the Viennese path at the price of 6000 guilders in 1792. In his appeal to the Austrian Emperor, zur Mühlen stressed the highly honorable positions his family had held and its great wealth, and then continued that "wars, devastations, and revolutions" had led to the loss of various diplomas and documents which proved the family's noble ancestry. After obtaining the Imperial diploma, Bernhard's family was registered, bought manors, and, according to a family historian, within a generation the children were fully accepted and assimilated into the ranks of the corporation.25 Other examples of the matriculation of old families of Riga and Reval include the Gernet (1761), Dellingshausen (1785), Dehn (1788), and a branch of the Riesenkampff family (as von Rehekampff in 1780). This path to nobility was by no means a new discovery of the eighteenth century, as it had been trodden already by the Mohrenschildt, Lantinghausen, Straelborn, Vegesack, and Oettingen families, which had joined the corporations by this route in the era of Swedish rule.26 Foreign nobles or ennobled burghers of foreign origin had also become members of the corporations in Swedish times (such as the Swedish Stenbocks and Igelströms) and continued to be admitted under Russian rule (the Russian Baranoffs, Nasackins, the English and Scottish families Löwis of Menar and Douglas, the French families Clapier de Colongue and de la Gardie), all of whom became quickly assimilated and completely Germanized. Though the registers were organized according to historical period and origin, no outward social or political discrimination appears to have existed based on age of family, national origin, or social descent once a generation had passed 24 The Livland corporation had not received the right to exclusive ownership of manors; non-registered nobles and burghers, the so-called Landsassen, challenged the prerogatives of the corporation after the 1750's in bitter quarrels. Their exclusion from the registries became a moot point under Catherine's new provincial order, but was raised again under Paul. The dispute was settled by the matriculation of many of these families in 1797, but exclusive manor ownership continued to remain an object of controversy among the estates. See Chapter 4 for detail. WITTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p. 128. 25 HEINRICH VON ZUR MÜHLEN, Die Familie von zur Mühlen (Privately printed, Bonn, 1981; library, Herder-Institut, Marburg), pp. 1-11; for other examples and for general information on the matriculation process for both Estland and Livland, see EAA, fond 854, nimistu 3, järjek. 120. 26

22

MÜHLEN, pp. 1-11.

on the rolls. Nonetheless, a certain prestige attached to those families like the Uexküll, Wrangell, Maydell, or Stackelbergs who traced their descent all the way back to the time of the Livonian Confederation. The registered or matriculated nobility may have been exclusive, then, but was nonetheless more flexible and open than some other nobilities, such as the Catholic nobility of Westphalia.27 Filling out its ranks with new members chosen at the nobility's own discretion was crucial to maintaining its powerful position and helped to diminish social degeneration through exclusive intermarriage among closely related families. Still, overall noble numbers stayed small even relative to the German population, let alone the far larger population of Latvians and Estonians. Although accurate population statistics are difficult to obtain, there exist figures that cite a total population for Kurland of 394,626 in 1797, of which about eleven percent, or 35,374 were Germans. Of these Germans less than fifteen percent, or 2,430 men, women, and children belonged to the nobility. For Livland the figures are similar. In 1786 Livland's population amounted to 505,419 of which 2,605 were nobles, 848 belonged to the German Lutheran clergy, and another 39,330 were German burghers and free men (the latter group probably included a high number of assimilated freed Estonians and Latvians).28 Estland, the smallest province, had a total population of 210,000 in 1800, but a breakdown into nationality and status is available only for 1850. Then, in a population of 294,000, there were 15,000 Germans, of whom 2,299 belonged to the registered nobility. 29 Thus at the end of the eighteenth century, Germans constituted about eight percent of the total Baltic population of some 1,200,000.3C Of these Germans, fewer than two percent belonged to the registered nobility. Given these figures, it is surprising not that the nobles' social and political power was challenged by other groups, but that these challenges became serious only after the 1740's. The first challenge came in a fight for power centered around the controversial question of manor ownership. With the completion of the registries and the 27 28

REIF, Westfälischer Adel, pp. 176-186. Cited in WlTTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p. 143; TOBIEN, Die

1:136; f o r m o r e d e t a i l s , s e e AUGUST WILHELM H U P E L , Topographische

Agrargesetzgebung, Nachrichten

von

Lief- und Ehstland, 3 vols. (Riga, 1774, 1777, 1782). The German and indigenous populations suffered tremendous losses through the devastations and epidemics of plague that accompanied the Northern War. Immigration from the various German states extending into the first decade of the nineteenth century made up these losses. Many immigrants married Baltic German widows and daughters. Latvians and Estonians had made u p their losses by the end of the century. WlTTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p. 141. 29 PHILIPP, pp. 63-64. There were also 264,000 Estonians, 10,000 Russians, and 5000 Swedes listed in the census. CARL VON BORNHAUPT, Entwurf einer geographisch-statistischhistorischen Beschreibung Liv- Ehst- und Kurlands (Riga, 1855), p. 12. 30 JOHN A. ARMSTRONG, "Mobilized Diaspora in Tsarist Russia: The Case of the Baltic Germans," in Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices, ed. JEREMY R. AZRAEL (New York, 1978), p. 64.

23

revised regulations for the Estland (1756) and Livland (1759) diets, both diet membership and the right to hold office in the institutions of the corporations were restricted to registered nobles who owned manors. 3 1 Important civil privileges also attached to manors. Manors had the exclusive right to distill alcoholic spirits, to brew beer, to produce articles of food, to open taverns and village inns, to hold markets or fairs, and rights to fishing, hunting, and milling. 32 The challenge to this monopoly position was led by the so-called

Landsassen,

the non-matriculated nobles of the service nobility, and especially by the Riga patricians who were manor owners or leaseholders. 33 Some members of the L u theran clergy also lent their support. Historically, under pre-Russian rule ownership of manors and some limited participation in the diets had been allowed to non-corporate nobility and burghers. 34 The capitulation agreements with tsar 31 JULIUS ECKARDT, "Der livländische Landtag in seiner historischen Entwicklung," BM 61 (1861), 1:145; ToBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:27. There was also an economic component to the corporations' struggle. Many registered nobles experienced economic hard times leading to sale of their estates, especially to wealthy Riga merchants. Default on mortgages could also make the mortgagees into owners in fact. (Inherited manors could only be sold with the agreement of all heirs. See Chapter VII for a discussion of inheritance law.) In this way, private economic needs overcame political considerations and the consequent insecurity of manor ownership alarmed the corporations. See JULIUS ECKARDT, Livland im achtzehnten Jahrhundert, vol.1, (Leipzig, 1876), p. 388; the first volume of Hagemeister's history of manors contains much evidence of noble bankruptcies, sales, and mortgaging. HEINRICH VON HAGEMEISTER, Materialien zu einer Geschichte der Landgüter Livlands, 2 vols. (Riga, 1836-1837). Other public privileges aside from diet representation were tax free status of manor land (Hofsland), though the diets raised their own taxes from among the nobles through the so-called Laden- und Bewilligungsgelder, and manor lord's jurisdiction and police power over the peasantry attached to the manor (restricted after 1866 and 1888). ToBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:310. In return, the manors were obliged to build and maintain roads and bridges (mainly done by the peasantry with the lord's supplies; after 1848 this became a peasant responsibility) and to maintain postal stations, a duty which in practice also fell on the peasantry. As in the Empire, the manor lord was responsible for the collection of the poll tax (until 1848 when it became the responsibility of the newly created peasant communities). Peasants unable to pay had to work off their debts, and lords generally asked for more than the required tax owed to the state. Ibid., 1:78, also ToBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:23,

78 2 3 and PHILIPP, p. 72. 32 The exclusive right to fishing was abolished in 1849, to milling in 1871, and the privilege of liquor sale in 1900. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:310. 33

AUGUST WILHELM HUPEL, " V o n den liefländischen Landsassen, in Sonderheit v o n sol-

chen die rigische Bürger sind," Die Nordischen Miscellaneen achten Stück (Riga, 1784), pp. 167-182. One of the leading Livland representatives of the Landsassen was the pastor Heinrich Johann von Jannau, who attacked the registered nobility, particularly in their treatment of serfs, from the perspective of the enlightenment. Jannau's critique was partially motivated by his exclusion from the Livland registry and was aimed at securing the support of the Imperial government f o r his cause. HEINRICH JOHANN VON JANNAU, Geschichte

der Sklaverey

und

Charakter der Bauern in Lief- und Ehstland. Ein Beitrag zur Verbesserung der Leibeigenschaft. Nebst der genauesten Berechnung eines liefländischen Hakens (Riga, 1786); HUBERTUS NEUSCHÄFFER, "Die Geschichtsschreibung im Zeitalter der Aufklärung," in Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung, ed. GEORG VON RAUCH (Cologne, 1986), pp. 71-73. 34

See BARON ERNST MAYDELL, " D e r b ü r g e r l i c h e G r u n d b e s i t z in A l t - E s t l a n d , "

(1937): 215-228. 24

BM

Peter had then granted the Estland and Ösel corporations exclusive rights to ownership, but without dispossessing non-corporate owners. 35 In Livland the corporation was granted the exclusive right to manor ownership (article 19), but at the same time the right of Riga citizens to acquire manors was also confirmed. The ensuing dispute remained inconclusive until it became moot under Catherine's provincial reform, when all nobles were allowed to participate in local affairs on an equal basis. After that the conflict was partially settled in Livland with the matriculation of many Landsassen in 1797. A final decision on the murky question of manor ownership was not finally achieved until Baltic estate law was codified in 1845, at which time the law declared that manor ownership was the sole right of the registered nobility in Estland, Ösel, and Kurland, but in Livland of any noble. 36 The registered nobility fought tenaciously for control of the land not only for economic and social reasons, but because their political rights in all three provinces rested on the manor.

N o b l e S e l f - G o v e r n m e n t in the L a n d e s s t a a t Though there were similarities in the forms of local government among Estland, Livland, Kurland, and Ösel, each also developed over the centuries its own peculiar local institutions. 37 The highest administrative organ in each province was the diet (Landtag), which performed the dual role of directing the affairs of the countryside and also served as a noble assembly for the strictly internal affairs of the registered nobility. All diets except for Livland's consisted of registered 35 In 1765 there were 560 manors in Estland, 433 in the possession of the registered nobility and 67 owned by Landsassen. HASSO VON WEDEL, Die Estländische Ritterschaft vornehmlich zwischen 1710 und 1783 (Königsberg, 1935), p. 38. The Estland group did not gain any political importance whereas the Livland Landsassen temporarily formed their own corporation (1767-1779) and elected a marshal of the nobility. WITTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p.128, HUPEL, Die Nordischen, 8:181. 36 P R O , 2: Ständerecht, article 876. This whole question was again raised in the first decades of the 19th century and will be further discussed in Chapter 4. 37 This part constitutes only a general survey and does not discuss all the differences nor details of self-government. For further information on these matters, consult the following sources, on which this section is based: HAMILCAR BARON FOELKERSAHM, Das alte Kurland (Rostock, 1925), pp. 5-30; GEORG VON KRUSENSTJERN, Die Landmarschälle und Landräte der Livländischen und der Öselschen Ritterschaften in Bildnissen (Hamburg, 1963); Kurland und seine Ritterschaft (Pfaffenhofen/Ilm, 1971); Zur Geschichte-, P R O , 1: Behördenverfassung·, GEORG HERMANN SCHLINGENSIEPEN, Der Strukturwandel des haltischen Adels in der Zeit vor dem ersten Weltkrieg, Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ost-Mitteleuropas, no. 41 (Marburg, 1959), pp. 6-18; "Ubersicht der gegenwärtigen Verfassung und Verwaltung Curlands," Das Inland, no. 15, 14 April 1837. WALTHER FREIHERR VON UNGERN-STERNBERG, Geschichte der Baltischen Ritterschaften (Limburg/Lahn, 1967); WILHELM BARON WRANGELL and GEORG VON KRUSENSTJERN, Die Estländische Ritterschaft, ihre Ritterschaftshauptmänner und Landräte (Limburg/Lahn, 1967); WITTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, pp. 135-140.

25

nobles (in Livland two delegates from Riga were allowed to attend but had only one vote between them; the Landsassen,

non-matriculated manor owners,

were also allowed attendance, but could vote only on matters of taxation). F o r matriculated nobles between the ages of twenty-one and sixty attendance was obligatory and a fine was levied for failure to show. 38 All diets had far-reaching competence to deal with "everything that relates to the rights, interests, and institutions of the corporation or the welfare of the whole land." 39 Among the most important privileges were the rights of taxation, legislative initiative, appointments, and co-administration in church matters (in the countryside this included the educational system). All positions were elective, usually for three years, although some particularly important ones, such as "counselors of the nobility" (Landräte) or the "secretaries of the corporations" (Ritterschaftssekretäre)

carried life tenure. Most service was honoris causa and

without salary, but a few positions came with maintenance payments and salary and sometimes other emoluments, such as free housing. 40 According to Baltic law, anyone elected to one of these positions was regarded as "being in active state service" and was assigned an appropriate rank in the Table of Ranks. 41 The 38 PRO, 2, article 61 on fines. The Landsassen formed the so-called Landschaft. In Estland and Kurland Landsassen received this right only after the abolition of the exclusive manorship right in 1866. AXEL VON GERNET, Geschichte und System des bäuerlichen Agrarrechts in Estland (Reval, 1901), p. 15. The corporations taxed themselves to support their activities. The corporations, for example, maintained charitable institutions (hospitals, insane asylums, leprosariums, medical networks of doctors and apothecaries, old people's homes), elementary and high schools and boarding schools out of their own funds (Ritterschaftskasse). Kurland's diet differed from the other diets in that it consisted of a Chamber of Deputies (Deputiertenkammer) and deputies were elected in parish assemblies and received firm and binding instructions in regard to business. 39 PRO, 2, article 83. 40 There were differences here among the provinces. In Livland, for example, the Ordnungsrichter, a police official and usually the first position on the provincial ladder for a young nobleman, was salaried, whereas in Estland his equivalent, the Hakenrichter, served without pay; generally expenses outweighed income (Gage); this was especially true for the marshals of the nobility. In Kurland in 1841, ninety-six judicial positions at the district level came with the entitlement to usufruct of the attached small manors (Widme), making these positions particularly desirable as sinecures for younger sons of families whose estates were entailed to first born sons. "Übersicht," Das Inland, no. 15, 14 April 1837; FOELKERSAHM, Das alte, p. 35. 41 PRO, II, article 540. See also the special supplement (Beilage III) to article 541 which lists the ranks for each of the elective positions. The highest rank (4) was assigned to the marshals of the nobility, counselors, and the president, vice-president and high counselors of the High Courts. See also articles 543 to 551 for details on special "rewards for elective service." The corporations kept service lists (Dienstliste) for their members which asked detailed questions about moral behavior, appearances before the court (guilty verdict, non guilty, non guilty for lack of evidence, pardon), complaints about neglect of duty and abuse of subordinates or superiors, abuse of alloted vacation time and whether the candidate was in active military service and participated in campaigns. For an example, see the service list of Livland counselor Carl O. von Transehe for 1828. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 750, pp. 15-18; see also pp. 13-14 (service list of Otto von Transehe).

26

single most important position was that of the marshal of the nobility (Landmarschall in Livland and Osel, Ritterschaftshauptmann in Estland, Landesbevollmächtigter in Kurland), whose most important function, especially in the nineteenth century, became the representation of the corporations' interests in St. Petersburg. The right to represent the corporations' "interests and needs" in appeals to the ministry of interior and His Imperial Majesty was guaranteed by law. 42 This position required independent wealth as well as diplomatic skills and good connections among the service elite of the capital. The status given to the marshal at the fourth rank in the Table of Ranks (equivalent to major general in the army or actual privy councilor in the civil service), made him a select member of the Imperial service elite and promoted easier access and social mixing in the rank obsessed capital. At home, in contrast, rank played little role in Baltic noble society, as it considered itself a nobility of blood not service; it did, however, help in dealing with rank-conscious imperial servants. The diets were assisted by deliberating assemblies, the Adelskonvent in Livland, Ritterschaftlicher Ausschuss in Estland, and Ritterschaftskomitee in Kurland. These were presided over by the marshal and consisted of twelve counselors, twelve district deputies and, in Livland, two financial deputies, who examined all subjects prior to their discussion in the diets. The executive organ of the diets and the center and hub of the whole system of self-government was the Council of the Diets (in Livland and Estland called the Landratskollegium, and in Kurland the Ritterschaftskomitee).43 These Councils were composed of twelve elected counselors (Landräte), one of whom functioned as head on a monthly rotation; in Livland this was the residing counselor, in Estland and Kurland this function was held by the marshals of the nobility. 44 These organs had far-reaching duties that ranged from general advice to local crown officials to maintenance of postal stations, highways, recruiting offices, police, and the judicial system. 45 In Estland the Council functioned also as the highest court (Oberlandgericht), under which sat a lower court, the Manngericht, which settled legal disputes among manor lords. In Livland, the Ibid., article 34. In Kurland the Ritterschaftskomitee, formed in 1795 to replace ducal officials, fulfilled this function. It was composed of the marshal of the nobility and the district marshals who were elected by all manor owners. ALEXANDER V. BERKIS, The History of the Duchy of Kurland, 1561-179} (Towson, Maryland, 1969), pp.6-11. The Councils also appointed secular members to the highest organ of the Lutheran Church, the high consistory, in each province. The president of the Livland consistory was a counselor or Landrat. 44 The residing counselor dealt with all current affairs when the Council was not in session and received a salary as compensation for expenses and an apartment. SCHLINGEN42 43

SIEPEN, p p . 1 2 - 1 3 .

45 The highest office of the crown was the so-called Gouvernementsregierung, headed by the governor-general. Other offices staffed by the imperial government were the financial, medical, excise (revenue), customs, imperial domains, military, and the communications offices (postal and telegraph, roads, railways). P R O , 2, article 7.

27

highest court {Hofgericht) had several counselors as members. The Councils also defended the interests of the corporations in the three year hiatus between the meetings of the diets. The counselors' influence extended into each locality. Rural self-government was well developed, especially in Livland. The basic unit was the parish {Kirchspiel), whose assembly consisted of manor owners with the power to act in consultation with local pastors and selected peasant church wardens {Kirchenvormünder). The assemblies were subordinated to four high church wardens {Oberkirchenvorsteher), who represented the most important organ in the district and reported to a counselor. The assemblies provided basic needs such as postal, police, and welfare services, education, religion, law and order, and also maintained roads, bridges, and public buildings and supervised recruitment. 46 In sum, the legal-administrative system of the provinces stretched downwards from the councils through district high wardens to the local church, police, and court institutions of each parish and peasant community. This system put the registered nobility in at least titular control of the whole countryside, a situation that remained virtually unchanged until the 1880's. This meant that the corporations were true ruling estates {Herrschaftsstände) well into the nineteenth century, a status that made them an anachronism by European standards. 47 What also strikes outsiders is the absence of any common organ that united the three provinces or, for that matter, of any political or administrative connection between town and countryside either among or within the three lands. This was partly the result of differing historical experiences, but also of a harsh climate (by European standards) and of poor communications that made travel and social contacts difficult up until the coming of the railroads in the 1870's. In addition, tensions among the Baltic Germans themselves, promoted by the rigid corporate-estate character of Baltic German society and the position of the German lords as foreign masters over indigenous populations, made formation of a unified order all but impossible. The next chapter examines the way these factors contributed to the pronounced provincialism and particularism found among the provinces and within the Stände, characteristics that took their origin in the German homelands, where provincial and particularist traditions were deeply embedded in confessional and regional distinctions.

46 SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 12-27; NOL'DE, Ocherki... kodifikatsii, 2: 403-406, TOBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1: 460-465. 47 OTTO BRUNNER, Adeliges Landleben und europäischer Geist (Salzburg, 1949) p. 327;

c f . SCHLINGENSIEPEN, p . 1.

28

We Baits were never a nation as such, but always only a layer, a socially upper layer. The Baltic land was always a colony, at first German, then a colony administered by Germans under different sovereignty. This explains first of all how the feeling of always standing on top became so traditional among German Baits. Colonialists always have this consciousness of mastery... always feel that they stand above the natives. And this also explains that indolent surety which was passed on from generation to generation, that "Baltic haughtiness," which in fact was nothing more than the perception ofplaying a decisive role in the homeland even as a single individual.1

C h a p t e r II: T h e S o c i a l S t a t u s of t h e Baltic German N o b i l i t y The term "identity crisis," so familiar to our modern world, would not have been understood by a Baltic German noble of the early nineteenth century. Baltic nobles knew exactly where they belonged and who they were. This was a comforting certainty, but one indicative also of the narrowness and provincialism that marked the Baltic German world. Membership in the Stand gave the nobles their status in society, provided a fundamental identity, and ensured a certainty of self-worth. That it was the Stand, not national identity, that was the most basic category for determining a person's place in society can be seen in relations within the world of the Baltic Germans themselves. The rigid corporate estate character of Baltic German society led to tensions and antipathies. German burghers in the "great guild" of merchants and the "small guild" of artisans ruled the towns just as the incorporated nobility ruled the countryside. Each guarded its prerogatives and privileges and each feared encroachment by the other. Just as the upper crust of town society was composed of patricians in the merchant guild, so the incorporated nobility held an equivalent position in the countryside. Social contacts between the estates was minimal, as each moved in its own circles and clubs; in towns like Reval, nobles lived in their own district. To further stress their superior social status, many registered noble families, 1

BRUNO ERDMANN, "Einige Glossen über baltische Lebensformen," BM 55 (1913), 1: 412. Erdmann wrote at a time when the nobility was on the defensive.

29

We Baits were never a nation as such, but always only a layer, a socially upper layer. The Baltic land was always a colony, at first German, then a colony administered by Germans under different sovereignty. This explains first of all how the feeling of always standing on top became so traditional among German Baits. Colonialists always have this consciousness of mastery... always feel that they stand above the natives. And this also explains that indolent surety which was passed on from generation to generation, that "Baltic haughtiness," which in fact was nothing more than the perception ofplaying a decisive role in the homeland even as a single individual.1

C h a p t e r II: T h e S o c i a l S t a t u s of t h e Baltic German N o b i l i t y The term "identity crisis," so familiar to our modern world, would not have been understood by a Baltic German noble of the early nineteenth century. Baltic nobles knew exactly where they belonged and who they were. This was a comforting certainty, but one indicative also of the narrowness and provincialism that marked the Baltic German world. Membership in the Stand gave the nobles their status in society, provided a fundamental identity, and ensured a certainty of self-worth. That it was the Stand, not national identity, that was the most basic category for determining a person's place in society can be seen in relations within the world of the Baltic Germans themselves. The rigid corporate estate character of Baltic German society led to tensions and antipathies. German burghers in the "great guild" of merchants and the "small guild" of artisans ruled the towns just as the incorporated nobility ruled the countryside. Each guarded its prerogatives and privileges and each feared encroachment by the other. Just as the upper crust of town society was composed of patricians in the merchant guild, so the incorporated nobility held an equivalent position in the countryside. Social contacts between the estates was minimal, as each moved in its own circles and clubs; in towns like Reval, nobles lived in their own district. To further stress their superior social status, many registered noble families, 1

BRUNO ERDMANN, "Einige Glossen über baltische Lebensformen," BM 55 (1913), 1: 412. Erdmann wrote at a time when the nobility was on the defensive.

29

particularly of Kurland and Livland, had their titles of " b a r o n " or " c o u n t , " which dated back to the period before 1700, confirmed by the heraldry department of the Senate in St. Petersburg in the first half of the nineteenth century. 2

Stand and S o c i a l S t r u c t u r e The importance of Stand is underlined by the emergence in the late 1820's and 1830's of a socially important and uniquely Baltic group, the literati, a term that gained currency around the time of their appearance. The Literatenstand

was

neither legally constituted nor politically privileged, though it did enjoy certain privileges, such as exemption from personal taxation. 3 The "literati" were those

2 The honorific "von" did not always indicate a Baltic noble. Literati whose families attained noble status through service used it as well and this was a bone of contention between literati and matriculated noblemen. Peter the Great had created the titles of baron and count (Graf) and successive rulers awarded them liberally. As the titles were also used by persons who had no right to them, the Imperial Government issued laws in 1833 and 1852 regulating the lawful use of titles. On this basis, some nobles who were matriculated or received a baron title after 1700 also petitioned for the baron title. The code of Baltic corporate law (Ständerecht) set out conditions for titling among the Baltic nobility in article 28. With the promulgation of controlling legislation, all of Kurland's nobility sought and received confirmation of their titles, while in Livland forty eight families had their title of "baron" confirmed and two of "count" in the period from 1832 to 1862, most of them in the early 1850's. (Figures for Livland titles based on Zur Geschichte der Ritterschaften in Livland und Oesel). Livland's applications were made through the Council of the Diet, which kept the records. Applicant families were divided into several categories: those who before 1700 were barons or "Freiherren" and stemmed from the oldest (altadelige) families (Budberg, Ungern-Sternberg, Meyendorff, Uexküll, Löwenwolde, Mengden, Wrangell, Fersen, Boije, Schoultz von Ascheraden, Güldenhoff), those families who held the Swedish title of baron but were only registered after 1700 (Posse, Delwig), families that were matriculated before 1700 but received the baron title afterwards (Igelström, Campenhausen, Klebeck, Schlippenbach, Loudon), Estland nobles who were accepted into the Livland register with baron titles from before 1700 (Rosen, Rehbinder, Taube, Pahlen, Güldenband, Clodt von Jürgensburg, Bielsky, Osten-Sacken), families that were registered in the Russian period as barons (Schafirou, Wolff, Sievers, Weissmann von Weissenstein, Malama, Bruiningk, Arpshofen, Rosenkampff, Nolcken), and finally those families that were registered before 1700 but received their baron title on the basis of the legislation of 1833 (Vietinghoff, gen. Scheel, Ceumern, P. Hahn, Th. Hahn) and on the legislation of 1852 (Tiesenhausen, Krüdener, Stackelberg, Maydell, Engelhardt, Pilar von Püchau, Wrangell-Turnishoff). ( L W A , fond 214, Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 138 and 141; see also ibid., fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 13, Lietas Nr. 256, 324 and 351.) Many other Baltic noble families called themselves barons without such confirmation, as they held the equivalent title of Freiherr through Sweden, Poland, the Holy Roman Empire, or various of the German states. The Baltic biographical dictionary maintains a distinction between the holders of the "Russian" title of baron and that of Freiherr, even among families that called themselves "baron." Deutschhaitisches Biographisches Lexikon 1710-1910, ed. WILHELM LENZ (Cologne, 1970), p. viii. See also HSA, Kurländische Ritterschaften 701, XIV. Karton 4, Mappe 13.

30

non-noble Baltic Germans, native or immigrant, who had received a higher education at a university or equivalent institution (e.g. a higher school of forestry). 4 This group formed first in Kurland in the seventeenth and especially in the eighteenth century, and then took hold in the other provinces. It included, first of all, the clergy, then increasingly in the nineteenth century teachers, medical doctors, jurists, pharmacists, architects, librarians, archivists, certified engineers, and foresters. 5 Literati held as their main value Bildung,

an educational and cul-

tural ideal that had arisen in early nineteenth century Germany. Bildung

cen-

tered around an education in the Greek and Roman classics, but drew intellectually on the literary, philosophic, and scientic achievements of the German cultural elite of the eighteenth century. 6 Many literati, particularly clergy and teachers, immigrated into the Baltic provinces in the eighteenth century and early decades of the nineteenth century and brought with them knowledge of the new German cultural awakening. Immigration from the German lands

3 Imperial legislation created a new category of "honorary citizens" in 1832 which included the literati. Since Swedish times the Lutheran clergy had its own legal status, which included tax exemption. After the introduction of the Russian form of municipal government in 1877, the literati received city voting rights if they paid a special tax, a right lost in the conservative electoral reform of 1892. EVGENII BLUMENBAKH, Grazhdanskoe sostoianie (soslovie) ν Rossii ν chastnosti ν Pribaltiiskikh gubemiiakh, ego prava i obiazannosti (Riga, 1899), pp. 22-29. For literature on the literati, see WILHELM LENZ, Der baltische Literatenstand, Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ost-Mitteleuropas, no. 7 (Marburg, 1953); WILHELM RAEDER, Kurländische Akademikerfamilien (Manuscript, Herder Institut, Marburg, 1953); CLARA REDLICH, "'Literaten' in Riga und Reval im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert," in Reval und die baltischen Länder, Festschrift für Hellmuth Weiss, ed.

JÜRGEN VON H E H N a n d CSABA JÄNOS KEN£Z ( M a r b u r g , 1 9 8 0 ) , p p . 2 9 5 - 3 1 2 ; WOLFGANG

WACHTSMUTH, "Adel und Literatentum, ihre Struktur und ihre gegenseitigen Beziehungen: Ein Beitrag zur baltischen Standesgeschichte," BM 59 (1928):101—114; WACHTSMUTH, "Zur baltischen Ständegeschichte," BM 61 (1930):115-120. 4 Some literati families gained hereditary nobility through Imperial service. The reopening of Dorpat University in 1802 opened up opportunities for study at home at the same time as the status of teachers was improved through educational reforms. The emergence of the humanities and natural sciences as subjects independent from theology in the nineteenth century was the most important factor in the growth of the literati. REDLICH, "'Literaten'", P. 3 1 1 . 5 HELGE HANDRACK, "Soziale Inzucht unter kurländischen Literatenfamilien," in Genealogisches Jahrbuch 8 (1968):63; ROLAND SEEBERG-ELVERFELDT, "Die baltische Genealogie," in Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung, ed. GEORG VON RAUCH

(Cologne, 1986), p. 157; WACHTSMUTH, " A d e l , " pp. 1 0 1 - 1 0 4 ; KOHL, 1:421. Stände

lines

were especially sharply drawn in Kurland between the literati and nobility, and not even death overcame this antagonism; in Mitau, for example, separate cemeteries were supported by nobility and literati. 6

ARMSTRONG, P. 6 6 .

31

diminished once Dorpat University, refounded in 1802, began to produce its own contingent of literati.7 An exaggerated sense of self-important pride and a haughtiness towards the German burghers (a term used in a decidedly derogatory fashion) and toward a nobility that supposedly lacked "mental powers" compensated the literati in some measure for their lack of political power. 8 Attempts made by the Literatenstand as late as the 1860's to gain entry to the "great guild" of merchants were repeatedly denied. 9 Socially the literati kept to themselves except in the countryside, where there was little alternative (on either side) to social contact with the local nobility. This was particularly true of the Lutheran clergy, some three hundred pastors, who worked closely together with the nobility in local government and school administration. The pastors' livelihood depended on the patronage of the noble manor owner; the manor lord relied in turn on the pastor to mold the peasants into obedient Christians who would accept the patriarchal hierarchy of the countryside as part of God's order. Pastors emulated the life style of the nobility to the extent they could and shared common concerns, particularly agricultural, as many pastors ran the usually small manors {Kirchenwidme) that came with the parish house. 10 Gradually by the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century there emerged a certain cultural accommodation between nobles and literati, the literati acquiring "noble" manners and the nobility claiming respect for learning and culture (Bildung).11 After the 1860's each moved closer to the other under the growing threats to Baltic German supremacy that gave the literati the opportunity to take on the role of mediator between burghers and nobles. 7

As an example of the life and work of an immigrant literat, see KARL-OTTO SCHLAU, Mitau im 19. Jahrhundert. Lehen und Wirken des Bürgermeisters Franz von Zuccalmaglio (1800-1873), Beiträge zur baltischen Geschichte, vol. 15 (Wedemark-Elze, 1995). The nobility had tried for decades to re-establish Dorpat University which had collapsed in 1710. In the capitulation agreements, Peter I recommended its re-establishment, but only under Paul was the university's foundation achieved in a decree of 9 April 1798. Dorpat's opening was postponed because of Paul's death and the opposition of Kurland's corporation to the university's location in Dorpat instead of Mitau. In 1802 Dorpat opened its doors, initially supported and administered by the corporations, but then put under the authority of the ministry of education, a decision which evoked much controversy. RODERICH VON ENGELHARDT, Die deutsche Universität Dorpat in ihrer geistesgeschichtlichen Bedeutung (Munich, 1933), pp. 24-57. 8 REINHARD WITTRAM, Drei Generationen. Deutschland, Livland, Russland. 1830-1914 (Göttingen, 1949), p. 242. 9

10

AUGUST BULMERINCQ, " B a l t i s c h e P r e s s e " , Β Μ 5 ( 1 8 6 2 ) , 1:80.

In 1841 there existed 221 country parsonages (Pastorate) in the provinces (Livland 101, Osel thirteen, Estland thirty nine, and Kurland sixty seven). NOL'DE, Ocherki... kodifikatsii, 2:663-666. WILHELM LENZ, "Die Verfassungs-und Sozialgeschichte der baltischen evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche 1710-1914," in Baltische Kirchengeschichte, ed. REINHARD WLTTRAM (Göttingen, 1956), pp. 110-129. 11 ARMSTRONG, p. 66. The same accommodation had occurred in the German lands between the Bildungsbürgertum and the nobility. See HANSJOACHIM HENNING, Das Bildungsbürgertum in den Preussischen Westprovinzen (Wiesbaden, 1972), pp. 484—491. 32

In terms of social standing and prestige, the Landsassen, a term that included both non-matriculated nobility and burgher manor owners, restricted social relations mainly to themselves and the literati, since they were looked down upon by upper crust nobility and themselves looked down on everyone else. In addition, the countryside held yet another social group unique to the Baltic, the landische Mittelstand, or country middle class. Like the literati and Landsassen, this group was not legally incorporated; until mid-nineteenth century it consisted of mainly German estate lease-holders and administrators, bailiffs, foresters, and civil servants such as land surveyors or postmasters. 12 Social lines between this group and the literati were fluid, since sons of the former who studied at university automatically became literati. All of these German groups looked down upon and largely ignored (until after the revolution of 1905) the Kleindeutsche, the "little Germans" of town and country, who held the diverse occupations that make society work and that ranged from cooks and millers to artisans of every sort. The "little Germans" were for the most part uneducated, and since they lived in close contact with the indigenous population, there was a level of mutual assimilation, particularly through the so-called Halbdeutsche. This term, "half Germans," referred not to Germans at all, but to those Latvians and Estonians with economic and social aspirations who moved to the towns and who took on German language and German ways of life, if not necessarily German culture.13 The nobility probably despised the Kleindeutsche more than they did the natives and certainly never developed towards them the sense of paternalism they had towards the natives. The "little Germans," in turn, had someone else to despise, the natives, who were called "UnGermans" (Undeutsche) or "Nationals" and in intercourse with them the "little Germans" laid claim to the title "wohlgeboren" or "wellborn," 12 To this group also belonged scribes and inn and tavern keepers. Many of these looked for better opportunities in the urban areas of the Baltic or the Empire and Germany after mid-century, diminishing the German element in the countryside; others became assimilated with the natives. HELLMUTH WEISS, "Die historischen Gesellschaften," in Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung, p. 121. 13 The peasantry did not approve of these aspirations and used various derogatory nicknames to show their disapproval. These names were (as cited in Baltic German sources) either halfdüdesche Landdeutsche (Est. Maasaksad), Katersassen, Striiffeldeutsche, Wachholderdeutsche (Est. Kadakasaksad), meaning neither tree nor bush. See OTTO TAUBE, Im alten Estland. Kindheitserinnerungen (Stuttgart, 1949), p. 85, ECKARDT, Baltische Provinzen, p. 23, TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung,, 1:399, 421. Latvian peasants called these people "willow Germans." The term svauksts (from a fictional character in a Latvian novel) entered the Latvian language as the word used to designate anyone who sought to pose as a member of some group of higher status. See ANDREJS PLAKANS, The Latvians. A Short History (Stanford, 1995), p. 99. "Germanization" continued, if less frequently, after the 1860's, when movements of national awakening and economic and social changes offered more opportunities to the indigenous population. But national boundaries remained permeable throughout the imperial period. As late as the 1900's Latvian and Estonian politicians complained about the assimilation of some upwardly mobile urban elements to the Germans.

33

meaning of gentle birth.14 When they were employed at manors, little Germans insisted on being served at a separate "German table" as opposed to the "people's table," where food was of lesser quality. 15 Overall, the common feature that all Baltic Germans shared were pride, haughtiness, arrogance, and intolerance towards the natives. As Viktor Hehn, the Baltic German scholar and writer, noted about the German "colonialists" of the provinces in 1848, they were all "aristocrats ... compared to the Germans in Germany." The publicist Julius Eckardt echoed Hehn in 1860 when he characterized his countrymen: [As] a colonialist he is at the same time a born aristocrat, conscious at every hour of his superiority to the natives, be this a real superiority or an imagined one... the frequently caricatured, always proud self-consciousness of being a German and, as such, an apostle of culture, raises the poorest small burgher over his Latvian and Estonian surroundings and fills him with the pretence to a certain importance.16

But though that apostledom might serve as a badge of superiority vis-a-vis the native, German nationality did nothing to overcome status differences and tensions among the Germans themselves. Forms of address used by noble, literati, and burgher daughters and wives strictly followed estate lines, as did language generally. Germans with pretensions to upper class status spoke Baltic high German, a dialect with its own linguistic peculiarities, while low German, which had been the common language before the reformation, was used by the "little Germans."17 The strictly hierarchical social order of Baltic German society was a reflection that Stand, not nationality, was the basic and most important element in the relations of German to German, a relationship marked by antagonisms and tensions. The Baltic German world was one of particularism within particularism.

Baltic Provincial Particularism The rigid corporate estate character of Baltic German society was a product of historical experience, geography, and cultural characteristics that together contributed to the marked particularism and provincialism of the Baltic provinces. 14

JULIUS ECKARDT, Zur Charakteristik

der Balten. Eine Analyse aus dem Jahre 1863, re-

p r i n t e d ( H a m b u r g - R a h l s t e d , 1 9 6 2 ) pp. 4, 11; PHILIPP, p. 8 9 . See KOHL, 1 : 4 1 6 , 2 : 3 1 2 . 15 See for example SOPHIE VON HAHN, In Gutshäusern und Residenzen. Denkwürdigkeiten der Freifrau Sophie von Hahn, ed. OTTO VON TAUBE (Hannover, 1964), p. 168; TAUBE, Im alten, p. 89; WITTRAM, Drei Generationen, p. 151. 16 In order of quotation, VIKTOR HEHN, "Über den Charakter der Liv-, Est-Kurländer

( 1 8 4 8 ) , " BM 5 9 ( 1 9 2 8 ) : 5 9 3 ; ECKARDT, Zur

Charakteristik,

p. 5.

KURT STEGMANN VON PRITZWALD, "Das baltische Deutsch als Standessprache," Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 1 (1952): 407-422. An artisan's daughter was addressed as Mamsell, a literati daughter as Madmoiselle, and a noble girl as Fräulein. 17

34

The early German conqueror, knight or merchant, brought from his homeland an already well developed habit of particularism and provincialism, an attachment to a specific locality and bonds of loyalty to corporate estate. By the time the Swedes and Poles had each gained control over a portion of the lands of the Livonian Confederation, there had already developed corporate estates with an autonomous corporate life and with members whose rights and privileges were firmly embedded in their role in the local government and economy. Association with Sweden for Livland and Estland, and with Poland for Kurland, reinforced an initial particularism and provincialism. It is no surprise, then, that the Baltic civil law code, which reflected this historical experience, should contain special legal provisions for ten individual localities, provisions that themselves varied according to estates. 18 Beyond this, there was no common political institution to tie together the provinces, or even countryside and towns within each province. The one institution which might have acted as a unifying force, Dorpat University, fell short of fulfilling this role because even there students organized themselves into fraternities based on geographical origin, thus only reinforcing provincial loyalty. This "particularistic cliqueism" characterized all of Baltic German life. 19 The resulting lack of communality and cohesion was much criticized in the second half of the 19th century, when actions of the imperial government and the national awakening of Latvians and Estonians increasingly put into question the privileged status of the Germans. Geography also played a role in distancing the provinces from each other. The quality of soil and the partly continental, partly maritime climate, with a long harsh winter and a short rainy summer, resulted in marshy ground and impassable roads that made communication difficult both within and among the provinces. Baltic German diaries, memoirs, and correspondence abound in memories of the logistical problems of cumbersome travel (such as the need to 18 The Baltic civil code, published in 1864, was not uniform, but contained special laws for individual localities which differed according to the person's estate. Laws and codes, largely based on North German codes (the Sachsenspiegel) were brought along by the German conquerors and became the basis for the law of the land and nobility (Land- und Ritterrechte). Towns took over the codes of the leading cities of the Hanseatic League, Lübeck and Hamburg. Principles of Roman law were first applied in the 14th century, and beginning in 1561, Roman and Swedish law became other sources of legislation. The most useful handbook for the study of civil law, and the only one published since codification, was written by Professor of Baltic civil law, Carl Erdmann, formerly a practicing attorney, who particularly stressed the influence of Roman law. CARL ERDMANN, System des Privatrechts der Ostseeprovinzen Liv-, Est- und Curland 4 vols. (Riga, 1889-1894). Prior to Erdmann, the works of FRIEDRICH GEORG VON BUNGE were the standards for Baltic civil law. See, for example, Das liv- und esthländische Privatrecht wissenschaftlich dargestellt 2 vols. (Reval, 1847-1848). 19 ERNST SERAPHIM, Im neuen Jahrhundert. Baltische Rückblicke und Ausblicke (Riga, 1902), p. 13.

35

take along basic household items such as bedding and provisions) as well as the dire state of roads. 20 An expanded communications network, in particular railroads, came only after the 1870's. Until then, visiting one province from another, let alone more distant travel, remained a major enterprise. The resulting provincial insularity with all its oddities and peculiarities was a feature of Baltic German life remarked upon by nearly every outside visitor. According to local lore, the different character of the provinces led to the formation of specific provincial types whose characteristics were commented upon by foreigners and Baltic Germans alike. Kohl, for example, wrote that "on the whole the Kurlanders are held to have the best heads, the Livlanders to have the best educated people, the Estlanders to be the most military men. However as soon as provincial antipathies are incited, one hears the Kurlander accuse the Livlander of unreliability, and he, in turn, accuses the Kurlander of rashness and impetuosity, while both accuse the gullible Estlander of denseness." 21 The Danes and Swedes, the former rulers of Estland, were held to be clumsy themselves and therefore responsible also for the Estlander's alleged "clumsiness". Similarly, it was long association with Poles that accounted for the smooth manners of the Kurlander and his tendency towards pleasure seeking. 22 Such local specifics aside, whether real or imagined, almost all agreed that the Baltic Germans shared an ingrownness and narrowmindedness that went together with their particularism and provincialism and were perhaps the not unnatural result of their colonial circumstances. Similarly, they all shared a common characteristic with colonial masters elsewhere in an inclination toward comfort, indolence, personal gratification, and a social life made possible by a serving and servile population. As Otto von Gruenewaldt wrote in 1823 to his future father-in-law, Professor Moritz von Engelhardt, "Indolence is our hereditary enemy, over whom we have to be victorious, especially in our fatherland, where we can live as comfortably as princes." 23 Under such conditions, life had few stresses and there was little need for a competitive spirit. But even without this special "colonial" position, the Baltic German nobility was hardly alone in sharing with other privileged ruling classes a preference for leisure to hard work; neither was it the only nobility where a stern Lutheranism with its condemnation of idleness imposed some limits to this inclination. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, when changed political and economic circumstances demanded a vigorous response from the leaders of Baltic society, the behavior and 20 As a representative example, see the memoirs of Reinhold Stael von Holstein, in which the state of the roads and travel problems take a prominent role. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 633 and 634, passim. 2 1 K O H L , 1:430; see a l s o ECKARDT, Zur p . 21. 2 2 ECKARDT, Zur Charakteristik, P. 4.

23

36

Charakteristik,

p p . 4 - 5 ; SERAPHIM, Im

neuen,

OTTO VON GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne eines Hauses, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1900), 2:261.

values of the nobility were criticized by local and foreign commentators, and regarded, especially by the literati, as a major impediment to progress. 24

S o c i a l D i f f e r e n t i a t i o n w i t h i n the N o b i l i t y Although all members of the matriculated Baltic German nobility were equal in privilege, within its ranks there was sharp social differentiation based on wealth and education, and also on service position at home or in the Empire. Geography also played a role, as Estland's nobility, rooted in a land of poor soil and climate, was the poorest; many young people were forced to leave the province and seek a living in Imperial service or elsewhere. Osel's island status also limited opportunities and forced many to seek their fortunes elsewhere, again predominantly in Imperial service. 25 A t the top of the social pyramid in terms of prestige, and not infrequently wealth, stood the grandest of Baltic German seigneurs, those who held elite positions in the civil and military service of the Empire. 2 6 N o exact figures exist for the percentage of Baltic German nobles among the upper service elite, but between nineteen to thirty-three percent of this elite had German sounding names at the end of the 18th century and into the first decades of the nineteenth cen-

24 ECKARDT, Zur Charakteristik, 5-7; also HUPEL, "Anmerkungen," Topographische Nachrichten, vols. 1 and 2, passim·, KARL WILHELM KRUSE, Kurland unter den Herzögen,

2 vols. (Königsberg, 1833), 1:321.

25 In her dissertation on the service activity of the Baltic German nobility under Alexander I and Nicholas I, Nolle analyzed service figures for Estland and Osel based on the genealogical registers, though these are not completely reliable, and she recognized that the resulting figures were hardly representative of the other Baltic corporations. According to her sources, more than fifty percent (3,600 of 6,300) of males who reached service age served the Empire, mostly in elevated positions. Of 3,600 males, 900 (twenty-five percent) reached the higher and upper ranks. Of these 900, 600 served in the military and 300 in the civil service, though under Nicholas I in particular many military men also took a turn in the civil service. 600 of them married Russian women and their descendants were almost all Russified. ANNELIESE NÖLLE, Zur Wirksamkeit des haltischen Adels in Russland unter Alexander I und Nikolaus I (Munich, 1940), pp. 6-7. Osel's corporation contributed twenty-five generals and fourteen governors and senators to imperial service. Zur Geschichte, p. 18. The figures for Estland confirm General Eduard von Lowenstern's comment that "as a poor Estland noble I had no other perspective than to seek my fortune in the military." EDUARD VON LÖWENSTERN, Mit Graf Pahlens Reiterei gegen Napoleon, ed. GEORG VON WRANGELL. (Berlin, 1910), p. 2; cf. NOLLE, Zur "Wirksamkeit, p. 31. Estland's poverty is also indicated in a high turnover of manor ownership much higher than among the other Baltic corporations. In the three land rolls of Estland manors from 1765 to 1902, for example, only fifty-nine families still held the same estate in 1902 as in 1765. The English traveler Elizabeth Rigby disapproved of this trend, so much at odds with England, when she visited her relatives in Estland in the 1830's. Figures based on Estland. Rittergutsbesitz in den Jahren 1765, 1818, 1902 (Reval, 1909). ELIZABETH RLGBY, Letters from the Shores of the Baltic, 2 vols. (London, 1842), 1:207.

37

tury. As Pintner has noted, the importance and "visibility" of non-Russians in the civil service tended to conceal the numerical preponderance of Russians. Among the top ranks there was certainly a high proportion of Baltic German nobles, who, better educated and more skilled than their Russian counterparts, were quick to take advantage of the rapidly expanding service opportunities after Peter's conquests in the Northern War. 27 Baltic German nobles did particularly well in such branches of service as the diplomatic corps, where their education, language skills, and international connections were particularly useful to the Russian Empire.28 According to Erik Amburger, in the period from 1801 to 1855 fifteen Baltic German nobles held Imperial ambassadorial posts. In Alexander I's personal suite, Baltic nobles numbered four of forty-six generals adjutant (9%), and eleven of 113 aides-de-camp (also 9%). Under Nicholas I these figures rose to nineteen of 125 generals adjutant (15 %), twenty-three of 135 major-generals and rear-admirals (16%), and thirty-seven of 242 aides-decamp (15%). In 1801 the imperial Senate included three Baltic nobles of a total of forty four, a figure that rose by an additional twenty-one by 1855. Nineteen Baltic German nobles were appointed to the State Council from 1801-1855, which had 55 members in 1854 (six by Alexander I and thirteen by Nicholas I). Another five served in ministerial posts, two held governor-generalships, and one held the position of commander-in-chief of the Caucasus. 29 This Imperial service elite cultivated close ties with court circles and provided a network of useful contacts for the brethren at home. Still, by no means all of them kept in touch with the provinces or, still less, educated their children there. For education and service advancement the service seigneurs preferred the elite institutions of Tsarskoe Selo or the School of Jurisprudence, both of which 26 As top ranks in the civil service were counted, ranks one through five though ranks three to five were most important, as only the minister of foreign affairs (or a field marshal in the military) held rank one and some senior statesmen held rank two. Ranks six to eight were upper middle service ranks. W A L T E R PLNTNER, "The Russian Higher Civil Service on the Eve of the 'Great Reforms', "Journal of Social History, Spring 1 9 7 5 , p. 6 5 ; see also P l N T NER, "The Social Characteristics of the Early Nineteenth Century Russian Bureaucracy," Slavic Review 2 9 , No. 3 ( 1 9 7 0 ) : 4 3 1 . In 1 7 9 6 , 7 0 8 men served in the positions one through five; this rose to 1 , 7 9 1 in 1 8 4 7 . PETR ANDREEVICH ZAIONCHKOVSKII, Pravitel'stvennyi apparat samoderzhavnoi Rossii ν XIX v. (Moscow, 1 9 7 8 ) , p. 6 7 . 27 PlNTNER, "Social Characteristics," p. 431. Pintner examined high level officials on the eve of the Great Reforms. Of these, eighty percent were Orthodox, that is Russian or Russianized, fourteen percent Lutheran, largely Baltic German, and six percent Roman Catholic, mainly Poles. PlNTNER, "The Russian," pp. 6 5 - 6 6 ; cf. N.P. EROSHKIN, Krepostnicheskoe samoderzhavie i ego politicheskye instituty (pervaia polovina XlXveka) (Moscow, 1981), pp. 78-79. 2 8 N O L L E , pp. 7-9. Amburger established that of 355 Baltic Germans who reached elite positions in the Empire, 243, that is sixty nine percent, were members of the Baltic corporations. ERIK AMBURGER, Die Geschichte der Behördenorganisation Russlands von Peter dem Grossen his 1917 (Leiden, 1966), p. 517. 29 Cited in N O L L E , pp. 7-9.

38

guaranteed an open door to a successful service career.30 Some of them married Russians, with the consequence that within a generation or two their families had become more or less Russified. Such a course was usual enough that many Baltic German families had wholly Russified branches. This was particularly the case with Estland's nobility where by 1914, of one hundred and four families, seventy-four had Russian branches.31 Nonetheless, the elite group that actually spent all or most of its life outside the provinces was small, and the majority of Baltic German nobles lived in the Baltic countryside as traditional manor lords. Rooted in the land and popularly nicknamed " Landsche" (from the countryside), with the name of the manor often replacing the family name in familiar address, the landed nobility's (Landadel) main occupation was agriculture. Most nobles ran their own affairs, though often with the assistance of hired managers. A sample of an 1861 address book of Livland's manors shows that of 156 manors of the matriculated nobility, 120 (77%) were managed by the owners alone, twenty eight (18 %) were rented by the owners to burgher leaseholders, six (4%) were rented to other matriculated nobles, and two (1 %) to members of the service nobility.32 Of the absentee manor lords, some had chosen to live in towns in retirement or to educate their minor children, some were occupied with corporation business, and most of the remainder were absent on Imperial service. The main profession of the majority at home was "farmer" {Landwirt)·, in practice this meant the exercise of authority over the peasantry. Up through the first decades of the nineteenth century it was also customary for this group to spend some years in Imperial service, usually the military, and then return home with the respectable title of captain before settling down to the life of a country squire. Within this group of "farmers" there were of course social distinctions based on wealth and education. Those who were better off financially were able to secure a university education and were then eligible, after training in lower posts, for service in the more important provincial administrative posts, such as counselors or marshals of nobility. According to Hasselblatt and Otto, over the period from 1810-1850, twenty-two graduates of Dorpat University became marshals of nobility and another fifty-four became counselors of Estland

3 0 ARMSTRONG, " M o b i l i z e d " p. 71. See, f o r example BERNHARD FREIHERR VON UEXKÜLL, " A l s Schüler im L y z e u m von Zarskoje Sjelo, Staatsbeamter in St. Petersburg und Student in Berlin," Zwischen Reval und St. Petersburg, ed. HENNING VON WLSTLNGHAUSEN (Weissenborn, 1993), pp. 27-82. 3 1 SCHLINGENSIEPEN, p. 5. 3 2 Figures based on JEGOR VON SLVERS, Das Buch der Güter Livlands und Oeseis (Riga, 1863).

39

and Livland. 33 These positions carried great prestige and required concomitant personal financial outlays. Those less well off, who were usually less well educated as well, served in the lower administrative positions and then spent their lives in agricultural pursuits. A m o n g these were quite a few of the "proper Landjunker"

w h o m Professor Moritz von Engelhardt characterized to his son-

in-law O t t o von Gruenewaldt as "damned to indolence" and uninterested in intellectual matters. These were the petty squires who, in Engelhardt's words, hold that regular chats with the overseer, a few leisurely rides across the land and meadows, anxiety over rain and sunshine, the dispatch of a grain or liquor shipment, the keeping of account books, trips at March and midsummer to Reval, hunts for hares, card parties, and horse trading are the only worthy and possible occupations of a genuine matriculated nobleman.34 A t the bottom of the social pyramid was a subgroup of the "proper ker" type, the Krautjunker,

in Livland called Pulkajunker,

Landjun-

a pejorative term

used for nobles with little education, narrow vision, low living standards and less culture. Pulka Krautjunker

made a living either on their own poorly run

manors or as lease-holders and administrators. When Sophie von Hahn, who had married a Baltic German noble, came to Kurland in 1823 she described after a visit with a Pulkajunker

family, "... a wooden house. White painted walls,

no picture, no curtains, straw chairs, no book except the calendar, the level of education of the wife corresponded to this simple environment, and a crowd of children ... gave proof in clothing and manners that from this tribe could come forth only titled peasants." 3 5 33

A R N O L D HASSELBLATT a n d GUSTAV O T T O , Von

den

14,000

Immatriculirten

Dorpats

(Dorpat, 1891), pp. 100-102. 34 GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 2:62. Gruenewaldt had asked for advice on how to combine a scientific career with agriculture. Engelhardt recommended a combination that could also serve as a role model for other nobles. When Sophie von Hahn commented on the social life among Kurland nobles and at her own home, she found it boring because "they speak only of the hunt, duels, the price of grain, food, and bad harvests. In short, many among them are only peasants in frock coats and with a genealogical tree." HAHN, In Gutshäusern, p. 145. 35 HAHN, In Gutshäusern, p. 146. The anti-noble literat Eduard Osenbrüggen caricatured the Pulkajunker as "those nullities, the genuine sons of the field and fright of the forests." OSENBRÜGGEN, Nordische Bilder (Leipzig, 1853), p. 128. The term Krautjunker carried a polemical and often pejorative connotation in Prussian history. The collective characteristics of this group were held to be, among others, provincialism, lack of education, narrowmindedness, obstinacy, rigidity, inflexibility and stubborness, egotism, and selfishness. In the Baltic provinces, this term was not used in inter-class polemics, but was applied among the nobles themselves, pejoratively, to their poorer, barely educated, narrow minded brethren. In his memoirs, OTTO VON GRUENEWALDT, mentioned how he took over the administration of a manor from a Baron Maydell who was "completely uneducated, a Krautjunker, who had learned agriculture in a practical fashion." Lehenserinnerungen (HannoverDöhren, 1977), p. 74. Pulkajunker derived from the Estonian word Pulk, a notched stick where a tally was kept of peasants' corvee. G. BERTRAM [GEORG VON SCHULTZ], Baltische Skizzen oder 50 Jahre Zurück (Dorpat, 1873), p. 26. 40

Finally, at the very bottom of the social scale were the Krippenreiter, "riders from manger to manger," men, usually bachelors, destitute because they had wasted their inheritance, because they were lazy, because there were simply too many sons in the family, or because, in Kurland's case, inheritance laws favored first born sons of entailed manors. Such failed existences were held to shun any kind of personal exertion; even the option of seeking employment for themselves in imperial service required too much initiative, energy, and will power. Krippenreiter were looked on with a certain amount of tolerance by noble society. Making use of the great hospitality of their brethren, these men spent their lives riding from manor to manor, partaking of country pleasures and trying to make themselves useful to their hostesses, who supplied them, in turn, with basic necessities. 36 Irrespective of this social differentiation within noble society, social status and identity were derived from membership in the corporation and it is within this setting that the Baltic German nobility developed its self-image.

3 6 F o r a literary presentation of Krippenreiter, see ALEXIS VON ENGELHARDT, Die Kavaliere von Illuxt (Munich, 1949), p p . 39—41. T h e Krippenreiter was a well k n o w n figure a m o n g Kurland's neighbors, the Prussian Junkers, and the Polish nobility.

41

But does one really believe that today we can no longer construct, not even in fantasy, an ideal of the true noble of our time? of a man of the finest bearing who puts at the service of an all encompassing Whole his abilities and his learning (Bildung), who combines chivalry and strength, character and culture, that he might dedicate his life to the idea that he embodies, the land that he represents, the estate (Stand) that he belongs to?'

C h a p t e r I I I : T h e S e l f - I m a g e of B a l t i c German Nobility Privilege and wealth based on the status of a nobility of blood, not of service, formed the core of the Baltic German noble's identity and consciousness. Privilege, wealth, and status were justified in the minds of the nobles by an image of themselves as a special group, set off from the rest of mankind by a distinct way of life and well-defined norms of character. Privilege and status required a private income, one preferably derived from landed property; privilege and status also carried obligations of duty. The nobility would hardly merit its status and would forfeit all respect if, in the words of an anonymous noble (writing in 1838 at the height of a publicistic controversy over the nobles' monopoly on land), it only "pursued private interests ... without bearing in mind the inborn obligations of its Stand." It was these "obligations of Stand" that defined the noble's sense of an "occupation" ( B e r u f ) suitable to noble rank. In the further words of the anonymous author, A major demand of a strong monarchy that rests on a firm foundation is a strong, educated, propertied nobility that is capable through intellectual and financial means to demonstrate in every way its loyalty and patriotism, to sacrifice personal considerations, to offer its services to the monarch, to protect the rights of the Throne, to preserve the interests of the lower estates through intercession, and to conduct every endeavor for the benefit of the fatherland with vigor and generosity. 2

1

2

C A R L E R D M A N N , " E w i g e P e r s o n e n , " BM

39 (1892):671.

"Über den Pfandbesitz adliger Güter," Das Inland, No. 11, 16 March 1838.

43

But does one really believe that today we can no longer construct, not even in fantasy, an ideal of the true noble of our time? of a man of the finest bearing who puts at the service of an all encompassing Whole his abilities and his learning (Bildung), who combines chivalry and strength, character and culture, that he might dedicate his life to the idea that he embodies, the land that he represents, the estate (Stand) that he belongs to?'

C h a p t e r I I I : T h e S e l f - I m a g e of B a l t i c German Nobility Privilege and wealth based on the status of a nobility of blood, not of service, formed the core of the Baltic German noble's identity and consciousness. Privilege, wealth, and status were justified in the minds of the nobles by an image of themselves as a special group, set off from the rest of mankind by a distinct way of life and well-defined norms of character. Privilege and status required a private income, one preferably derived from landed property; privilege and status also carried obligations of duty. The nobility would hardly merit its status and would forfeit all respect if, in the words of an anonymous noble (writing in 1838 at the height of a publicistic controversy over the nobles' monopoly on land), it only "pursued private interests ... without bearing in mind the inborn obligations of its Stand." It was these "obligations of Stand" that defined the noble's sense of an "occupation" ( B e r u f ) suitable to noble rank. In the further words of the anonymous author, A major demand of a strong monarchy that rests on a firm foundation is a strong, educated, propertied nobility that is capable through intellectual and financial means to demonstrate in every way its loyalty and patriotism, to sacrifice personal considerations, to offer its services to the monarch, to protect the rights of the Throne, to preserve the interests of the lower estates through intercession, and to conduct every endeavor for the benefit of the fatherland with vigor and generosity. 2

1

2

C A R L E R D M A N N , " E w i g e P e r s o n e n , " BM

39 (1892):671.

"Über den Pfandbesitz adliger Güter," Das Inland, No. 11, 16 March 1838.

43

T h e O b l i g a t i o n s of Stand Loyalty, patriotism, unselfishness, self-sacrifice in service to monarch and country, protection of the weak: these were the obligations of the nobility that justified its privileges as the first Stand and that gave the nobles prestige, respect, and authority in the eyes of the other Stände. It was these obligations, the author went on, that "lent to its members their sense of worth and inner sentiment, and that characterized them always as patriotic, loyal, and independent, men of their word and their honor."3 The emphasis found here on the nobility's human worth and merit reflects the cultural influence of the Enlightenment and the values of burgher society, where position and respect were supposed to be earned, not simply predicated on birth and caste privilege. The author further argued that the nobility's responsible position could only be maintained "because the nobility has the [duty to] represent the land, and the main requirement for that is to reside upon it." 4 Only total ownership of land would enable the nobility to fulfill its high duty of representing the land, a duty that led the nobility, as a burgher drily remarked, more often than not to a convenient "confusion of the interests of the Stand with those of the Land (country)."5 The Baltic German noble's arguments legitimizing the role of the Baltic nobility were not original, but reflected the conservative political ideology of Adam Müller and Karl Ludwig Haller of the first decades of the 19th century. They too were defenders of the old hierarchical order; as ideologues of paternalism they emphasized the social obligations of the "first" order towards the "lesser" ones and stressed the superiority of landed property over money, for money was bereft of loyalty, rootless and with no consciousness of social obligation.6 For Baltic German nobles, their land was supposed to be not only a means to support their families, but also a rationale to raise their children in the duties and obligations of their Stand. For centuries education and learning had been among the salient values of the Baltic German nobility.7 Land was the necessary prerequisite for aspirations to education and service, but in the ethos of the Baltic German noble land was not to be a source of material speculation or personal gain. Condemnation of capitalist behavior or "money grubbing" was widespread (and typical of nobility everywhere) and among the Baltic Germans earned the title of "field Jew" 3 Ibid., see also A. VON REUTZ, "Die Pfandhalter in Livland," Das Inland, No. 3, 19 January 1838. 4 EDUARD VON TIESENHAUSEN, "Das ausschliessliche Eigenthumsrecht des Adels an Landgütern," Das Inland, No. 30, 27 July 1838. 5 «-ψ » "Noch e i n Wort über das Recht des Güterbesitzes in Livland," Das Inland, No. 19, 11 May 1838. 6 See ADAM MÜLLER, Die Elemente der Staatskunst, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1809), 1:89-100. 7

ARMSTRONG, p p . 6 8 - 6 9 ; H E I D E W H E L A N , " B a l t h a s a r B a r o n C a m p e n h a u s e n

(1745-

1800): Portrait of a Baltic Civil Servant," Journal of Baltic Studies 28, No. 1 (1987):45-58. 44

(Ackerjude)

for those w h o attempted to run their estates along rationalized and

profitable lines - a course that few were able t o avoid by the latter part of the 19th century. 8 Regardless of actual behavior, the ethos of the Baltic German n o bility required that they despise earnings gained by capitalist endeavor. 9 The notion was c o m m o n among the Baltic German nobility that owning land was equivalent t o holding office. Land was to be administered not for personal advantage, but for the welfare of the whole land, a notion not difficult to cultivate, given the tendency of the nobles to identify the interests of the Land with those of the Stand.™ Ownership of landed property made one a member of that " m o s t noble of professions," that of farmer (Landwirt).

T h e essence of the

noble's difference from other ranks of society, his nobility itself, derived from ownership of land and the independence granted to him by that ownership. 1 1 As August Julius von Kotzebue pointed out in his "Instructions to M y Children and Descendants" in 1850, Our forebears already designated all occupations which did not rest on landed property or on a certain independent grandeur as non-noble, and they were right. Landed property, however small it may be, lifts the soul in consciousness of free mastery and restricts degrading material speculation.

8 Friedrich von Rosen (1765-1838) commented that "Income played a subordinate role; under no condition did one want the reputation of a wheeler-dealer (Geschäftemacher), and as soon as a well known manor lord was such, he immediately had the nickname of Acker-

jude."

WOLDEMAR, FABIAN and INGEBORG VON ROSEN, Familiengeschichte

der

Freiherren

und Grafen von Rosen, 2 parts (privately printed Flensburg, 1971. Library Herder-Institut Marburg, 1:LXXX; cf. TAUBE, Im alten, p. 144; OSKAR GROSBERG, Meschwalden. Ein altlivländischer Gutshof (Leipzig, 1934), p. 198. Grosberg noted that "the baron holds the sale of forest as not appropriate to his Stand." ERNST VON MENSENKAMPFF, Menschen und Schicksale aus dem alten Livland (Tilsit, Leipzig, Riga, 1943), p. 252; NICOLAS FREIHERR VON WOLFF, Die Reichsfreiherren von Wolff in Livland 1670-1920 (Tartu, 1936), p. 94; CARL BRINKMANN, "Die Aristokratie im kapitalistischen Zeitalter," in Grundriss der Sozialökonomik, IX, part 1 (Tübingen, 1920), p. 24. 9

TAUBE, Im alten,

p. 144.

Adam Müller also held that "Landwirtschaft" was an "Amt." Die Elemente, 1:90. This conception did not change in the latter part of the 19th century. The author of an article in the agrarian weekly Die Baltische Wochenschrift in 1871, for example, attacked Baltic manor lords who engaged in wholesale cutting of their forests, so damaging to the land, as barbarians and commented "...whosoever is a landowner and only feels himself to be a capitalist, a money maker, and does not recognize that landed property is in a way an office (Amt), that each landowner is also an official of the land, obliged to promote the public welfare, that [person] we allow ourselves to call a barbarian." Cited in SCHLINGENSIEPEN, p. 95. Alexander von Keyserling noted that the Baltic nobility was never just a "pure genealogical nobility" but was of old an "occupational estate" (Berufsstand), based on the privileged right to manor ownership. "Letter to Baron von Taube, 9 June 1889," in Baltische Briefe aus zwei Jahrhunderten, ed. JULIUS ECKARDT, (Berlin, n.d.), p. 159. " EDUARD VON DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste der Heimat. Erinnerungen des Freiherm Eduard von Dellingshausen, Schriften des Deutschen Ausland-Instituts, no. 3 (Stuttgart, 1930), p. 59. 10

45

Some lines later he assures his descendants that "the school of life will teach you ... that the occupation of a human being exercises a mighty influence on his ways of thinking; one can certainly be respectable according to social conceptions, but still not noble, that is not magnanimous in every regard."12

L a n d as t h e B a s i s of S t a t u s Land was the aristocratic resource par excellence. Its material value was only part of the story, for ownership alone carried potent non-economic associations of prestige and authority. In the mind of the nobles, only a man who was master of his own dominion could be truly free and independent, selfless and magnanimous, because only he was beholden to no outside force. The well known naturalist Count Alexander von Keyserling claimed that in the course of his duties as lord of the manor, because this was a position that involved authority and the right of command, the noble would automatically develop the talents of a statesman.13 Masterdom, then, was both prerequisite and foundation to proper fulfillment of the noble's obligations to monarch and land. According to the self-image of the nobility, "genuine masterdom shows itself in absolute independence and, above all, in complete inner and outer independence, but not in conceit of Stand. Genuine masterdom rules and guides, but does not tyrannize." Herbert von Blanckenhagen, the author of these lines, gave as evidence of this absence of tyranny the nobility's voluntary emancipation of the peasantry in the first decades of the nineteenth century. This high-minded example of genuine masterdom conveniently ignores, of course, that the result of emancipation was to give the noble caste full control over all land.14

T h e E x e r c i s e a n d D u t i e s of M a s t e r y If the Baltic German noble saw himself as master over his peasants, his view of himself was as the exerciser of a benevolent mastery, of the sort that a kind but stern father might exercise. Baron Eduard von Tiesenhausen noted in the weekly Das Inland in 1838, "Our peasantry requires from the nobility more than anything, fatherly care and tutelage."15 Such paternalism is not uncharacteristic 12 13

HSA. Estländische Ritterschaft 702, Kotzebue. Nr.4. HELMUT MUSKAT, Bismarck und die Balten, Historische Studien, no. 260 (Berlin,

1 9 3 4 ) , p p . 5 6 , 5 7 , 6 2 ; ALEXANDER G R A F KEYSERLING, Ein Lebensbild Tagebüchern,

aus seinen

Briefen

und

e d . H E L E N E V O N TAUBE VON DER ISSEN, 2 v o l s . ( B e r l i n , 1 9 0 2 ) , 1 : 3 3 7 , 4 2 6 .

14 HSA, Livländische Ritterschaft 702. Nr. 39. Hamilcar von Foelkersahm called the Kurländer noble a "grandseigneur," even if his style of life was rather modest, because of his "independence, his strong feeling of self..." FOELKERSAHM, Das alte, pp. 117, 120. 15 TIESENHAUSEN, "Das ausschliessliche," Das Inland, no. 30, 27 July 1838.

46

of pre-capitalist societies, encompassing not only social structure and relationships, but also an ideology that justified and legitimized relations in a countryside where rulers and the ruled were physically close, but socially, and in the Baltic also ethnically, far apart. In the Baltic the foundation for the development of this ideology was laid by the influence of the German Hausväterliteratur of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. These works consisted of manuals of advice on manor management, and justified serfdom as God-given because the peasant was both a child, a "creature of the senses," and at the same time a "crafty, unreliable, dishonest, rebellious" human being who needed supervision and tutelage. 16 The nobles of Estland during the debates over emancipation in 1816 justified their position in part by the proposition that "laziness and indolence are the two prominent characteristics of the peasantry." There were few who would argue with the notion that the relationship between lord and peasant were comparable to parental relations, for "the peasants are tied to the lord as are children to their parents." 17 The paternalistic ethos was justified by the image of the peasant as a human being forever arrested at the lowest stage of childhood. This image both trivialized relations between lord and peasant and humanized them, for brutal behavior toward a peasant-child could not be condoned. In theory, at least, the nobility despised tyrannical behavior; Baron Ulrich von Schlippenbach thought that a tyrant among his fellow nobles should be "exposed by his brothers to public shame, loudly, openly, and ineradicably." 18 The sentiment was genuine16 Cited in ROBERT M. BERDAHL, "Preussischer Adel: Paternalismus als Herrschaftssystem," in Preussen im Rückblick, ed. Η. J. PUHLE and HANS-ULRICH WEHLER (Göttingen, 1980), pp. 128-129. Berdahl's analysis of the paternalism of the Prussian nobility is relevant to the Baltic as well. Hausväterliteratur is discussed in JULIUS HOFFMANN, Die "Hausväterliteratur" und die "Predigten über den christlichen Hausstand" (Weinheim, 1958). A most impressive Baltic noble example of running a manor along "Hausmutter" lines in the 18th century is provided by the widow Helena, Juliana von Campenhausen, a superb manager and the mistress of several manors. See HI, Baltikum 400/91-93, 105-108. 17 Cited in TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:306, 327. 18 Cited in REINHARD WITTRAM, "Das ständische Gefüge und die Nationalität. Zum Strukturwandel in den baltischen Adelslandschaften im 19. Jh.," in Das Nationale als europäisches Problem (Göttingen, 1954), p. 150; see also WITTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p. 181; TOBIEN, Die livländische Ritterschaft, 1:183-187. The high school teacher Κ. Th. Hermann (1769-1837) reported in his memoirs that a "tyrant over the peasantry was despised by his compatriots, even if outer considerations of politeness were observed." "Erinnerungen des Oberlehrers Κ. Th. Hermann," in Altlivländische Erinnerungen , ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN (Reval 1911), pp. 43-44; a similar sentiment is reported in "Bericht über ein altes Tagebuch," BM, 34 (1888):775. The well known biologist Jakob von Uexküll was advised by his father that "these people have respect only for an angry master," but he later added "one doesn't therefore really have to be angry." JAKOB VON UEXKÜLL, Niegeschaute Welten (Berlin, 1936), pp. 34, 46. A reawakened sense of Christian responsibility for the peasantry after emancipation took place in the thirties and forties because of the gradual replacement of rationalistic with confessional orthodox Lutheran theology. Paternalistic ideology was reinvigorated in the ideal, though reality remained often otherwise.

47

ly noble. Reality was often different. Exploitative, cruel, and tyrannical behavior toward the natives were reported and criticized by enlightenment writers such as H . J. von Jannau, G. Merkel, and J. Petri, whose observations were corroborated by less ideologically motivated observers. 19 Young Sophie von Hahn, who arrived from Germany as a new bride in Kurland in 1823, a few years after the emancipation of the peasantry, noted in her memoirs that In fact most of the manor lords and also the peasants still lived under the regime of serfdom. To the first still clung the arbitrariness, disrespect for the feelings of others, and often still the brutality that is called forth in most persons who enjoy unlimited power over their fellow beings. The habits of the peasantry were those of the deepest servitude.20 After emancipation excessively cruel behavior may have decreased. Nonetheless, given the economic, judicial, and police powers, including the power of corporal punishment over the peasantry, which the nobility continued to hold

19 These writers wanted not only to prove the superiority of free labor over serfdom, since serfdom was against nature and reason, but also hoped, like Jannau, to gain the support of the Imperial government in breaking the privileges of the nobility. Petri rather effectively demonstrated the degradation of the Baltic serfs by contrasting them unfavorably with Russian serfs, who worked as craftsmen and tradesmen on quitrent (obrok) in the provinces. He wrote that "as lethargic, lazy, inactive as the Estonian and Latvian, so brisk, lively, and industrious is the Russian. Despite his inclination to sensuality, he nonetheless unites with it industry, courage and determination...." He continued that despite the excessive behavior of Russians, such as their drinking, they showed energy and activity because Russia never had the "barbarian feudal system" which "degraded ... the Estonians and Latvians to animals." JOHANN CHRISTOPH PETRI, Neuestes Gemähide von Lief- und Ehstland unter Katharina II. und Alexander I. (Leipzig, 1809), pp. 171, 174; see also PETRI, Ehstland und die Ehsten 3 vols. (Gotha, 1802); HEINRICH JOHANN VON JANNAU, Sitten und Zeit. Ein Memorial an Lief-und Ehstlands Väter (Riga, 1781); GARLIEB MERKEL, Die Letten vorzüglich in Livland am Ende des philosophischen Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1797). The Baltic German noble A. von Rennenkampff also noted that Estonian peasants looked unwilling and depressed in comparison to Russian serfs on obrok, who looked better because they "work for themselves." "Ein Sommerritt durch Livland. Aus den Erinnerungen von A. von Rennenkampff," in Aus vergangenen Tagen. Der "Altlivländischen Erinnerungen" Neue Folge, ed.

FRIEDRICH VON BIENENMANN (Reval, 1913), p. 31.

20 HAHN, In Gutshäusern, p. 160. A teacher in Livland cited a local baron who held that the arbitrary power of the Germans over the peasants had led to much cruelty. Aus den Aufzeichnungen eines livländischen Hofmeisters vom Ende des XVIII. Jahrhunderts, 3rd ed. (Riga, 1894), p. 27; Carl F. von Hueck, a non-registered noble, reported that peasant children on his parents' estate in the 1830's screamed out in terror, "Saksl" (German), whenever they saw his parents, who had recently purchased the estate, appear near their dwellings. (Of course, parents might have used the German bogeyman as a useful tool of discipline.) CARL FERDINAND VON HUECK, Das Gut Munnales in Estland und meine Bewirthschaftung desselben in den Jahren 1838 bis 1845 (Reval, 1845), p. 26. For a rather harsh portrayal of the nobility's relationship to the natives, see EDUARD OSENBRÜGGEN's Nordische Bilder (Leipzig, 1853). Osenbrüggen (who was in sympathy with the revolutionary goals of 1848) called the Estonians "the most unhappy nation in Europe." The "motto" of the nobles in Livland was "ruling is so sweet." Osenbrüggen saw the conversion movement of the 1840's as a reaction and protest of the natives against centuries of this "slavery", pp. 136, 140.

48

at least into the 1860's, abuses were bound to occur. 2 1 The paternalistic ethos acknowledged that conflicts and antagonisms would exist between lord and peasant, but these were to be dealt with by the kind of disciplinary action that a parent would use with a recalcitrant child, firm, but never to a degree to provoke open resistance. It was in this image of father and child, and the additional certainty of German cultural superiority, that lay the justification for the treatment of peasants as incapable of independent development. Guardianship, tutelage, and the obligations of Christian charity in looking after the poor and sick, these are the qualities Baltic German nobles saw as their primary duties and obligations. Noble women administered to the sick and kept pharmacies, and, with their daughters, might undertake the elementary education of the employees of the manor. 2 2 In times of need, such as famine, the paternalistic ethos obliged nobles to advance seed grain and feed the poor, even after the nobility had been freed from the legal obligation to maintain emergency grain storehouses and to take care of the poor, since both these functions had been assigned after peasant emancipation to the peasant communities themselves. That not all nobles lived up to these theoretical expectations was clear during the famine years of 1844—46, when the desperate situation in the countryside caused widespread unrest. In fact, social and economic injustice ensured that rural uprisings would continue over the whole course of the nineteenth century. 2 3 But that there was a clash between the real and idealized images of themselves probably did not penetrate the consciousness of many nobles. 24 21 The nobility lost the right of corporal punishment in 1865. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:279-280; cases of excessive corporal punishment were still recorded in the 1880's by Senator N.A. Manasein during his senatorial inspection of the provinces. THADEN, "The Russian Government," in Russification, ed. EDWARD C. THADEN, p. 39. 22 See, for example, DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste, p. 31 or KEYSERLING, 2:424. 23 TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:419, 2:63. Lords had been obliged since the end of the 18th century to keep a certain amount of grain in storage for the peasants. Ibid., 2:295. One should note that the not infrequent sale of manors made it more difficult to maintain the claims of paternalism. 24 There were exceptions among the Baltic German nobility. The financially successful Alexander von Oeningen, for example, contributed 3000 Rb.S. for the support of his peasantry during a time of famine in 1844-45. HSA, Livländische Ritterschaft 702, Oettingen, Nr. 33. "Herkunft," p. 79. Under the influence of pietism, some lords showed more humaneness. As an excellent example here, see the von Bruiningk family, particularly Karl Axel (1782-

1840) and his son Karl. HERMANN BARON VON BRUININGK, Das Geschlecht

von

Bruiningk

in Livland (Riga, 1913), pp. 50, 159 and passim. The pietist Christoph von Campenhausen wrote to his wife in 1827, at a time of harvest failure, "Oh, it is terrible to see one's people so depressed and suffering and still not to be able to help them completely." He had put up 600 this, for seed for his peasantry. HI, Baltikum 400/407, letter of 12 June 1827. Philipp has a discussion of the noble families involved in support of the work of the Moravian Brotherhood. PHILIPP, pp. 274—308. Hamilkar von Foelkersahm experienced "shame" about the insecure status of the emancipated peasantry in the latter 1830's and became an agrarian reformer. Cited in WITTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p. 181; one should note, however, that Foelkersahm's reforms were first of all designed to maintain the position of the nobility. 49

The distinct way of life led by the nobility reflected and emphasized the disparities between lord and peasant. As the nineteenth century advanced large stone "master houses" in classical or pseudo-Gothic style increasingly replaced the simpler wooden houses of the 18th century. Gardens and parks separated manor from estate buildings. In 1843 the Oettingen family built a "grandiose house" that at its housewarming held thirty families and a batch of visiting students. The dining room easily accommodated one hundred guests.25 Expensive coaches and horses with attendants in livery (some lords had their own house colors) were designed to "preserve the dignity of the master," an ostentation that became even more important as a prop to the masters after the loss of their political privileges.26 Viktor Hehn commented in 1848 that "Noble household management in the countryside takes the form of holding court, where the whole of civilized comfort is split into special branches, each with its own manager." Numerous servants were about, often in special uniforms. Kohl called Baltic German nobles "independent kings. No human being interferes in their affairs."27 Generous hospitality was noted by all foreign visitors. Kohl wrote of what he called "Nordic hospitality" as a servitude attached to the manor that was continued even when the master's family was continuously absent on travels.28 Wealth determined the way of life, and though many nobles could not afford the high level of ostentation of some of their peers, their life was still grand when compared to that of the peasantry - and it certainly impressed foreigners. As in Russia, the servants everywhere in attendance provoked much astonishment.29

2 5 ALEXANDER VON OETTINGEN, " H a u s und H e i m a t , " Heimatstimmen 2 ( 1 9 0 6 ) , p. 2 2 . W i t h e c o n o m i c recovery f r o m the N o r d i c w a r and higher c o n s u m p t i o n patterns, largely resulting f r o m the spread of western influence and the increasing magnificence of the Petersburg court, m o r e nobles had started building with stone t o w a r d the end of the 18th c e n t u r y (at times p r o v o k i n g b a n k r u p t c y ) . T h e r e w e r e still m a n y w o o d houses a r o u n d in the 1 8 2 0 ' s and 30's, some (like the C a m p e n h a u s e n m a n o r Orellen) built well enough t o last into the twentieth century. Parks and gardens w e r e rare in the eighteenth c e n t u r y and m a n o r and estate buildings w e r e mixed together. This arrangement gradually changed over the c o u r s e of the nineteenth c e n t u r y . S o m e nobles, esp. of Kurland, had built impressive master houses resembling castles already in the eighteenth century. See HAHN, In Gutshäusern, p. 167; HEINZ PLRANG, Das baltische Herrenhaus, 3 vols. (Riga, 1 9 2 6 - 3 0 ) ; Pirang's third v o l u m e contains a discussion of changing styles in the nineteenth century, pp. 2 - 1 9 . ERIK THOMSON and GEORG VON MANTEUFFEL-SZOEGE, Schlösser und Herrensitze im Baltikum (Frankfurt, 1959). 26 27 28

TAUBE, Im alten, p. 80. In order of quotation, HEHN, " Ü b e r den C h a r a k t e r , " p. 592, KOHL, 1:34. KOHL, 1:31, see also p. 56.

2 9 PRISC1LLA ROOSEVELT, Life pp. 1 0 2 - 1 0 9 .

50

on the Russian

Country

Estate

( N e w Haven,

1996),

Orellen (Livl.) 1738 Campenhausen Family. Frontal View (Pirang, vol. I)

Elley (Kurl.) 1800 Medem Family. Frontal View (Pirang, vol. 2)

51

Asuppen (Kurl.) (1820-23) Hahn Family. Frontal View (Pirang, vol. 2)

Jensei (Livl.) (1840's) Oettingen Family. Frontal View (Pirang, vol. 3)

52

Other symbols of superiority such as language, address, and behavior accentuated the gap between master and peasant. A lord used only Estonian or Latvian, never German, in intercourse with peasants. He learned the language in the nursery, for this was an absolutely necessary tool for his later position. Many a lord who did not acquire the language this way had to struggle hard, as did the Campenhausen brothers in the 1800's, who had been educated abroad, or the Kurlander Count Alexander von Keyserling, who had grown up with Latvian, but then had to learn Estonian when he settled on a manor in Estland.30 Peasants addressed the lords as "great master" ( G r o s s h e r r , Lielskungs in Latvian) and their wives as "great mother" (grosse Mutter, Lielmäte); children were "young masters" and "misses." In approaching the lord, the peasants bent low and kissed the seams of the sleeves of the master's coat, showing a demeanor of submission. 31 Kohl noted in the 1840's that "when a Latvian begs something from his master, he usually rattles off one after another an unending litany of begging and imploring sayings." Several decades later, Baron Otto von Taube, who spent his childhood in the 1880's on his father's estate in Estland, remembered the peasants there as having not only a psalmlike way of speech in festive Estonian ... but also a "Homeric" quality their imploring, which - like the ancient Greeks - they gave expression to by cowering front of you and then gently stroking you from the thighs to the knees with the palms their hands; one always heard then in endless repetition the little word, Pai, pai (dear good).32

to in of or

Upon encountering a lord on a public road, the peasant was expected to keep a respectful distance and, upon the master's approach, get off his horse or cart, remove his hat, and step off the road. Distance was also observed at church. Services were separate for rulers and ruled and the authority of the German Lutheran clergy, representatives of the "master" church, was used to reinforce the patriarchal order. Only once a year was contact between lord and peasant more intimate, on the eve of midsummer day, the twenty-third of June, the high point of the Baltic summer. Midsummer night had a ritual of its own based on ancient

30 Such late language acquisition was painful since, as Keyserling noted, it was a lonely business because a lord's position made it impossible to ask for native help "...my master relations made it unsuitable." KEYSERLING, 1:307; Hermann, Christoff and Lorenz von Campenhausen who returned home to Livland in 1800 also had to struggle with language. See HI, Baltikum 400/437. Letter of 20 October 1826. See also WILHELM LENZ, "Volkstumwechsel in den baltischen Ländern," Ostdeutsche Wissenschaft 3/4 (1956-57):192. There was one exception to the native language rule, lords and ladies spoke to their personal attendants and to the lords' hunters in German. 3 1 H A H N , In Gutshäusern, p. 160. Baron Hamilcar von Foelkersahm commented that this "custom" was continued by the natives after the 1860's, when purchase of farmsteads became possible. FOELKERSAHM, Das alte, p. 89.

54

native customs. The peasantry would come to the manor, sing to the lord's family and praise their riches and generosity and the quality of the beer and f o o d that were expected as gifts, and then would decorate the lordships from head to shoulder with wreaths and bundles of plants. The lords would then thank the more respected members of the peasantry, distribute an amount of money, and invite the people to a dancing area where, brilliantly lit by torches, festivities (soon without the lord's family) would continue late into the night. The table was generously set with sausages, ham, and cheese - quite a contrast to the miserable fare served ordinarily - and spirits and beer flowed copiously. 3 3 As late as the 1880's Ernst von Mensenkampff could still write of the peasantry's "genuine jubilation" for their lord's family on midsummer night and could even believe it genuine. 34 Toward the end of the nineteenth century such festivities increasingly waned and then disappeared with the development of capitalist agriculture. The last vestiges disappeared after the revolution of 1905, which was particularly devastating in the Baltic countryside, where 184 manors were burned down as the antagonisms, tensions and hatreds that had festered for centuries were brought to the fore. But only the furor of 1905 laid to final rest the lingering delusions of paternalism that the nobility still cherished.

Honor If paternalism formed one component of the self-image of the Baltic German nobility, the other was honor. H o n o r was held to be a characteristic and collective possession of the entire noble estate. H o n o r was the property of independent masters who had their own sources of income in land and who did not seek their living in the market place, who stood above all self-interest and who could therefore guarantee the protection of the weak. Violations of honor, "actions against honor," and "open and notorious offences against honor" resulted in exclusion f r o m the Stand.15 Violations of honor were frequently settled by duels; since dueling was a criminal offense in the Empire, nobles who nonethe-

TAUBE, Im alten, P. 226. The best description of midsummer night is found in GROSBERG, pp. 118-120; see also FOELKERSAHM, Das alte, P. 92. 34 MENSENKAMPFF, pp. 115,145. 35 PRO, II, articles 890-96 regulate exclusion. Procedures for exclusion were complicated, but decisions could only be appealed to the Imperial Senate on the basis of procedural violations. Articles 880-889 deal with the general terms of loss of nobility (for treason, thievery, robbery etc.) and follow the terms of the Russian criminal code. 32 33

55

less fought duels were forced to go abroad until the dust settled at home. As late as 1895 the Estland diet passed an ordinance regulating duelling.36 Within the canon of values that developed over the course of the eighteenth century, honor was joined by a second notion, virtue. This was neither the virtus of the Romans nor the virtue of Pietist preachers, but a concept of virtue that combined and confused birth, merit, and the human worth of the individual. Brunner noted that "since the time of Homer, the world of the nobility lived with the conviction that a man of noble extraction is born with virtue."37 Such "claims of moral superiority based on birth" were attacked by Baltic enlightenment writers like Petri, influenced by Goethe and Schiller of the Sturm und Drang period of German idealism, rejecting caste privilege and status and celebrating instead "the rights of the individual and his human worth." 38 In a discussion of the Baltic nobility which commended them for their education and urbanity as compared to their compatriots in Germany, Petri in 1802 noted that the nobility nonetheless needed to justify itself because we "live in a remarkable time when only virtue and merit, talent and righteousness ennoble and give value to human beings."39 By the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Baltic German nobility had incorporated this emphasis on virtue, merit, and righteousness and made it part and parcel of its image of itself. Carl von Lieven wrote to his son in 1815 that "the principal ornaments of man - and an indispensable (unerlässliche) attribute of a nobleman, without which he disgraces his Stand - are noble, thoroughly honest and virtuous sentiments and actions." In a similar vein, Wilhelm von Samson-Himmelstjerna wrote to his son in 1836 that "to be noble means to act honorably, not to hurt anybody." Later he explained as his life's philosophy that "it may be our task to place ourselves independent of 36 Accusations of honor violations among nobles could be brought to the attention of the corporations. See for example, E A A , fond 854, nimistu 2, järjek. 3027 and järjek. 3032. Alexander I favored duelling, but Nicholas I imposed severe penalties for it, including reducing an officer to the ranks. The Russian nobility took up duelling mainly in imitation of English lords who were much admired. The duel also found its way into Russian literature, for example, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and Lermontov's Hero of Our Time. In 1894, Alexander III permitted duelling in the army, following the German model (law of 1874). V.G. KIERNAN, The Duel in European History. Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy (Oxford, 1988), pp. 2 8 2 - 2 9 2 ; on duels in the Russian army, see BECKER, p. 118. Duelling was especially widespread in Kurland. Sophie von Hahn wrote to her girlfriend in Baden in the 1840's that her husband fought a duel "which has lately been punished with confinement in a fortress" and that her husband's friends advised him to leave for a while. Hahn had held the position of governor of Kurland and his visibility was a liability during Nicholas' rule. HAHN, In Gutshäusern, pp. 242, 2 8 2 - 2 8 4 ; cf. FOELKERSAHM, Das alte, p. 119; see also Fanny von Anrep's son's problems over a duel in the 1880's. ANREP, pp. 5 3 - 5 4 , 57, 62. Deaths from duelling occurred into the twentieth century. See the correspondence about the death by duel of Alfred von Klot in 1903. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta N r . 14, Lietas Nr. 409, pp. 5 2 - 5 4 . 37

BRUNNER, p. 7 7 ; c i t e d in BERDAHL, The Politics,

38

STERN, "Prussia," p. 49.

39

JOHANN CHRISTOPH PETRI, Neue

Pittoresken

aus dem

t e d in WITTRAM, " D a s S t ä n d i s c h e , " in Das Nationale,

56

p. 52. Norden

( E r f u r t , 1 8 0 9 ) , p . 1 4 6 ; ci-

p . 1 5 1 ; see also PETRI, Ehstland,

1:399.

the world, not so that in lethargic indifference we won't achieve anything, but so that we can be with all our strength effective in those positions which are assigned to us...." 40 That meant service to corporation and to monarch in positions where honor, virtue, and merit were realized in loyal and selfless service. Service, duty, and obligation legitimized noble privilege, but in the catalogue of values important to the nobility's perception of itself, service was noble and honorable and gave worth only if it was entered selflessly, from inner values and needs, and not from materialistic impulses. (In real life, service income was essential for many nobles). Service of honor without pay was the basis for service at home in the provinces and it was this service that gave the greatest honor. As Lorenz von Campenhausen wrote to his sister in 1816, his two brothers "had legitimized themselves in the eyes of their compatriots through service." 41 The agrarian reformer Baron Hamilkar von Foelkersahm, a son of the Enlightenment, encapsulated this whole spirit in the 1840's in words that would in later decades become the motto of the entire Baltic German nobility: "Worth comes not from the rights that a person exercises, but from the duties he imposes on himself." 42 Count Alexander von Keyserling echoed his distinguished compatriot in 1857 upon his re-election as marshal of the nobility of Estland. H e called Estland that "singular land in which not riches, distinguished birth, or high rank give a man his position, but rather the measure of his willingness to work in service to the homeland." 43 The emphasis on the duty of service became ever more strident as political attacks from the center increased after the 1860's. Through all their existence the Baltic German nobility justified their leadership in society with the claim that only they could engage disinterestedly in the work of constructive reform that would guide and secure the future of the provinces. As the classic example of such work, the nobility cited over and over again their reform of the agrarian sector in the period from 1804-1819 and 1842-1860. 44 This justification, in turn, reflected the impact of the Enlightenment demand for merit, not caste, as the justification for privilege. 40 H S A , 701 Kurländische Ritterschaft, Lieven VI, 3, Nr. 21, letter of 19 August 1815; HI, Baltikum 400/685. Letter of 8 October 1836. Iwan von Brevem held that "uprightness, virtue and purity of morals" defined the "inner worth" of a human being. Nachrichten über das adeliche und freiherrliche Geschlecht Stael von Holstein, ehst. Linie. Urkunden und Regesten, ed. CARL RUSSWURM (Reval, 1877), "Letter to M.G. Stael von Holstein, 17 May 1790," pp. 230-232. 41 HI, Baltikum 400/ 437. Letter of 10 December 1816. See also EDUARD FREIHERR VON STACKELBERG-SUTLEM, Ein Lehen im haltischen Kampf (Munich, 1927). We already noted elsewhere that in Kurland there were 96 paid positions in the judicial field. 42 Cited in REINHARD WLTTRAM, "Vormärzlicher Freisinn und ständische Reformpolitik. Zur Erinnerung an den livländischen Landmarschall Hamilcar von Fölkersahm," Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 5 (1956):498. 43 Cited in KRUSENSTJERN, Die Landmarschälle, pp. 44-45; see also DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste, p. 28; KEYSERLING, 1:417. 44 See the books of GERNET, Geschichte and TOBIEN'S Die Agrargesetzgebung which express this point of view; cf. PLSTOHLKORS, " D i e historischen," p. 16.

57

Loyalty Honor service (Ehrendienst) in the provinces was the very type of duty and loyalty to Stand and to monarch. Service to the Empire was also considered "honor service" and a token of loyalty, and over the course of the eighteenth century loyalty came to hold a position next only to honor in the system of Baltic noble values.45 In 1800 Baron Balthasar von Campenhausen wrote to his daughter Sophie that "unswerving loyalty to the ruling house is the particular characteristic of the Livländer." August von Kotzebue admonished his descendants equally fervently to be "loyal to Emperor and country {Vaterland)."46 Loyalty centered on the imperial dynasty and was never lost, not even after loss of provincial autonomy nor even after entry into the First World War against the German Empire.47 Loyalty found its most emotional expression at times of crisis such as the war of 1812 and the Crimean War. Declarations of war brought immediate expressions of loyalty, while losses like the surrender of Sevastopol could produce, as reported in the diary of Sally von Kiigelgen, a "rage" in her "Uncle Stackelberg," member of a distinguished noble family.48 In the ideology of the Baltic German nobility, loyalty to emperor transcended even loyalty to Stand·, at times of internal dissension, Baltic German nobles felt no disloyalty in appealing directly to the Emperor over the Stand - this was justified as redounding to the ultimate benefit of the Standi This level of loyalty and devotion to the Imperial Romanov dynasty developed in the wake of the Russian conquest, when the Empire's rulers offered privilege, opportunity, security, and pride of membership in a great and expanding Empire. Baron W. Rossillon wrote in 1830 to his son-in-law that "when one looks at the desert in all other European countries, then one will be doubWITTRAM, "Das Ständische," in Das Nationale, p. 152. HI, Baltikum 400/236. Letter of 9 July 1800; HSA, Estländische Ritterschaft 702, Familienarchiv Kotzebue, Nr. 4. 4 7 A crack appeared at the time of revolutionary crisis, for example in 1905, when the political consciousness of the nobility changed (some looked to Germany for help then and afterwards) upon realization that the dynasty could not effectively assure noble safety. See G E R T V O N P I S T O H L K O R S , Ritterschaftliche Reformpolitik zwischen Russifizierung und Revolution: Historische Studien der deutschen Oberschicht in den Ostseeprovinzen Russlands im Krisenjahr 1905, Göttinger Bausteine zur Geschichtswissenschaft, no. 48 (Göttingen, 1978), p. 223. 48 S A L L Y V O N K Ü G E L G E N , Stilles Tagebuch eines baltischen Fräuleins 1855-56, (Berlin, 1956), p. 120. She was not a member of the corporate nobility. See also the correspondence of Alexander von Meyendorff with his cousin during the period of the Crimean War which expressed similar sentiments of loyalty and patriotism. Privatarchiv Gräfin Solms (hereinafter PRA/Solms), geb. von Gersdorff. Marburg. "Briefe von Alexander Meyendorff..." See also the fervent expressions of loyalty to emperor and empire during the 1812 campaign against Napoleon in 1812, Baltische Erinnerungsblätter, ed. F R I E D R I C H B I E N E M A N N (Riga, 1912), pp. 1 9 , 2 1 3 , 236. 4 9 See WITTRAM, "Ständische," in Das Nationale, p.153. 45

46

58

ly filled with thanks to heaven to have a place under the Russian scepter, and proud to be a subject of Nicholas I." 5 0 As Hans Rothfels has pointed out, the Baltic German nobility (harking back to the membership until 1558 of the Livonian confederation in the Holy Roman Empire) was attracted to the ideal of an ecumenical supra-national empire like the Russian, whose rulers eschewed, at least until the 1870's, nationalist exclusivity. 51 Baltic German nobles up to the 1860's would refer both to Russia and to their home province as the "fatherland." More often Russia was simply called the "Empire" and the province the " L a n d " (and after the 1890's, more usually "the homeland," Heimat). T o travel to Russia was to go "to the interior" of the Empire, whereas to " g o abroad" usually meant a trip to the German lands where, much to their dismay, Baltic Germans were regarded as Russians. 52 Baltic Germans had a sense of their own separate, non-German non-Russian identity, a result of their separate history, their position as colonial masters, their geographical isolation, and their fierce climate. Though the nobility felt German culturally, and this was certainly an important source of their feelings of superiority, they took pride in being part of a great Empire; and though they were excited about the creation of the German Empire in 1871, they did not approve of its nationalism. Nationalism both in the German or in the Russian form was suspect and condemned, since it threatened the equilibrium of every 5 0 WILHELM BARON WRANGELL, Baron Wilhelm von Rossillon. Ein Lebensbild (Dorpat, 1934), p. 189; cf. GEORG VON RAUCH, "Der russische Reichsgedanke im Spiegel des politischen Bewusstseins der baltischen Provinzen," in Aus baltischer Geschichte (HannoverDöhren, 1980), pp. 500-502. Reinhold Stael von Holstein's speech on Baltic German loyalty to the Empire at his daughter's wedding to a German nobleman in 1874 was widely reported in the Russian press. Stael stressed the loyalty to the Empire of his forefathers, who had proved that the "German element was always the most reliable and most faithful and was recognized as such in the world" and then, turning to his own sons and German son-inlaw, he continued, "if you should ever meet on the battlefield, every one of you should keep loyalty to his Emperor." Stael also mentioned that, given the amiable relations between Germany and Russia throughout the century, such a meeting of his children would be rather unlikely. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 634, pp. 28-31. 5 1 H A N S R O T H F E L S , Reich, Staat und Nation im. deutsch-baltischen Denken, Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, no. 7 (Halle 1930), p. 230; see also ARMSTRONG, p. 82. For an example of Baltic German feeling toward the Empire, see E.B., "Zur Lage," BM 19 (1870):8—15; also SERAPHIM, Im neuen, p. 2 1 . 52 This reception did not change over the whole century. Marie Helene von Kügelgen, born a Szoege von Manteuffel, had followed her husband to his home in the Rhineland in 1804. She wrote to her sister on September 7, "... that the people here all look at me as a prodigy, and when I speak they cross and bless themselves, how I have learned German so well in Russia." Ein Lebensbild, ed. Α. und Ε. VON KÜGELGEN (Leipzig, 1901), p. 98. Ernestine von Schoultz-Ascheraden noted how her cousins in Berlin regarded her family as "the Russian relatives." HSA, Transehe'sche Bibliothek, Nr. 484, Memoiren, p. 116. Ernst von Mensenkampff who attended school in Munich after the revolution of 1905, was horrified that "...everyone called him a Russian", MENSENKAMPFF, pp. 280, 314. See also the experience of the artist MONIKA HUNNIUS, Wenn die Zeit erfüllet ist...Briefe, Tagebuchblätter, ed. A.M. GLASOV (Heilbronn, 1937), p. 236.

59

member of a supra-national empire. In the 1880's Alexander von Keyserling criticized the sickness of both Empires because each confused "patriotism for Empire with national patriotism."53 The Baltic German nobility embraced patriotism to the Empire, but nationalism, with its emotional attachment to a national ethnos, was a threat to their security. As discussed later, the political events that occurred after the 1860's and that culminated in the loss of Baltic political privilege in the 1880's put a severe strain on these feelings of loyalty and Imperial patriotism. By then it would have been unlikely for a youth to write, as did the young Balthasar von Campenhausen in 1786, of his impatient desire to "enter into the service of my beloved Russian fatherland... My patriotism makes me look forward to this time with pleasure and longing. Oh, that it were already here! Oh, could I only be useful to my fatherland and my most beloved Empress!"54 Still, though such an exaltation of Imperial fatherland and monarch would hardly have been the feelings of a young Baltic German noble of the 1880's (in a generation that served the Empire less), loyalty held place nonetheless as second only to honor. There were several reasons for this. John Armstrong points out that "aristocratic elements in the diaspora will tend to retain a semi-feudal allegiance to the multiethnic polity even after the latter's dominant ethnic elite has become overtly hostile." 55 Another reason for the continued support of the monarchy was fear of the effects of "leveling democratic tendencies" on the nobility's privileged position. August von Kotzebue put it this way to his descendants: Be faithful to your Emperor and fatherland and do not let yourself be carried away by crazy democratic socialist ideas; there is only one salvation for nations ( V ö l k e r ) and this rests in hereditary monarchy, because that is the image (Abbild) of the Godly and fatherly power. 5 6

Manly Virtues The Baltic Germans' privileged position under this godly and fatherly power was additionally justified in their own eyes by their manly virtues of bravery, self-denial, strength, restraint, endurance in the face of hardship, and above all 55 Cited in RAUCH, " D e r russische," p. 205 and pp. 182-208; REINHARD WITTRAM, " 1 8 7 0 / 7 1 im Erlebnis der baltischen Deutschen," in Deutsches Archiv für Landes- und Volkskunde, 4 (1940), 1:30-35. This article reflects also the general atmosphere of the time it was written. 54 HI, Baltikum 4 0 0 / 282. Letter of 2 9 June 1786. Balthasar had a distinguished career which was cut short by his accidental death at age fifty-one. In his correspondence Balthasar stressed that his fellow Livländers (a Güldenstubbe, two brothers Pilar von Pilchau, and a Vietinghof), whom he called the "Russian patriots," felt as he did. 55

ARMSTRONG, p . 9 7 .

56

HSA, Kotzebue Archiv, Nr. 4.

60

self-control, a quality especially recommended to young nobles by the eighteenth century court literature of manners.57 According to the received wisdom of the time, these virtues developed in the hunt, especially the hunt on horseback, an avocation that gained increasing importance among the European nobility after its loss of military importance and prowess in the late medieval ages.58 The Baltic German nobility had a passion for hunting on horseback, and by law arrogated the practice to themselves exclusively. Nobles often hunted with hounds (Parforcejagd) in English style hunts.59 In Kurland until 1869 the law of the "chase" (fliehende Jagd) allowed any noble to pursue game to any location in the province. In Estland, Osel, and Livland the Hetzjagd was restricted to the lord's own land, though neighbors rarely denied each other hunting privileges.60 Peasants were forbidden to hunt, and it was their lands that most suffered from the wild chases through the countryside. The ritual act of hunting with its manly challenges was important to underline noble exclusivity and their superiority to the peasantry and all other orders of society.61 Julius Eckardt reported that "the year is ordered according to different hunting opportunities"; hunting was so dominant a passion that the winter season in towns with its balls and general merriment had to await the conclusion of hunting in December. The German Aurelio Buddeus in 1847 told travelers to the Baltic that they could expect "the genuine, full, wild hunt, the hunt with danger to life, even the hunt with

57 Of these it was self-control above all else that distinguished a noble from the common man. JULIUS BERNHARD VON R O H R , Einleitung zur Ceremonial Wissenschaft der PrivatPerson (Berlin, 1730), p. 414; cf. BERDAHL, The Politics, p. 52. All of these values were stressed in a male's upbringing. See Part II on boys and their education. 5 8 BERDAHL, "Preussischer," p . 1 4 3 . 59 This type of hunt was rarely practiced in Russia, probably because fewer nobles lived year round on their manors and Baltic law made English style hunts easier. (LIEVEN, The Aristocracy, p. 155). Russian nobles hunted with dogs, but their hunts were rarely as well organized nor were Russians turned out as smartly as their English counterparts. (See ROOSEVELT, pp. 122-124). The Livländer R. Stael von Holstein raised his prestige in the provinces and the capital (he received an appointment to Kammerjunker) by organizing such hunts for members of the Imperial family (including the future Alexander III) in Estland. His memoirs contain many descriptions of his hunts, a major passion with him and many of his compatriots. L W A , fond 1100, Apraskta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 633, pp. 45—46 and passim; ibid. Lietas Nr. 634, pp. 5,6,12 and passim. 60 PRO, II, articles 892, 1061. Kurland's diet abolished free hunting rights in 1869 and enacted a new law on May 19, 1877 which stipulated that one could hunt on another's property only with the written permission of the owner. M A X VON BLAESE, "Agrarverhältnisse in Kurland," in Baltische Bürgerkunde, ed. C A R L VON SCHILLING and B U R C H A R D VON SCHRENCK, vol. 1 (Riga, 1908), p. 346. M. STILLMARK, "Beitrag zur Lehre vom Jagdrecht," BM 45 (1898):485. 61 See H A N S W I L H E L M ECKHARDT'S investigation of the noble hunt in the Kingdom of Württemberg. Herrschaftliche Jagd, bäuerliche Not und bürgerliche Kritik (Göttingen, 1976), p. 272, cited in BERDAHL, "Preussischer," p. 141. After the 1860's peasant communities regulated hunting on peasant land. BLAESE, "Agrarverhältnisse, " p. 346.

61

fighting, not just fleeing animals.... Here it is a much wilder, manly joy...." 62 As cerebral a man as Keyserling counted "hunting and riding" (and also dancing for its lesson of politesse) among the essential "knightly arts."63 The manly virtues of the hunt thus rounded out the essential portrait of the Baltic German noble as he liked to see himself.

Conclusion The privileged status of the Baltic German nobility took shape over centuries together with an ethos and ideology that purported to justify their privileges and the prestige and honor of their Stand. The ethos socialized members of the nobility to distinct norms of character and behavior, all linked to a way of life based on income derived from landed property. The self-image of the nobility was defined by the ethos, and the ethos, in turn, gave a sense of esprit de corps and legitimized the nobility's status as the first estate. The picture presented here of the Baltic German nobility's notion of itself and of its duties, obligations, responsibilities, and necessary virtues was that which had been worked out by the first decades of the nineteenth century, when the nobility was in its strongest legal and political position, but under the influence still of the new ethical standards introduced by the Enlightenment with its insistence, in Petri's words, that human beings are ennobled and gain value only from virtue and merit, talent, and righteousness. Merit as the determinant of status, not privilege, was the demand of the new and rising group of burghers not only in the Baltic but across Europe. As happened elsewhere, the Baltic German nobility was forced to make an accommodation to these values, but it did so without renouncing privilege. The self-image of the Baltic German nobility, like every other depiction of self, was idealized and reality often fell far short of the ideal. Political events in the second part of the nineteenth century would threaten both the reality of privilege and the image on which it was based. Nonetheless, overall the self-image sketched here held fast and provided the Baltic German nobility with its fundamental identity and notion of self-worth throughout the nineteenth century.

6 2 In order of quotation, JULIUS ECKARDT, Die baltischen Provinzen Russlands. Politische und culturgeschichtliche Aufsätze (Leizpig, 1868), p. 239; AURELIO BUDDEUS, Halhrussisches 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1847), 1:321. B u d d e u s has a lengthy description of the hunt in the provinces, particularly Kurland, p p . 320-327. See also Jagd im Baltikum. Mit Beiträgen von FRED BARON BUCHHOLTZ u.a., ed. EDGAR BARON KRUEDENER ( H a n n o v e r - D ö h r e n , 1970); F. LUEHR, Die Jagd im Baltikum (Riga, 1918). T h e Baltic m e m o i r literature is replete with references to the hunt. 6 3 KEYSERLING, 2:577.

62

fighting, not just fleeing animals.... Here it is a much wilder, manly joy...." 62 As cerebral a man as Keyserling counted "hunting and riding" (and also dancing for its lesson of politesse) among the essential "knightly arts."63 The manly virtues of the hunt thus rounded out the essential portrait of the Baltic German noble as he liked to see himself.

Conclusion The privileged status of the Baltic German nobility took shape over centuries together with an ethos and ideology that purported to justify their privileges and the prestige and honor of their Stand. The ethos socialized members of the nobility to distinct norms of character and behavior, all linked to a way of life based on income derived from landed property. The self-image of the nobility was defined by the ethos, and the ethos, in turn, gave a sense of esprit de corps and legitimized the nobility's status as the first estate. The picture presented here of the Baltic German nobility's notion of itself and of its duties, obligations, responsibilities, and necessary virtues was that which had been worked out by the first decades of the nineteenth century, when the nobility was in its strongest legal and political position, but under the influence still of the new ethical standards introduced by the Enlightenment with its insistence, in Petri's words, that human beings are ennobled and gain value only from virtue and merit, talent, and righteousness. Merit as the determinant of status, not privilege, was the demand of the new and rising group of burghers not only in the Baltic but across Europe. As happened elsewhere, the Baltic German nobility was forced to make an accommodation to these values, but it did so without renouncing privilege. The self-image of the Baltic German nobility, like every other depiction of self, was idealized and reality often fell far short of the ideal. Political events in the second part of the nineteenth century would threaten both the reality of privilege and the image on which it was based. Nonetheless, overall the self-image sketched here held fast and provided the Baltic German nobility with its fundamental identity and notion of self-worth throughout the nineteenth century.

6 2 In order of quotation, JULIUS ECKARDT, Die baltischen Provinzen Russlands. Politische und culturgeschichtliche Aufsätze (Leizpig, 1868), p. 239; AURELIO BUDDEUS, Halhrussisches 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1847), 1:321. B u d d e u s has a lengthy description of the hunt in the provinces, particularly Kurland, p p . 320-327. See also Jagd im Baltikum. Mit Beiträgen von FRED BARON BUCHHOLTZ u.a., ed. EDGAR BARON KRUEDENER ( H a n n o v e r - D ö h r e n , 1970); F. LUEHR, Die Jagd im Baltikum (Riga, 1918). T h e Baltic m e m o i r literature is replete with references to the hunt. 6 3 KEYSERLING, 2:577.

62

The image was cultivated by the corporations and both tied the individual to the whole and gave him guidance and security when he was on his own. As Hamilcar von Foelkersahm said of Kurland, "The corporation was a strong firm body, whose members felt that the views of the whole bound them individually; for some individuals they were the guiding staff with which he went without ever losing his way, they delineated the correct path that he may not have had the strength to discover on his own." 64 It was the role of the family to inculcate this image of the Stand in its members from earliest childhood. But the family and the Stand had to function within the existing political, legal, and economic parameters of the time. We will first discuss these parameters and then examine how the family fulfilled its role as major pillar of the corporation.

64

FOELKERSAHM, Das alte, P. 30.

63

PART II THE CONSOLIDATION OF NOBLE POWER AND STATUS IN THE FIRST PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (1800-1855)

C h a p t e r IV: C o n s o l i d a t i o n of P o w e r : The P o l i t i c a l and Legal Status of the B a l t i c G e r m a n N o b i l i t y in the F i r s t P a r t of the C e n t u r y ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 5 5 ) Traditional Baltic German historiography has viewed the history of the Baltic provinces in the nineteenth century (1820-1905) through the prism of Russian centralization, nationalism, and Russification. This interpretation was shaped by historians like Julius Eckardt, Alexander von Tobien, and later Reinhard Wittram, each of whose life experiences, each in a different generation, had been decisively affected by the Russification of the provinces and its aftermath. As Gert von Pistohlkors has pointed out, it is only in this context that we can understand how Tobien, for example, could assign only secondary importance to the strengthening of the legal position of the Baltic nobility and their consolidation of control over the land in the first half of the nineteenth century.1 Tobien and other Baltic German historians of the pre-World War II generations provided a distinct periodization of Baltic German history. Tobien accepted Julius Eckardt's description and labeling of the period from 1820 to 1840, after the Napoleonic wars and before Russification, as one of "tranquillity" (Stilleben) and patriarchal harmony in the countryside. Wittram called it the period of Baltic Biedermeier - the period of "cozy lifestyle." Wittram, in contrast, called the four decades after 1840 the period of "reform" when the corporations were engaged in an active reform policy, particularly in the agrarian area. Tobien idealized the actions and activities of the Baltic German nobility (especially of his native Livland), concluding that the policies of reform had been stymied by "forced petrification" by the "tsarist regime." (The term "tsarist" was Tobien's own unique usage, since Baltic Germans in the 19th century used the term "Imperial" government, not tsarist). In Tobien's influential interpretation, the interfering Russian government prevented the Baltic German nobility from introducing the kind of reform in the second half of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries that would have protected the native population 1

PISTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche,

p. 19.

65

from the inroads of the corrupt Russian bureaucratic regime, safeguarded it from revolutionary influences, and assured stability in the countryside. According to Tobien, the Baltic German nobility's selfless work for social stability and economic progress in the countryside came to grief through the policies of the centralizing, Russifying, bureaucratic "tsarist" government, the major villain of the 19th century. 2 This interpretation was more recently revised by the historian Gert von Pistohlkors. Rather than speak of the supposed tranquillity of the period 1820-1840, implying that nothing significant happened, Pistohlkors emphasized the way the Baltic German nobles strengthened their legal position during this time. This was the period when they consolidated their rule over the countryside by emancipating the natives without land and by legally excluding all other social groups from the right to own manor land. Pistohlkors also sees the "period of reform" in a different perspective. His analysis of the motives and goals of agrarian reform of the 1840's and 50's, which included shifting from labor rents to money rents and granting the peasants the right to purchase land, shows that the Baltic German nobility did so in defense of its own privileged status, with little or no regard for the economic, social, and political position and future of the native population. This reality did not prevent the Baltic German nobility from arguing that in agrarian reform they were representing and defending the interests of the whole land, not of their own Stand. In fact, agrarian reform did not come about as the result of noble concern for the desperate economic and social condition of the natives; rather, action became necessary because widespread social and religious protest among the Estonian and Latvian peasantry made inaction impossible. The pressure from one direction that of the Imperial Government's insistence on reform, and from the other that of the Baltic German noble reform party's perception that the privileged status of the 2 F o r key terms of periodization, see WLTTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p. 181; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:26; Ritterschaft, 1:357 and w h o l e second v o l u m e ; [ALEXANDER BUCHHOLTZ], Deutsch-protestantische Kämpfe in den baltischen Provinzen Russlands (Leipzig, 1888). M o r e recently the G e r m a n historian GERT KROEGER called the f o u r decades after the 1840's the decades of "building u p the l a n d " (Landesaufbau). ( " Z u r Situation der baltischen D e u t s c h e n u m die J a h r h u n d e r t w e n d e , " Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 17 (1968):602.) P i s t o h l k o r s points out that Baltic G e r m a n sources refer to the E m p e r o r , the Imperial g o vernment, or Selbstherrschaft, not to tsarism, tsarist regime or autocracy, the terms T o b i e n uses in his t w o v o l u m e s t u d y on the Livland nobility. PISTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, p. 122. See JULIUS ECKARDT, "Livländisches Stilleben," in Die baltischen Provinzen Russlands, 2nd ed. ( L e i p z i g , 1869), p p . 398—422. E c k a r d t criticized the behavior and attitudes of the Baltic G e r m a n s in this period of tranquillity because it left them unprepared f o r coping with the political p r o b l e m s of the 1860's. H e along with other Baltic G e r m a n authors and travelers ( H u p e l , Merkel, K o h l , B u d d e u s , R i g b y , H e h n , and Petersen) c o m m e n t e d on the self-satisfied, tranquil Baltic G e r m a n s w h o were pre-occupied with their personal, familial, and social affairs, w h o might w o n d e r occasionally a b o u t the affairs of their corporations, but on the whole were politically uninformed, indifferent and lethargic, with no thought for the wider w o r l d nor the future.

66

nobility could only be secured by changes in the status quo, together left no alternative to action. Perhaps because of this motivation, the reforms put into place failed either to put the existing social order in the countryside on a secure, economically sound basis, or to solve the economic and social injustices that would lead to continued unrest and culminate in the Revolution of 1905.3 Pistohlkors' analysis of the motives and goals of the Baltic German nobility is persuasive. He points to the shortsightedness of the nobility in neglecting the interests of the natives, in the process not only alienating them further, but also exposing the nobility to further governmental interference. It is of course not surprising that the nobility would cling to its privileged position: there are few cases in history where privilege and power were relinquished without a struggle. And since to all appearances the Baltic German nobility in the first half of the nineteenth century had not only avoided surrender of any of their power to other groups, but had even succeeded in consolidating their privileged position vis-a-vis the rest of society, only the exceptionally far-sighted among them could have seen any reason to invite the lesser orders of society to join in ruling the provinces. To all appearances, by mid-nineteenth century, the Baltic German nobility had gained unprecedented control over all the land. They had effected emancipation without land, had succeeded in excluding even non-corporate nobles (except in Livland) from ownership of manors and all others from outright or even mortgage ownership of manors. In other words, after a century of effort the Baltic German nobility had achieved their primary goal: a codification of provincial laws that appeared to provide a firm legal basis for all their claims of right and privilege. But though the position of the corporations as ruling estates appeared more secure in this period than in the eighteenth century, there were increasing signs of trouble to come. With the perfect vision of hindsight we can see that the political, economic and social forces that were shaping early nineteenth century Europe could not leave Russia, let alone the most European portion of all Russia, the Baltic, alone. But though it seemed that even the Napoleonic wars had had little lasting impact on the Baltic, the Imperial Govern3 PISTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, passim. Pistohlkors views the economic crisis and agrarian reform in the 1840's primarily from a political perspective. The Soviet Estonian historian J. Kahk gave preference to economic perspectives. JUHAN KAHK, Die Krise der feudalen Landwirtschaft in Estland (Das zweite Viertel des 19. Jahrhunderts) (Tallinn, 1969). To be fair, neither author ignored the perspective of the other. See also, GERT VON PLSTOHLKORS, "Juhan Kahk's Interpretation of Feudal Agrarian Economy in Estonia and Northern Livonia, 1825-1850, a Review Article," Journal of Baltic Studies 9 (1978):367-375. As Pistohlkors has shown, the origins of Baltic German Russophobia lie in the 1840's, not as generally held in the 1830's, and arose not only because of contradictory signals from the Imperial government, but also because Baltic Germans were increasingly unable to deal with their own domestic problems, especially the ones caused by the religious and social unrest of the natives. GERT VON PISTOHLKORS, "'Russifizierung' und die Grundlage der baltischen Russophobie," Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 25 (1976): 618-631.

67

ment's religious and educational policies reflected the growing storm of nationalism that would leave the world of the mid-twentieth century almost unrecognizably different from that of the nineteenth. In the growing storm, it was the corporations' influence at court, the presence of its members in important civil, military and court positions, and above all the sympathetic attitude of the Empire's rulers, Alexander I and his brother, Nicholas I, that allowed the Baltic German nobility to preserve its position of inviolate privilege long after others similarly placed had been forced to cede theirs.

The Russian Tsars Alexander I was European in culture and outlook and spoke French better than Russian; he felt comfortable in the company of the cosmopolitan Baltic German nobility. Like his brothers and sisters, Alexander had been brought up by a Baltic German noblewoman, the "grande gouvernante" Charlotte von Lieven, who was deeply loved by all the imperial children. (And who was rewarded with the hereditary title of princess [Fürstin] on Nicholas' coronation in 1826). Charlotte's lifelong dutiful and loving service introduced the imperial family early to Baltic German ways and values.4 When both Alexander and Nicholas married German-born wives, Charlotte von Lieven became their close friend and confidante as well. Alexander's relationship to the Baltic German nobility was shaped not only by von Lieven, but even more by the Napoleonic experience and by his own internationalism. Alexander was impressed by Baltic shows of loyalty and devotion to service and fatherland during the French wars. In a proclamation in 1812, Friedrich von Sivers, marshal of the Livland nobility, had called on his fellow nobles to join the war effort, and take as their motto "Empire and Fatherland! Let us go forward to victory or death, hand in hand, in a manner worthy of our ancestors and as an example to our descendants."5 Fr. Bienemann (although on the basis of incomplete records) calculated that in the period from 1812 to 1814 four-hundred and sixty Baltic German noble officers served in the Imperial army, fifty-six of them as generals.6 The more complete service records for Estland's nobility show that three-hundred and twenty-three Estland no4 ALEXANDER VON LIEVEN, Der General Baron Otto Heinr. von Lieven und. seine Gemahlin Charlotte, geh. von Gangrehen (Riga, 1915), p. 30; Urkunden und Nachrichten zu einer Familiengeschichte der Barone, Freiherren, Grafen und Fürsten Lieven, ed. ALEXANDER BARON LIEVEN, 2 vols. (Mitau, 1911), 2:336-369, 388-397. 5 1812 Baltische Erinnerungsblätter, ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN (Riga, 1912), pp. 18-19. For other examples of this attitude, see pp. 46, 217 and 236; cf. NOLLE, p. 28. 6 FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN, Liv-, Kur- u. Estländer als Offiziere in den Kriegen 1812-1815 (Reval, 1912), cited in NÖLLE, p. 29. Bienemann's figure does not include the sixty-four Baltic nobles who perished in the war.

68

bles served in the army, one as commander-in-chief (M. Barclay de Tolly) and thirty-one as commanders of cavalry and infantry units.7 It was this record of service that motivated Alexander's praise of the Baltic German nobility on a visit to Reval in June of 1825, a few months before his death, when he called them (in French) his "best servants" adding: This [Estland] nobility has always served me well, also that of Livland, and also that of Kurland... They are everywhere; you cannot believe what an officer corps [they constitute] in the horseguards, what spirit rules there, and almost all are members of the nobility of Estland .... Wherever one employs your compatriots, they prove that their hearts and their spirits are equally cultivated.... 8

The Livland historian A. von Tobien went so far as to claim that Alexander I "felt more warmly toward Livland than had any of his predecessors or successors on the tsarist throne" and that he "remained the only ruler of the nineteenth century who rejected Russification." 9 Alexander's "more Russian" and less broadly educated brother Nicholas I shared Alexander's high regard for the professional skills and loyalty of the Baltic German nobility. Nicholas' personal suite, like Alexander's, contained a sizeable contingent of Baltic German noble officers. When Nicholas confirmed Baltic noble privileges in 1827, he declared himself willing to defend their privileges "decisively" and warned that he wanted to see no "proposals to change" the nature of those privileges. As proof of his fondness for the corporation, he claimed that he himself would happily "accept the patent of nobility of a Livland noble, if the corporation offered it." 10 The Emperor's goodwill toward the Baltic German nobility was a marked exception to his general distrust of aristocrats after the Decembrist revolt of 1825. It was also under Nicholas that the centralized, levelling bureaucratic state apparatus, which became a major threat to the position of aristocracy everywhere in Europe, grew and became thoroughly militarized in accordance with the tsar's view of the state as his command. Nicholas' life was ruled by duty, order, stability, and a firm belief in the God-given nature of the autocratic order. These were all values shared by the conservative Baltic German nobility. In 1845, on the occasion of his confirmation of the codification of Baltic provincial law, the Emperor told the mar-

7 GEORGES BARON WRANGELL, Baltische Offiziere im Feldzug von 1812 (Reval, 1912), p. 44. It is interesting to note that this and other publications concerning the Baltic German participation in the first fatherland war fell in the period after Russification and shortly before World W a r I when Baltic German historians were eager to prove their loyalty. The hundred year anniversary of Russian victory provided the right opportunity for this purpose. 8 WRANGELL, Rossillon, pp. 2 1 - 2 2 ; cf. NOLLE, p. 79. 9 TOBIEN, Ritterschaft, 2:232. 10 Cited in NOLLE, p. 184. Nicholas counted among his few personal friends, two Baltic German nobles, A. von Benkendorff and W . F . von Adlerberg.

69

shal of the Kurland nobility that "the gentlemen could be calm, not one of their hairs will be bent and no right taken away, I am as good a Baltic Sea knight (Ostseeritter) as you." 11 And by and large he was as good as his word, for at times of political unrest, the support of the Baltic conservative ruling elite was especially appreciated.12 Though Nicholas supported his administration's attempts to impose greater administrative, linguistic, and religious uniformity on the Empire's border regions, he allowed an exception to be made for the Baltic, extending to the provinces only a portion of the measures applied to the Lithuanian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian border provinces. To Nicholas, there was no contradiction involved in these contrasting policies, for in his view everything he did was for the good of the entire Empire, which, as he reminded the Baltic German nobility in 1846, was their fatherland as well as his.13 Thus both under Alexander and under Nicholas, the favorable attitude of the Empire's rulers was a significant factor in the Baltic German nobility's consolidation of power in the first part of the 19th century.

The N o b i l i t y C o n s o l i d a t e s its P o w e r E m a n c i p a t i o n w i t h o u t Land The emancipation of the Estonian and Latvian serfs in Estland (1816), Kurland (1817) and Livland (1819) was prepared in the Baltic under the influence of humanitarian and philanthropic ideas of the enlightenment, embodied inter alia, in the work of the Baltic enlightenment writers H.G. Jannau, G. Merkel and J. Petri. The new economic theory of physiocracy, with its stress on agriculture as the source of a nation's wealth, was influential in emancipation debates, as were the models of emancipation provided by the Prussian and North German states. A final important factor in Baltic German deliberations was the encouragement Ibid., p. 185. summarized the problems and circumstances that hampered Imperial administrative centralization. Among the more significant were the reluctance of the tsars to violate the privileges of local elites, their reliance on these elites to maintain order, their respect for borderland institutions, and foreign policy concerns, especially in regard to the Germans, Swedes, and Poles. The Polish insurrection of 1830 led to greater appreciation of Baltic German loyalty. Russia's, pp. 231-232. 13 "Audienz der livländischen Deputirten beim Kaiser Nicolai I am 28. Februar 1846. (Aus den Aufzeichnungen des weil. Landraths R.J.L. von Samson)," BM 42 (1895):182. Nicholas told the assembled dignitaries not to forget "that for the past 130 years you have been not Germans but Russians. You are Russians even if you call yourself Kurlanders, Estlanders, or Livlanders ... You are Russians even if of German origin, remain so according to your laws and institutions, but be also Russians in your heart and spirit." R E I N H O L D J O H A N N L U D W I G S A M S O N VON HIMMELSTJERNA, "Tagebuch," Jahresbericht der Felliner litterarischen Gesellschaft 1904 (Fellin, 1905):49. 11 12

70

THADEN

of the Imperial government, which from the time of Catherine II had urged an improvement in the condition of the peasantry. Under Paul and especially Alexander I the question of serfdom started to receive increasingly serious attention in Russian governmental circles. Alexander favored using reform in the Baltic as a possible model for the Empire and allowed the corporations themselves to work out the terms of emancipation. As a result, emancipation became a trade-off of personal freedom for the peasantry against full ownership of all land for the nobility. Under serfdom the manor fields had been divided into "manor" and "peasant" land, with the latter, as in Russia, laid out in scattered strips. In exchange for the use of a farmstead and the right to farm a portion of the peasant land a tenant paid the lord dues. The most burdensome of these was the tenant's obligation to provide at his expense laborers to work the manor lands. When emancipation came, the peasants gained personal freedom, but lost their claim of right to the use of any portion of the land, which became the sole property of the lords. Although after emancipation the peasant had the theoretical right to conclude contracts with a lord for the right to work or even to lease land, because the lord had all economic power the rents were often higher even than before, particularly as there was no organ, governmental or otherwise, to act as honest broker in negotiations. Since the peasants had no political independence, the lord also retained - despite the peasants' nominal emancipation - all political power. And though the peasants were organized into self-governing communities with their own elected officials and were charged with the duty to support a rural school system and help administer local affairs, all actual decisions depended on confirmation by the manor lords. Civil liberties were minimal, as the peasants' mobility was restricted and lords retained their former police and judicial powers, including corporal punishment of workers on manor land. The result was that noble "tutelage" was little reduced in practice, though the natives may have gained experience and some measure of self-confidence in dealing with their own affairs. Economically, however, the peasantry was in many instances worse off than before emancipation, while the lords were freed from most of their earlier responsibilities, such as providing for the peasantry in time of famine.14

14 T o i v o U . RAUN, Estonia and the Estonians, 2nd ed. (Stanford, 1991), pp.40-48; WLTTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, pp. 159-161; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:439-440; KAHK, pp. 134-137; PLAKANS, "The Latvians," in Russification, ed. THADEN, p. 217; THADEN, Russia's, pp. 108-110; Istoriia Estonskoi SSR, ed. ARTUR VASSAR and GUSTAV NAAN, 3 vols. (Tallin, 1961-1974), 1:716-718. GERT VON PLSTOHLKORS, "Die Ostseeprovinzen unter russischer Herrschaft ( 1 7 1 0 / 9 5 - 1 9 1 4 ) , " in Deutsche Geschichte im Osten Europas. Baltische Lander, ed. GERT VON PlSTOHLKORS (Berlin, 1994), pp. 3 5 4 - 3 5 9 . Peasants learned the "techniques of local government," an exercise that also promoted the importance of the native languages. The population of a manor formed a township (Gemeinde, volost") with offices staffed by the peasantry. PLAKANS, "The Latvians," p. 217.

71

The Move t o w a r d Burgher E x c l u s i o n The prerogatives of the nobility were further consolidated by the exclusion of burghers from manor ownership, an issue that had caused particularly heated controversy between the burghers of Riga and the Livland corporation in the late 1830's. 1 5 This contentious affair caused a hardening of class lines (a division between haves and have-nots that was mirrored in the manner the burghers excluded all others from entry to their merchant and craft guilds). The exclusion of burghers from manor ownership was raised by the corporations during the codification of Baltic law in His Majesty's Second Chancery, which began in the 1830's. F r o m its very start, Baltic German noble legal experts such as Reinhold J . L . Samson-Himmelstjerna, who had been trained at a German university, took prominent parts in the discussion. Their influence and that of the corporations' contacts at court and higher administrative circles was evident in the Second Chancery's official report to Nicholas I in 1841, which addressed the question of landholding among other problems of Baltic legal codification. In the report Speransky's successor, D . N . Bludov, raised a number of arguments in support of restricting manor ownership to the corporate nobility. Bludov reminded Nicholas I that he had "kindly and justly" called the nobility the "main pillar" of His Throne in the Manifesto of December 6 , 1 8 3 1 . It was to the advantage of the government, he continued, that the nobility is not deprived of the means to serve the Emperor and to promote the general welfare. These means, and also the manner of existence and a decent education, are best secured through ownership of a manor that is passed on continuously from one generation to the next. It is hardly necessary to prove that property is in general the foundation for everything in the civil world, but one should add that ownership of landed property is by its essence, and also in our legislation, the first condition for any public activity. Aside from 15 We should note that the leading role in the struggles over privileges and reform was often played by the Livland corporation. Livland was not only the largest province, but it was also the seat of the major intellectual center, Dorpat University and the major city of the provinces, Riga, whose burghers were more self-confident, aggressive and antagonistic than the burghers of Reval or Mitau in their attitudes toward the corporate nobility. The corporations of Estland, Osel and Kurland often profited from these struggles though, in typical provincial fashion, each corporation worked and lobbied on its own. JULIUS ECKARDT, Die Baltischen Provinzen Russlands (Leipzig, 1868), p. 61; cf. THADEN, Russia's, p. 97. Controversy over hereditary mortgage and burgher ownership of manors is reflected on the pages of Das Inland. See A. VON REUTZ, "Die Pfandhalter in Livland," No. 4,26 January 1838; W. BANDAU, "Die bürgerlichen Güterbesitzer in Livland," No. 10, 9 March 1838; "Anon."[Sigma], "Über den Pfandbesitz adliger Güter," No. 11, 16 March 1838 and No. 12, 23 March 1838; [-W-], "Noch ein Wort über das Recht des Güterbesitzes in Livland," No. 18, 4 May 1838 and No. 19, 11 May 1838; [Sigma], "Das ausschliessliche Recht des Adels, Rittergüter in Livland eigenthümlich zu besitzen," No. 22, 12 June 1838 and No. 23, 8 June 1838; EDUARD VON TIESENHAUSEN, "Das ausschliessliche Eigenthumsrecht des Adels an Landgütern," No. 30, 27 July 1838; JOH. WLLPERT, "Das Recht des Güterbesitzes in Livland," No. 34, 24 August 1838 and No. 35, 31 August 1838.

72

this, the right to vote in nobiliar assemblies in almost all of our provinces is tied to landed property, and, beyond that, only owners of this kind of property are allowed elective office in the Baltic provinces. "Does it not follow, then naturally," Bludov argued, that "the possession of manors, at least the predominant possession of them, should be reserved for this class?" 16 T o bolster his argument for restriction of property rights to corporate nobility Bludov included in his report some statistical information on the status of landholding in the provinces. W e can abstract from these figures the following tables on private manor holdings in Livland and Estland in 1841: Table 2: Private Manors'1· Livland 1841 Ownership Allodial

Hereditary Mortgaged * *

N o . of manors

N o . of manors

Total Total no.

% Allodial

Corporate nobility

484

54

538

77

72

21

93

13

4

9

13

2

Noncorporate nobility Personal Nobles * * * Burghers Total

9

48

57

8

569

132

701

100

*

The concept of Rittergut (knight's estate) appeared officially only after codification in 1845. Previously privileged estates were usually called landed estates or just estates (Landgüter or Güter). In a broader sense, a landed estate also included crown estates and the public estates of corporations, towns and charitable and church institutions. * * A special type of hereditary mortgage ownership in the Baltic provinces. See below. * * * A category of nobility based on the Table of Ranks (starting at rank 14 in the civil service) and held only during a person's life time. 16 NOL'DE, Ocherki, 2:655-656. Nol'de's work is the most exhaustive source on Baltic codification and its problems and includes Bludov's complete report of 5 June 1841. See also R. BARON STAEL VON HOLSTEIN, "Die Kodifizierung des baltischen Provinzialrechts," BM 52 (1901), pp. 185-208, 249-280, 305-358. Nicholas I achieved what had eluded Peter the Great, Catherine and Alexander, the codification of Russian laws. In 1833, M.M. Speransky, head of the II Chancery, published the Full Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire, arranged in chronological order from the time of the previous code, the Ulozhenie of 1649, to the accession of Nicholas I. Speransky then excerpted and arranged in systematic order the fifteen volumes of a Digest of the Laws of the Russian Empire. Russian codification opened the way for Baltic codification.

73

Table 3: Private Manors Estland 1841 Ownership Allodial

Hereditary Mortgaged

No. of manors

No. of manors

Total Total no. % Allodial

Corporate nobility

381

93

538

77

Noncorporate nobility

23

14

37

7

Burghers

3

23

26

5

407

130

537

100

Total

The figures for Kurland show that of 506 private manors, 477 (94 %) were in the hands of the corporate nobility and twenty nine (6%) were in burgher hands. Of Osel's seventy-two private manors, sixty six (92 %) belonged to corporate nobles, three (5 %) to non-corporate nobles, one to a burgher, and two to peasants. Overall, there were 2,582 estates in the provinces, 1816 (70 %) privately owned and 715 (28 %) in public ownership (crown, corporations, towns, charities and churches).17 The Kurland corporate nobility, always the most exclusive because of its long existence as a semi-independent duchy, was most securely in control of land, with only six percent of private manors in burgher hands and none at all held by non-corporate nobility. In sharp contrast was Livland, with only seventy-seven percent (as opposed to Estland's eighty-eight percent and Kurland's ninety-four percent) of private manors in the possession of the corporate nobility. The relative prevalence of non-noble landholding in Livland can probably be ascribed to the economic power of Riga burghers. In Estland, in contrast, the burghers were less successful economically, while the corporate nobility was both the least exclusive and economically the poorest. These figures may explain why Livland's corporation took the lead in arguing for exclusive noble ownership of land. Hereditary mortgage ownership (Erbpfandbesitz) by burghers and non-corporate nobility was the first right to be restricted in the period between 1802 and 1841, when the institution was restructured in such a way that it lost its former significance. In 1841, eleven percent of private manors in Livland and seven percent in Estland were in hereditary mortgage ownership by non-corporate 17 These tables were composed on the basis of information provided in N O L ' D E , Ocherki, 2:663-666. See also H E L M U T S T E G M A N N , "Der Landgüterbesitz in den Ostseeprovinzen um die Mitte des XIX. Jahrhunderts," Baltische Hefte 15 (1969):63-65 who also composed his own tables based on Nol'de's. Kurland does not have a separate table because statistics on it were provided in a different form.

74

nobles and burghers. The right to hereditary mortgage ownership, an institution peculiar to the provinces, had its roots in the middle ages. A manor could be mortgaged for up to ninety-nine years; though the mortgagor could reacquire it, in most cases it became the full property of the mortgagee within a few decades, especially if the original contract included a purchase clause.18 Financially insolvent nobles thereby provided opportunity for burghers, particularly patrician merchants, to become manor owners in fact and often in title.19 The institution reached its high point toward the end of the 18th century, both because the nobility was experiencing hard financial times, and also because mortgage ownership circumvented a new tax on the sale of manors (Krepostposchlin) levied by the Imperial government in 1783.20 The Imperial government therefore took a strong interest in "reform" not only because of complaints by the corporations that too many burghers were acquiring manors but also in order to stem losses to the treasury. In 1802, Alexander I confirmed an ukaz of the Senate that restricted mortgage contracts to a ten year duration in Livland and Estland (the ukaz was extended to Kurland in 1815), and in 1831 Nicholas I further restricted the institution to a three year duration with a right to two renewals for a maximum of nine years (the right to renewal had to be recited in the original contract), and only upon payment of dues certain to discourage interested parties.21 Dissatisfied with this decision, burghers argued for the restitution of the old form of hereditary mortgage ownership and, if this were denied, at least for an extension of the nine year contract restriction. In 1841 burghers lost this struggle when a further reform removed any semblance of property ownership and a mortgaged manor served simply as security for debt that had to be settled within nine years.22 The nobility had long claimed the exclusive right to own land as the distinguishing mark of its Stand, arguing that otherwise it could not fulfill its duties and functions to the Emperor and the home provinces. If it had not been for burgher mortgage property ownership, the nobility would have favored an institution which allowed for tax evasion.23 That this subterfuge was regularly

18 HENNING VON WISTINGHAUSEN, Quellen zur Geschichte der Rittergüter Estlands im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert 1772-1889 (Hannover-Döhren, 1975), pp. XVI-XVII. 19 See BARON ERNST MAYDELL, "Der bürgerliche Gutsbesitz in Alt-Estland," BM (1937):215-228. 20 TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:7-9, 86; the tax was six percent in 1783, five percent in 1787 and was raised again to six percent in 1808. CARL VON TLESENHAUSEN, Erste Fortsetzung von des Herrn Hofraths von Hagemeister Materialien zur Gütergeschichte Livlands (Riga, 1843), p. IX. 21 PSZRI, vol. 27, No. 20216 (SPb., 1830); PRO, III, note to article 1539; WISTINGHAUSEN, pp. XIV- XIX; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:7-8. It should be noted that contracts concluded before 1802 were not abolished. 22 See articles 1539 to 1567 in PRO, III.

75

used for this purpose is shown by the tables above. In 1841, ten percent (fiftyfour) of the 538 manors in the possession of the corporate nobility in Livland, twenty percent (ninety-three) of 474 in Estland were mortgaged; the rate was probably higher for Estland because it was the poorest of the provinces.24

C o d i f i c a t i o n of B a l t i c N o b l e P r i v i l e g e Exclusive noble control over the land was firmly established in 1845 when nonnobles were excluded from manor ownership in the newly codified Baltic corporate law. Until then, burgher manor ownership had been a matter of continuing controversy. Burgher manor ownership was not uncommon before Russian rule, as it had been recognized under the Livonian confederation and also under successive Polish and Swedish rulers. Only when the corporations concluded the capitulation agreements with tsar Peter I did they seize the opportunity to exclude burghers from manor owernship. Though Peter agreed overall, he specifically extended the right to own manors to the burghers of Riga. This contradiction remained unresolved throughout the eighteenth century, though the Imperial laws of 1754 and 1758, which granted the right to own serfs and land exclusively to the nobility, were applied in Livland in 1789. When in the first decades of the nineteenth century, after Baltic emancipation, the Imperial Senate made several rulings (in 1828, 1833) in favor of burgher acquisition of manors in Livland, the corporations intensified their push for a decision that would settle the question decisively in their favor.25 The Livland corporation protested the rulings and insisted on the terms of the capitulation agreement. In 23 ToBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:9, 335. Kurland's position was special on the Krepostposchlin. Her corporation had been freed of this tax in 1798, though this was not recognized by the province's governmental fiscal agency. In 1816, as part of an attempt to win economic benefits in return for emancipation, the nobility petitioned Alexander I for a reaffirmation of the order. Alexander I complied with this part of the petition, though he turned the nobility down on another matter, restriction on the lease of crown estates to corporate nobility only. Ibid., p. 338. 24 The nobility acknowledged that exclusion of burghers and non-corporate nobles from manor ownership brought down sale prices for manors and also slowed the economic development of the countryside because the nobility lacked the necessary capital for large scale improvements. See articles in Das Inland for 1838 (Nos. 11 and 12 on hereditary mortgage ownership and nos. 18 and 19 on corporate manor monopoly which discuss these issues. See also Chapter IV on the role of credit associations to clarify some financial issues in regard to foreclosure and sale of manors. 25 ToBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:233, 286. The Livland nobility lobbied successfully not to have the State Council, the consultative legislative assembly of the Empire, decide the question of manor ownership (nor of rights to matriculation, either). It had been Speransky's intention for the State Council to resolve the issue, but this was regarded as interference in the provinces. Nicholas I ordered the issue submitted directly to him. NOL'DE, Ocherki, 2:348-356. For the course of discussion on manor ownership, see ibid., pp. 317-370.

76

1838 their lobbying met success and the Imperial government ordered a stop to burgher purchases of manors until the matter could be legally resolved in the context of a full codification of Baltic corporate law (Ständerecht). The code was completed in 1845 and then confirmed by the Emperor.26 Article 876 of the code declared that manor ownership was the exclusive right of the matriculated nobility in Estland, Osel, and Kurland, while in Livland it was the right of any noble, matriculated or not.27 Thus the Livland corporation had to accept manor ownership by non-matriculated nobles, but even Tobien, who stresses "Russifying" acts of the bureaucratic Russian state in the provinces during this time, nonetheless regarded this decision in favor of noble land monopoly as the Magna Carta of the nobiliar constitution of Livland. The use of the term "Magna Carta" with its historical connotations indicated how important a victory the Baltic German nobility believed it had achieved with this confirmation of their control over the land.28

C o n t r o l of the N o b l e R e g i s t e r s Earlier in 1841 Nicholas I accommodated the Baltic German nobility on another matter that it saw as important to its status, the confirmation of the exclusive right of the corporate nobility to decide on admissions to its own ranks, except for those persons who were automatically matriculated upon the Imperial gift of a manor.29 Although the registers of the nobility had been established in the eighteenth century with the approval of the government, the corporate nobility's exclusive right to decide on matriculation to its own ranks had not been officially recognized when the Imperial government confirmed the establishment of corporate registers in the 1740's. This matter was raised by the nobility du-

26 Estland's corporation had received a favorable decision on exclusive manor ownership in a senate ukaz of 11 June 1809 that was reconfirmed by Nicholas I in 1829 based on a State Council recommendation when problems continued. Nicholas also approved of a similar recommendation from his II Chancery in 1841. Note to article 874, P R O , II;

WlSTINGHAUSEN, p . X I V ; PHILLIP, p . 9 9 . 27 Burgher manor owners stayed in full possession of the manors they had acquired up to this point, with right of inheritance, but could only sell to matriculated nobles. In general, exclusivism in manor ownership may have been a political advantage, but it was definitely not a financial one, since it reduced competition. Article 878, PRO, III. 28 PRO, II; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:233. The nobility had another victory of sorts with this confirmation, since it ended the practice of allowing non-noble Germans eligibility to positions in the administrative system and the police (passives Wahlrecht). In the 1840's and 1860's this was a major bone of contention between the various German estates. Ibid. In the first half of the nineteenth century the Baltic German nobility consistently gained the powers or privileges their Russian counterparts were not able to extract from the tsar. 29 PRO, II, note to article 10.

77

ring codification discussions in the II Chancery. The corporations regarded confirmation of the rules and regulations for matriculation as vital to their position. With matriculation came such political privileges as participation in the diet and elections, and the right to elective service in all positions in administration and justice. These privileges were finally confirmed in 1845 with the Emperor's sanction of the first two volumes of Baltic law, comprising administrative and corporate law. This action fulfilled a long held desire of the nobility, which regarded codification as a safe guarantee of all its rights and privileges. After all, of all the borderlands of the Empire, only the local law of the Baltic provinces had been officially confirmed. 30 It was less noted at the time that Imperial Russian criminal law supplanted Baltic provincial criminal law and that this was a sign of things to come.31 Baltic German noble confidence in the inviolability of its privileged status was shaken for the first time by the agrarian crisis of the 1840's, when the majority of the nobility began to see that agrarian reform was necessary.32 The decades after emancipation had been characterized by agricultural price fluctuations that destabilized economic life for the nobility, while high labor rents and short term leases made life even harder than before for peasant tenants (Bauernwirtbe).n A series of crop failures in 1838—40, followed by famine and social unrest in 1841, led to the first discussion of agrarian reform in the Livland diet. By 1845—48 the situation became critical when large scale conversion to Russian Orthodoxy in Livland involved about thirteen percent of the native population 30

31 32

pp. 171-172. HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," p. 121. The following section is based on RAUN, Estonia, pp. 39—45; THADEN, Russia's, THADEN, RUSSIA'S,

p p . 1 6 9 - 1 9 2 ; HALTZEL, " T h e B a l t i c G e r m a n s , " p p . 1 1 6 - 1 9 2 ; SERGEI G . ISAKOV,

iazykh i literatura ν uchebnykb zavedenitakh Estonii XVIII-XIX

Russkii

stoletii, 2 vols. (Tartu,

1973), 1:91-92, 1 0 6 - 1 0 8 ; GERT KROEGER, " D i e e v a n g e l i s c h - l u t h e r i s c h e L a n d e s k i r c h e u n d

das griechisch-orthodoxe Staatskirchentum in den Ostseeprovinzen 1840-1918," in Baltische Kirchengeschichte,

e d . REINHARD WITTRAM ( G ö t t i n g e n , 1956), p p . 1 7 7 - 1 7 8 ; WILHELM

LENZ, "Zur Verfassungs- und Sozialgeschichte der baltischen evangelisch-lutherischen Kirc h e 1 7 1 0 - 1 9 1 4 , " in WLTTRAM, e d . Kirchengeschichte,

p p . 1 1 0 - 1 2 9 ; R . BARON STAEL VON

HOLSTEIN, "Zur Geschichte des Kirchengesetzes v o m Jahre 1832," B M 52 (1901):128-176;

HORST GARVE, Konfession und Nationalität: Ein Beitrag zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Gesellschaft in Livland im 19. Jahrhundert. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ostmitteleuropas, no. 110 (Marburg, 1978), pp. 60-68; PLSTOHLKORS,

Ritterschaftliche, pp. 110-113; Istoricheskii obzor mer pravitel'stva dlia usileniia ν ostzeiskom kraiu sposobov k izucheniiu russkago iazyka. (SPb., 1866). 33 Peasant tenants had long protested against the terms of the emancipation settlement. Tenants had a difficult time supporting the laborers (Knechte) who discharged the tenants' labor dues (corvee) to the lord. By the 1840's a group of agricultural laborers had begun to emerge who could no longer be supported by the tenants, who hired this labor only seasonally. The sources at the time usually refer to the peasantry without differentiating among the groups. When Foelkersahm referred to the peasantry, he meant only the tenant class whose status he wanted to improve. PlSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, p. 93; THADEN, Russia's, pp. 177-178; ToBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:84-87.

78

(100,000 Estonians and Latvians of 775,000 in Livland).34 False rumors had spread among the peasantry that the tsar would grant free land in the south and exemption from labor dues, soul tax, and military service to the converts. The peasantry clung desperately to their beliefs. Neither the Baltic German nobility nor the Lutheran clergy could realistically protest to the Imperial government, since the Orthodox Church in the Baltic was too small and its activities too limited to have instigated this movement; and Orthodoxy was, after all, the official church of the Empire. The Imperial government, after some vacillation, did not prevent conversion. The Baltic German nobility feared that this inroad of Orthodoxy into the provinces might be the beginning of the loss of its privileged and autonomous position. From its contacts in the capital the leadership of the nobility was aware that the Imperial administration and the Emperor himself blamed the unrest in the provinces on the desperate economic situation of the peasantry and implicated the nobility as the cause.35 Religious and economic disturbances, fear of unilateral Imperial intervention, and the negative impact such action would have on the privileged status of the nobility led to discussion of agrarian reform in all three provinces. Livland took the lead in discussing reform in 1841 after the first rural disturbances. Disagreements over the terms of reform emerged right from the start. Hamilcar von Foelkersahm and his group of youthful supporters, the so-called liberals, argued that the political position of the nobility could only be conserved if the nobility took the initiative in agrarian reform so as to "preserve the tie between lord and peasant." 36 Foelkersahm therefore advocated that land for the exclusive use of the peasantry (Bauernland) be separated from manor land, that labor rents be shifted to money rents, and that the peasantry be allowed to purchase its Bauernland. Foelkersahm, who was concerned for the future of the peasant tenants, argued that only with the creation of a propertied peasantry (in Tobien's words a "peasant aristocracy") would the "dysfunctional" social order in the countryside be stabilized since a propertied peasantry would be conservatively inclined.37 To help ensure such conservative ends, Foelkersahm's reform project also stipulated a maximum size for peasant farms and a minimum size of manors as means of assuring noble land supremacy, and allowed no political participation to the peasantry to ensure that corporate noble control of the countryside would not be endangered.38 THADEN, Russia's, p. 172. F o r Nicholas I's attitude toward the Baltic nobility at this time, see SAMSON, " A u dienz," pp. 177-187. 36 Cited in TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:78. 37 Ibid., 2:96. 38 A peasant farm could not exceed one Haken (240 desiatin) nor could it be less than one eighth Haken. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:164. See Chapter V, footnote 13 for manor size requirements. Chapters 5 and 12 provide more details on the peasant reform. 34 35

79

Foelkersahm made these proposals on peasant landownership at a time when the nobility was struggling for exclusive manorial ownership by the exclusion of burghers and non-corporate nobles from manor ownership. Not surprisingly, this part of his reform proposal became a major bone of contention into the 1850's, when the opponents of Foelkersahm made their last attempt to abrogate the land provision (and also tried to delay the transition from labor to money rent). The opponents of Foelkersahm's project, the so-called conservatives, feared that the position of the corporate nobility would be endangered because "the very continuation of the corporation depends on whether corporate rights to all the land be preserved or reduced." Land sale to the peasantry was the "beginning of the axe for the corporation."39 The opposition also warned of the consequences of an agrarian reform undertaken as a result of rural unrest, because such a reform could raise the expectations of the peasantry and, by ballooning out of control, lead to more instability. The safest course, therefore was to make partial corrections to the emancipation decree of 1819, but no basic changes in the overall status quo of the countryside. The opponents lost this first round, since in 1842 the Livland diet gave preliminary approval to the Foelkersahm project, foremost because its members were under the impression that the emperor favored that course. As soon as this assumption was proven wrong, Nicholas I at the time being hesitant to make basic agrarian changes, the project's opponents managed to have the next Livland diet repeal the provision on setting aside Bauernland for the peasantry. Only renewed peasant unrest in 1845 and 1846 brought the need for peasant reform again to imperial attention; the government then let it be known that it was interested in seeing a variety of experimental models. The final version of the reform was worked out in the newly created Baltic Committee in St. Petersburg (1846-1876) which, except for three members, was composed entirely of corporate nobles. After passage through the committe the provincial diets had final say on projects. In 1849 Nicholas I accepted on a temporary trial basis for five years the reform plan of the Livland diet, a compromise between the reform party, its opponents, and the government. When the revolutions of 1848 made the Imperial Government less interested in experiment, the nobility tried to delay the introduction of reform or at least to revise its terms, but was nonetheless forced to proceed after the death of Nicholas I, when the new Emperor Alexander II embarked on the emancipation of Russia's own serfs on terms generally more favorable than in the Baltic. In the period between 1856-63 agrarian legislation was finally enacted that granted the Baltic natives the right to shift to money rents and to buy land, but again the nobility controlled the terms.40 39 40

Cited in TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:78. For the intricacies of debate on the project, see TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung,

2 4 0 ; a l s o T H A D E N , Russia's,

80

p p . 1 7 7 - 1 8 5 ; PLSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche,

pp. 7 0 - 1 1 4 .

2:48-

The Empire Strikes Back Baltic agrarian reform took a long time and was delayed during the last seven years of Nicholas' rule because after the revolutions of 1848 the Emperor, fearful of contagion at home, valued more highly the loyalty of the conservative Baltic German elite that guaranteed the stability of the countryside; he showed his appreciation by relaxing some of the measures approved earlier. In 1848, for example, he recalled Evgenii Golovin, the first Governor-General of the Baltic provinces to be unsympathetic to the Baltic German nobility. Golovin had been appointed in 1845 at the height of the religious crisis; his replacement was the German educated Prince Aleksandr Suvorov, a defender of the Baltic German nobility's status and position. Suvorov was instrumental in delaying the introduction of the use of Russian in governmental offices in the provinces, a measure that had been proposed by Golovin and Minister of Interior L.A. Perovskii in 1847 and approved by Nicholas in 1850. Similarly, Minister of Education S.S. Uvarov's measures to increase the use of Russian in Baltic German schools and his introduction of a Russian language competency exam for matriculation at Dorpat University, all approved by Nicholas I, remained a dead letter in this period. 41 Nonetheless, these enactments indicated that the Imperial government even under Nicholas I was moving toward integration of the Baltic provinces with the rest of the Empire. Before 1848, these signs were most clearly evident in educational and religious legislation. Since German schooling and the Lutheran religion were twin pillars of the German character of the provinces, they met strong resistance from the Baltic Germans, but in the case of religion, at least, not from the Baltic German nobles, who here did not see their own interests directly affected. From 1803 to 1837 Baltic primary and secondary education had been organized into the Dorpat Educational Region under supervision of Dorpat University. In 1837 Uvarov applied the Imperial School District Statute of 1835 to the provinces and put education under the curator of the Dorpat school district. Uvarov's further orders for increasing Russian language teaching and Russian history and geography and for a required Russian language examination for university entrance came to naught only because of Baltic German resistance and the fears raised by the political events of 1848, but still pointed to the direction of imperial policy. 41

TOBIEN called the era of Suvorov "a happy one which will remain unforgettable in the provinces." Ritterschaft, 1:81; Minister of War D. A. Miliutin commented in his diary on the occasion of Suvorov's death in 1882 that "he was a loyal servant of Nicholas I," but that at the same time he was "a blind tool of the barons and, as a consequence, that area became completely Germanized." Dnevnik, ed. P.A. ZAIONCHKOVSKII, 2 vols. (Moscow, 19471950), 2:125, entry of 1 February 1882. Suvorov remained popular in the provinces long after he left his position. See the many testimonials to him described in the memoirs of R. Stael von Holstein. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta 14, Lietas Nr. 634, pp. 22, 63-64 and passim.

81

As concerns religion, Imperial authorities assumed supervision over the previously independent Lutheran church in 1832, when it was put under control of the General Consistory for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Saint Petersburg. This was a violation of the capitulation agreement, but the Baltic German nobles said nothing because, as the clergy noted acerbically, the matter did not touch on their immediate self-interest. 42 Under the new legal status, it became a crime under the Russian criminal code for Lutheran clergy to marry mixed Orthodox and Lutheran couples, to baptize their children, or to permit Orthodox Christians to attend Lutheran church services.43 These provisions led to many criminal prosecutions of Lutheran pastors in later decades, when many of the earlier Latvian and Estonian converts to Orthodoxy attempted to re-enter the Lutheran church after they realized that their belief in free land had been mistaken. Educational and religious policies alarmed the corporations, but it was the agrarian troubles of the 1840's, particularly as it related to the mass conversion to Orthodoxy, that the nobility most saw as a direct threat to Baltic autonomy. They responded with agrarian reform, albeit slowly and reluctanty and with delaying tactics that still preserved their monopoly of power in the countryside. Overall, the Baltic German nobility appeared to have strengthened its political and legal position in the first part of the nineteenth century. In many ways, this was still the "golden age for the Baltic nobility" as the American historian Toivo Raun characterized the first century and a half of Russian rule in the Baltic provinces.44 Still, this strong political position meant little unless it reflected an equally strong economic position that would legitimize the social and political claims of the ruling estate. It is in this area that the Baltic German nobility, though vastly superior in resources to the natives, experienced ever increasing difficulty.

42

PlSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche,

43

THADEN, Russia's,

p. 67.

p . 172.

44 RAUN cited three reasons for the "golden age": Imperial rulers regarded the nobility as its "first estate" and major social pillar, Russian nationalism had not yet awakened, and the Germanness of the provinces' nobility was not yet regarded as a liability by the Imperial government. Estonia, p. 51.

82

C h a p t e r V: T h e E c o n o m i c S t a t u s a n d P o s i t i o n o f B a l t i c G e r m a n N o b i l i t y 1800-1855: H a r d Times and E c o n o m i c Innovation

During the first half of the nineteenth century the Baltic German nobility achieved exclusive control over the land and persuaded the Imperial government to codify its corporate law in a manner that would confirm its control over access to corporate rank and status. The forces driving this strategy were to a large extent economic: the first six decades of the 19th century were characterized by hard times in which many nobles had to struggle to stay just one step ahead of bankruptcy. The economic crisis began in the period after the 1780's, when the nobility, no longer wealthy or disciplined enough to live within its means, began to rely on debt to pay for consumption. Debt reached such high levels that by 1836 ninety-seven and a half percent of manors in Estland and in 1839 seventy-one and a half percent of manors in Livland were heavily mortgaged.1 The debt crisis was compounded by the increasing dependence of the Baltic agrarian economy on the world market for the sale of its major products, rye and barley and the alcohol distilled from these grains. From the 1820's to 1850's price fluctuations that often involved drastic market falls led to further financial pressure and frequent bankruptcy. In Livland alone, in the period 1801 to 1840 one hundred and twenty-seven manors (18 %) of the 701 manors in private hands had to be sold at greatly reduced prices.2 In response to this crisis the nobility sought state aid to create credit institutions, state guarantees for stable purchases of alcohol, and state support for agricultural innovations such as raising merino sheep for wool. The nobility also petitioned the government to award leases for crown estates not to the highest bidders, but only to registered nobles, as had been promised in the capitulation agreements. If economic needs promoted agricultural innovation, so also did new ideas that came from Western Europe after the frontiers were opened in the reign of Alexander I. More Baltic Germans traveled abroad and attended German schools and universities at the same time as more foreigners came to visit the provinces. Newly imported printed materials influenced economic thought. By the 1820's, the ideas of the German agronomist A. Thaer on rationalizing agri1

RAUN, Estonia,

p. 41.

For details, see manor prices listed later in this chapter. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:409. Tobien's two volume history concentrates mainly on agrarian legislation. 2

83

culture to increase profits gained the support of such progressive Baltic German lords as O . von Gruenewaldt, Chr. von Brevem, and K.A. von Bruiningk, all of whom pioneered sheep raising and planted new crops like flax and clover, the first mainly for export to England, the second for fodder. 3 Some lords began to experiment with cattle breeding. After the 1840's, potatoes began to be planted for human consumption and, even more, for liquor distillation, as potatoes were more productive than grain and the draff was useful fodder. A beginning was made in the transition from the old three-field to a multifield system. Innovative efforts were publicized and supported by the Livland Public Benefit and E c o nomic Society founded in 1792 in Riga (moved to Dorpat in 1813), and after 1839 by the Estland Agricultural League. Young Baltic German nobles studied agriculture at the re-established Dorpat University (1802), where a chair for agricultural science, the first in the Empire, had been established as part of the physico-mathematical faculty. 4 But though the foundation for a more rational

3 Thaer emphasized that a farmer should have the same return on invested capital on his farm as he would expect from any other investment. Such profit expectation required a more scientific and efficient approach to farming (better crop rotation, understanding of soil, fertilizer, drainage, irrigation, bookkeeping). He also stressed the superiority of hired labor over serf labor. Thaer was influenced by the French physiocrats and English economists. Such profit driven "bourgeois" agriculture ran, of course, counter to noble values. BERDAHL, The Politics, p. 98-90. Gruenewaldt's many articles on agriculture in the 1830's and 40's, published in the annual publication of Livland agriculture, are discussed in HUECK, Darstellung, p. 193; for a description of Gruenewaldt's manor and his innovative methods there, see GUSTAV VON STRYK's "Die livländische Landwirtschaft im 19. Jahrhundert," manuscript in EAA, fond 2389, nimistu 1, järjek. 13; for a review of Baltic German works on a more rational agricultural practice, see PLSTOHLKORS, "Geschichtsschreibung," in Geschichte, pp. 279-284. 4 ENGELHARDT, Universität Dorpat, pp. 185, 187; only in 1850 was the physico-mathematical faculty officially separated from the philosophical faculty. Ibid., p. 184. The influence of the ideas of the physiocrats led to the establishment of the Livland Society. KAHK,

Krise,

p. 2 6 and passim;

PHILIPP, pp. 1 0 6 - 1 0 8 ; RAUN, Estonia,

p. 4 1 ; TOBIEN, Die

Agrarge-

setzgebung, 1:87, 412, 416; ToBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:110,119. The Empire's Economic Society also served as a model. HUBERTUS NEUSCHÄFFER, "Die Anfänge der Livländischen Ökonomischen Sozietät (1792-1939)," Journal of Baltic Studies 10 (1979):337-344; ELMAR JÄRVESOO, "Early Agricultural Education at Tartu University," Journal of Baltic Studies 11 (1980):341—355; HANS DIETER ENGELHARDT a n d HUBERTUS NEUSCHÄFFER, Die

Livlän-

dische Gemeinnützige und Ökonomische Sozietät (1792-1931), Quellen und Studien zur Baltischen Geschichte, vol. 5, (Cologne, 1983). I.A. LEINASAARE, "Razvitie zemledel'cheskikh orudii truda ν Latvii ν period razlozheniia barshchinnogo khoziaistva (Konets XVIIIPervaia polovina X I X v.)," in Ezhegodnik po agramoi istorii Vostochnoi Evropy 1961g., (Riga, 1963):349-355; A.H[ENRIHS] STRODS, "K voprosu Ο vremeni pobedy kapitalisticheskogo sposoba proizvodstva ν sel'skom khoziaistve Latvii," in Ezhegodnik...1963g., (Vilnus, 1964):535-549. Z.K. IANEL', Sotsial'no-ekonomycheskoe razvitie dvorianskykh pomestii lifliandskoi guhemii vo vtoroi chetverti XIX veka. (Moscow State University dissertation, 1961). In 1839 in Estland 180 estates of 616, and in 1845 250 estates had changed to a multifield system. SOPHIE VON HAHN noted that beginning with the 1820's the "humdrum" and accustomed routines of manor agriculture began to change under the influence of Thaer. In Gutshäusern, P. 226. 84

system of agricultural production was laid in the first part of the nineteenth century, it did not bear fruit until after the 1860's. One of the reasons for this is that the majority of lords continued to practice agriculture within the traditional manorial system, dependent on peasant labor, methods, and old fashioned agricultural implements made mainly of wood. 5 Lords depended on the peasants to provide work animals and implements; peasants worked the lord's fields at planting and harvest times under supervision of the lord's employees. Most lords were attached to the system of labor dues (corvee) because it appeared to save costs in an economic environment and market where cash income was uncertain and capital scarce. The manor economy depended on an international market where prices for its major products from grain and liquor to wool fluctuated markedly. Grain harvests failed due to the vagaries of the climate in 1807, 1832-34, and in the early, "hungry," forties. Sheep raising turned out to be equally crisis ridden when damp weather in the 1830's and 40's brought on a rash of epidemics. Given the soil and climatic conditions of the provinces and the dependence upon agriculture as the mainstay of the economy, nature posed a constant challenge.

L a n d , S o i l , and C l i m a t e The provinces' geographical location, soils, and climate all affected the agricultural economy and determined its economic fortunes.6 The Baltic lands are part of the great North European plain and are dotted with lakes and much marsh,

5 The three-field system was the most common one into the 1840's. The first field was planted with rye, the second with barley or another type of summer grain, the third lay fallow. Usually these fields called Brustacker were fertilized, though the fallow field often lay fallow for several years. Another system used was that of the Buschland of which there were several categories. In one category land was used for three to five harvests in a row and then left to be taken over by bush and shrubs, the second was uncleared land, the third cleared land (called Kuettis) where bundles of brushwood were burned on the exhausted field; the term could also refer to land where forest was burned and fields gained for three or four harvests, after which the land reverted to shrub for fifteen or twenty years. After the 1850's the term bushland indicated shrubbed cattle pasture. KOHL, 2:282, ASTAF VON TRANSEHE-ROSENECK, Gutsherr und Bauer in Livland im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Strassburg, 1890), p. 123; JULIUS ECKARDT, Livland im 18. Jahrhundert. Umrisse zu einer livländischen Ge-

schichte,

(Leizpig, 1876), p. 420; AUGUST WILHELM HUPEL, Topographische

Nachrichten

von Lief- und Ehstland 3 vols. (Riga, 1774,1777,1782), 1:56, 61, 2:282; PHILIPP, p. 104. 6 This section is based on RAUN, Estonia, pp. 4-5; 40—41; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzge-

bung, passim; PHILIPP, pp. 5 3 - 6 4 ; K.AHK, Krise, passim; HERBERT PÖNICKE, "Ländliche In-

dustrieunternehmungen in den baltischen Provinzen Russlands im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert," Vierteljahresschrift

für Sozial-

und Wirtschaftsgeschichte

60 (1972):459-489; KOHL, 1:298,

341 and passim; ALEXANDER VON HUECK, Darstellung der landwirthschaftlichen nisse in Esth-, Liv- und Curland (Leipzig, 1845), p. 6; TAUBE, Im alten, p. 78.

Verhält-

85

bogs, and other inhospitable land. A manor's size was therefore not indicative of its productive capacity, as much land could be unusable. Of all the provinces, Estland was the most disadvantaged.7 Her soil was the poorest and very limy, though the central and southern regions of the province were more fertile due to glacial deposits. Livland's sandy clay soil was superior to that of Estland, but needed much fertilizing. Kurland had the most fertile soil and a better climate, hence its popular name among the Germans as "God's little land" (Gottesländchen). Though as in much of Eastern Europe, parts of the provinces were heavily forested in mixed coniferous and deciduous cover, rational forest management, like rational agriculture, did not take hold until the second part of the 19th century. At best, manors might have small saw mills producing simple boards. In 1800, there were only seventy-four such mills in Estland and ninety-six in Northern Livland.8 The provinces' climate had an even more negative impact on agriculture than did the soil. The mixed maritime-continental climate made for short summers (with frost a danger into June in some areas) and for long winters (October to mid-April). Spring snow melt and fall rains made for additional periods of impassable fields and roads. Field work usually started in May and in less than five months (rather than the seven or eight of Western Europe) the agricultural cycle had to be completed. Kurland, the westernmost province, had a slightly longer growing season and higher summer temperatures. Unfortunately, droughts in summer and excessive rains during the harvest season led to periodic harvest failures. The climate militated against intensive field agriculture, and the change in the 1880's from primary emphasis on grain cultivation to cattle breeding was a sensible move for Baltic agriculture, since pasture and meadows suffered least from the vagaries of climate. Though the provinces were also poor in mineral resources, with neither coal nor iron deposits, for some manor lords the sale of Estland's limestone and dolomite and the production of bricks served as a subsidiary source of income. There were one hundred small brickyards in Estland in 1800 and after the 1860's the abundance of these materials stimulated the building of cement factories, mainly to produce exports to Sweden and Finland.9

7 A. von Hueck calculated that a Livland manor produced almost a third more rye per Haken (240 desiatin or 262 ha) than an Estland one. HUECK, Darstellung, p. 246. 8 PÖNICKE, p. 477. Kurland was the most richly forested province though Livland did quite well with twenty two percent of territory forested in 1904. 9 Ibid. That climate played a major role in the life of manor lords can be seen from the memoirs of Reinhold Stael von Holstein, which contain many comments on weather and harvest prospects (and also the difficulties of travel). L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 13, Lietas Nr. 633 and 634, passim.

86

G o o d Times, Hard Liquor, Bad D e b t s The roots of the growing economic crisis of the first decades of the nineteenth century lay in the period after the 1750's when higher consumption patterns, resulting largely from the spread of Western influence and the increasing magnificence of the Petersburg court, led by the end of the century to a general scarcity of cash, a great rise in debt, and frequent bankruptcy.10 The higher standard of living was initially supported by two new sources of income for noble estates, distilling alcoholic spirits and fattening livestock for slaughter. Both benefitted from the growing Petersburg market, especially after 1766, when the Imperial government opened up the Russian market to the sale of Baltic liquor (before that sale had been restricted to Baltic cities, to the manors' leasehold taverns, and to Sweden).11 The draff from the distilleries promoted fading raising, and thousands of oxen were sold on the Petersburg market. Alcohol thus increasingly replaced grain as the principal source of income, and a significant part of the grain harvest was diverted to distilling. By 1800 between 650 to 700 distilleries were operating in Estland and Livland (Kurland was the exception, with grain remaining the principal cash crop). 12 Increased Russian demand fueled ever greater production of spirits. Although manor lords did not become profit-oriented capitalists overnight, they were attracted to the quick cash income made possible by liquor sales, especially as expenses appeared relatively low once the equipment (copper cauldrons) for the distillery had been bought, and this was an investment usually recovered within a single year. Serf labor was "free" and mercilessly exploited 10

TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung,

1 : 1 1 0 ; FRIEDRICH STILLMARK, Die

Estländische

ade-

lige Kreditkasse 1801-1902 (Riga, 1903), p. 194. The diets of Estland and Livland passed sumptuary laws in 1780 without much success and an attempt in 1802 at new legislation did not pass the diets. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN, "Ein estländischer Staatsmann," Β Μ 24 ( 1 8 7 5 ) : 4 9 2 . S e e JANNAU, Sitten,

p p . 1 9 - 1 2 8 ; PETRI, Ehstland,

2 : 3 6 2 ^ 0 0 , 3 : 2 5 7 - 2 8 4 ; AUGUST

WILHELM HUPEL, "Der Luxus in unseren Nordländern," Nordische Miscellaneen, No. 3 (1781):113-147, and HUPEL, "Der in Lief- und Ehstland zunahmende gute Geschmack," Nordische, Nos. 13/14 (1787):489-502. The Imperial government occasionally raised extraordinary taxes from the provinces to finance the Turkish and Swedish wars in this period, another burden on the population. BIENEMANN, "Ein estländischer," p. 489. 11 Economically, the provinces benefitted overall from Russian conquest and by the 1770's the demands of the Petersburg market stimulated not only liquor production and animal husbandry, but also subsidiary industries like brickyards and saw mills. See BENITA MEDER, Der Strukturwandel in der baltischen Lebensart um die Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Veröffentlichungen der Ostdeutschen Forschungsstelle im Lande Nordrhein-Westfalen, no. 3 (Dortmund, 1961), pp. 1-28. The influence of the Russian market was strongest in Estland due to its geographical proximity. In 1796 forty-two and a half percent of her alcohol was sold to Russia. In 1835 forty-seven percent of net grain harvest in North Estland on manors, and twenty percent in South Estland was used for liquor distillation, though not all manors ran distilleries. 12 PöNICKE, p. 475. Kurland's statistical yearbook lists 122 distilleries for 1862. Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Gouvernement Kurland für 1863 (Mitau, 1863), p. 16.

87

(even after emancipation most peasants owed labor dues), and firewood was liberally cut from the manor's forests. As grain for liquor production became the principal crop of the manors, lords expanded their grain fields at the expense of forest without concern for soil exhaustion. B y 1800 the prices of manors had become linked t o liquor production; the apparently easy road to wealth led to high prices and speculation in real estate. The price of a Livland Haken

almost

tripled in the course of fifty years, from 2,921 silver rubles in 1761 t o 6,527 between 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 0 0 (and had risen to 7,400 by 1810). While only eight manors were sold in the fifteen years from 1 7 6 5 - 1 7 7 0 , eighty-four changed hands in the four years between 1796 to 1800. 1 3 Some enterprising lords successfully speculated in real estate; Balthasar Baron Campenhausen informed his son Hermann in 1792 that with each trade he had been able to increase "the future fortune of m y children by 2 0 , 0 0 0 rubles..." 1 4 T h e majority of lords were not so lucky; most entered the nineteenth century with a high level of indebtedness. According t o Bienemann, the debts engrossed on manors in 1800 amounted t o 2 , 6 5 7 , 0 0 0 silver rubles and 1,016,300 paper rubles; at the time, paper had almost the same value as silver. 15 M u c h of the borrowed capital was owed to mer-

13 HAGEMEISTER, Gütergeschichte, 1:26. Labor services were arbitrarily raised by eighteen percent at the turn of the century. HUECK, Darstellung, p. 114. In a recent paper dealing with liquor production in the last part of the eighteenth century, OTTO-HEINRICH ELIAS noted the changing mentality of the nobility who were beginning to think as agrarian capitalists. "Aufklärungsbedingte Wandlungen des wirtschaftlichen Denkens (Schnapsbrennen in Estland)," Fiftieth Meeting of Baltic Historians, Georg-August Universität, May 1997, Göttingen. The meaning of a Haken varied over time and within the provinces. Originally an areal measurement, it became since the end of the 17th century a measure of the taxability of land used by the peasantry. The quality as well as quantity of all land used for agricultural purposes was taken into account. For an example of how this worked in practice, see HERMANN BARON ENGELHARDT, Zur Geschichte der livländischen adeligen Güterkreditsozietät, (Riga, 1902), pp. 51-54. In 1849, as part of the new legislation on the peasantry, a Livland Haken was set at 240 desiatin. ToBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:54-61, 2:204; EDGARS DUNSDORFS, "Zum Hakenproblem," Commentationes Balticae 1 (1953), pp. 1-25; AXEL VON GERNET, Geschichte und System des bäuerlichen Agrarrechts in Estland (Reval, 1901), p. 46; RAUN, Estonia, p. 19. Article 599 of the civil law code of the provinces, first issued in 1864, provided a legal definition of a Rittergut and defined its minimum size. A manor in Estland had to have a minimum of 150 desiatin aside from meadows and pasture, a Livland manor had to be at least 300 desiatin (without counting water, marshes or other type of unusable land) of which at least one third had to be good agrarian land (Brustacker). An Osel manor had to be at least 162 desiatin without unusable land; at least a third had to be Brustacker. In Kurland the minimum size was 90 desiatin not including meadows and pasture. Manors which did not meet this size but had been registered in the landrolls (Osel 1819, Livland 1860, Estland 1856) did not lose the quality of knight's estates. PRO, III, articles 601,612,617, 885.

HI, Baltikum 400/235, letter of 5 October 1797. ΒίΕΝΕΜΑΝΝ, "Ein estländischer," p. 492. The paper ruble, or assignat, was first printed in 1769. Unfortunately, not all sources or historians state whether paper or silver rubles are involved in transactions. The absence of this information indicates that the source did not make a distinction. 14

15

88

chants, and manors thus passed into their hands either through bankruptcy or through the institution of hereditary mortgageship.16 It is partly for this reason that the corporate nobility pursued with such intensity the question of exclusive control over the land. Estimates at the time held that the additional personal indebtedness of manor lords equalled their debt on their manors.17 In the absence of credit institutions, a sudden request for repayment of borrowed funds could force a debtor into public sale, causing a wave of economic difficulties as each debtor in succession tried to recall his own outstanding debts. Capital was scarce. In 1809 Gottfried von Bruiningk asked Hermann von Campenhausen for a loan of 2,000 Albertus Thaler "...because if good friends and acquaintances don't lend one money, one cannot get anything anywhere. I think that I have not yet spoilt my credit, but my poverty is in ready cash and a mutual distrust in money affairs is now widespread..." 18 The previous year Bruiningk had tried to recall, without success, a share of the 9,000 Albertus Thaler he was owed by Hermann's brother Christoph. In his request he acknowledged that "I myself am very much acquainted with how difficult it is in these times even for a wellto-do man to pay out cash."19 Law courts were kept busy as manor lords defaulted on debts or declared bankruptcy. Sophie von Hahn remembered that this period was the "golden age for lawyers." 20 Andreas von Baranoff, who had just begun a service career in Petersburg, reported to his great aunt in 1811 that he was involved in a law suit on behalf of his widowed mother against a Baron Ungern-Sternberg who has "now declared himself bankrupt in a disgraceful manner in that he hides his money and we are in danger of losing 62,000 silver rubles." He added that his widowed mother, sister, and minor brother were therefore left impoverished and his own career advancement was at risk, as he needed to supplement his service income of 2,000 rubles with an "independent income in order to succeed in Russian service."21

Darstellung, P . 1 1 1 . "Ein estländischer," p. 492. 18 HI, Baltikum 400/367. An Albertus Thaler was worth about 1 silver ruble and 43 kopecks. 19 HI, Baltikum 400/423. Letter of 3 May 1808. Private correspondence is replete with references to financial difficulties in the first half of the 19th century. See, for example, HSA, 702, XIV. 2. No. 42; EAA, fond 4372, nimistu 1, järjek. 3; ibid., fond 1687, nimistu 1, järjek. 92; L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 5, Lietas Nr. 9; ibid. Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 122 and 132. 2 0 H A H N , In Gutshäusem, p. 226. 21 HI, Baltikum 400/161. Letter of 7 October 1811. This sum was the outstanding debt owed on a manor which Baranoff's father had sold. After several years Baranoff was able to recover some of the money. 16

HUECK,

17

BIENEMANN,

89

Hard Times and E c o n o m i c I n n o v a t i o n Credit

Associations

Decades of financial difficulties had awakened an interest among such members of the corporate nobility as Fr. W. von Taube of Livland in the creation of credit associations on the Prussian model. 22 The first draft discussion on this issue took place in the Livland diet in 1786 and in Estland in 1802. The Imperial government turned down Livland's request for approval twice, in 1789 and 1797, and only under Alexander I in 1802 were both associations approved (Livländische adelige Güterkreditsozietät, Estländische adelige Kreditkasse). The credit association was to issue mortgage bonds or notes (Pfandbriefe) to creditors that were secured not only by the individual debtor's manor on which they were engrossed, but by all the manors that joined the credit institution. Interest, set at five percent, was paid twice a year, in the first two weeks of March, before sowing season, and again in September, after the harvest was in, and these quickly became the traditional time to settle all financial affairs in the provinces.23 A manor lord could borrow up to two thirds the value of a Haken, a figure set in Livland at 4,050 silver rubles or 3,000 Albertus Thaler, in Estland at 3,000 silver rubles. 24 The associations had the powers of sequestration and foreclosure if the borrower was unable to repay the loan. Osel's manors joined those of Livland in 1821. Kurland created its own association in 1830 after the "bad twenties," a period of drastically low grain prices on the international market. 25 Membership was voluntary. Initially, 143 manors of Livland with 22 The first credit association (Landschaft) had been founded in 1769 in Silesia; Livland chose as its model the East Prussian one of 1788 and its draft was submitted for a critique to this association. Frederick II was intimately involved in credit associations in Prussia, made membership of manor lords mandatory, and regulated that manors could not be indebted over fifty percent, though later on in some provinces seventy-five percent was permitted. In this fashion, the Prussian nobility secured capital from the rising bourgeoisie without endangering the noble monopoly of manors since only the Landschaften could foreclose. These institutions helped to revitalize the nobility's political influence in Prussia. In the Baltic provinces membership was voluntary and manors indebtedness could rise to seventy-five percent. ENGELHARDT, Güterkreditsozietät, pp. 2-7; CARSTEN, p. 41; BERDAHL, The Politics, pp. 78-79. 25 Traditionally bills had been paid during the Johannimarkt in the last two weeks of June after the crops had been sown. Many families came to town in this period and it was a time of socializing. 24 STILLMARK, Die estländische, p. 200; ENGELHARDT, Güterkreditsozietät, p. 21. The average number of Haken of an Estland manor was twelve and a half (based on 515 manors with 6477 Haken in 1774). STILLMARK, Die estländische, p. 200. This sum was exceeded in 1818 when of the 2900 Haken of the Livland association, 2496 were mortaged up to 3032 silver rubles even though the limit had been set at 2700. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:279. 25 C. NEUMANN, "Rückblicke auf die Entwickelung der kurländischen bäuerlichen Güterverhältnisse seit 1817," SM 2 (1860): 510.

90

1680 1/8 Haken (ca. eleven Haken per manor), and about 171 in Estland with 1996 Haken joined the credit associations.26 The close relationship of the credit associations with the corporations was clearly stated in article 36 of the provinces' corporate law which declared that The corporations of Estland, Kurland, and Livland with Osel have credit associations that are specially instituted for each and are placed under their supervision and control... They are administered by civil servants who are to be elected from among the corporation without [need for] special confirmation on the part of the Government.

Later, in 1833, the Imperial government granted the associations' elected civil servants official rank with the right to wear uniforms.27 From the beginning the government played a vital financial role in the creation and continued operation of the credit institutions. The corporations desperately needed to secure the funds for the initial capitalization of the credit associations from Petersburg and mobilized (though without co-ordinating their actions) considerable influence and connections for this lobbying effort. In the period from 1801-1815 special delegations, led by important counselors, the resident marshals of the nobility, and Prince S. F. Golitsyn, governor-general of the provinces, regularly journeyed to the capital to petition to the government. With confirmation in 1802 also came the requested loan guarantee for each association of half a million silver rubles at three percent interest annually and three percent amortization. The government extended these loans in eleven installments from 1802 to 1812.28 In exchange, the government, which was aware of the deteriorating position of the provinces' peasants, used the financial requests as a lever to press for agrarian reform, though it left the terms of reform to the corporations.29 The credit associations' first ten years of operation, especially in Livland, were marked by continued financial difficulties.30 None the less, the credit institutions brought more order and stability to the financial system. In terms of their long term impact, the mortgage associations were instrumental in pre16 Membership increased steadily. By 1830 Livland's Haken number had more than doubled to 5054 1/4. ENGELHARDT, GUterkreditsozietät, p. 55. See footnote 13 for a discussion of the meaning of a Haken. 27 The President held the high rank of six, members of the administration eight, secretaries and bookkeepers rank ten. STILLMARK, Die estländische, p. 209. 28 ENGELHARDT, GUterkreditsozietät, p. 7; STILLMARK, Die estländische, p. 198. These sources provide convenient surveys of the first one hundred years of the institutions' operation. 29 As Thaden pointed out the government could also have exploited at this time the political infighting among the Livland corporation over the question of agrarian reform to unify the province with the Empire. THADEN, Russia's, p. 101. 30 For details on these transactions and the causes of financial difficulty, see ENGELHARDT, GUterkreditsozietät, passim. The economic problems connected with the French wars, several harvest failures and the varying course of silver, and paper rubles as well as the Albertus Thaler (removed from circulation in 1815) were some of the causes of financial instability.

91

serving the dominant position of the nobility in the countryside and their creation was the most significant innovation in the first part of the nineteenth century. The credit associations also became an important force in the economic development of the provinces. They advanced capital for agrarian innovation and improvements and, at times of harvest failures, provided seed money. The level of indebtedness nevertheless remained high.31

Price Breaks,

Foreclosures,

and Inherited

Debt

The first half of the 19th century was hard on agriculture everywhere. Due to increased international competition, prices of grain, liquor, and wool fluctuated markedly, and unpredictable natural events like harvest failures or sheep epidemics contributed to the problem. 32 The prices for rye and wheat, for example, fell in Riga by half between 1801 and 1829 from 159 rubles for wheat, and ninety-five rubles for rye per load of twenty-four tons to seventy-nine rubles and forty-five and a quarter rubles respectively.33 The 1820's were marked by a disastrous fall in prices for agricultural goods all over Europe. 34 Manor values fell accordingly. The price of a Livland Haken, for example, fell from its height in 1805 of 6,080 silver rubles to 4,650 rubles in 1829 (4,395 silver rubles from 1821-1825). Thirty manors had to be sold at auction from 1821 to 1830, or thirty-eight percent of the 127 manors sold at auction in Livland over the whole period from 1801 to 1840.35 In Estland twenty-two estates were foreclosed on by 31 The associations made money more easily available and at cheaper rates than offered previously by money lenders and therefore probably had the effect of increasing debt. Some lords also used cheaper credits to buy more manors. Foreclosed manors were sold by the credit association at auction. Since the buyer had to be another financially strapped noble, it was possible to buy only with the help of a probably even bigger mortgage from the credit association. What this means is that if the credit association had not advanced such mortgages, prices would have collapsed. Under such circumstances it is difficult to maintain financial discipline, and this may have been the major reason for the continued financial difficulties of the associations. 32 For statistics on number of animals which perished from 1845—1859, see KAHK, Krise, pp.160-161. 33 HAGEMEISTER, Gütergeschichte, 1:26, cited in TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:408. For the bewildering array of weights and measures in the Baltic provinces, see PETRI, Neuestes Gemähide, 2 : 4 9 2 ^ 9 3 . 34 HANS-ULRICH WEHLER, Die deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte 1815-1845/49 2 vols. (Munich, 1987), 2: 29-53, 145-161. In agricultural innovation Baltic manor lords followed the German example whose model, in turn, was English and Dutch agriculture. 35 HAGEMEISTER, Gütergeschichte, 1:26, cited in TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:408409. Sale of manors based on information compiled from STRYK, Beiträge. The sale price of manors and the number traded depended on the prices of grain and alcohol. See HEINRICH VON HAGEMEISTER, "Über den Werth der livländischen Landgüter und ihrer Erzeugnisse," Livländische Jahrbücher der Landwirtschaft 6, No. 1 (1831):72; KAHK, Krise,

p. 1 2 5 ; H U E C K , Darstellung,

92

PP. 1 3 6 - 1 3 7 .

the credit association in 1822 because of non-payment of debt. 36 In 1838 the debt in mortgage bonds on the manors of Livland alone amounted to thirteen million rubles, that is, over half the value of manors. 37 This debt, however, was only part of the problem, as debts arising from inheritance laws and private borrowing were also considerable. A. von Hueck commented in 1845, Of the 540 manors in Livland that are in the hands of the nobility, 477 with [landholdings of] 4,760 Haken borrowed money from the credit association, and... if we add to this privately engrossed debts, the debt on manors is so high that 492,500 silver rubles have to be paid annually in interest... In Estland 511 manors with about 5800 Haken belong to the credit union; total debt (on average 1500 per Haken) may amount to 8,700,000 silver rubles, and the annual interest to 382,000 silver rubles. 38

The inheritance practices of the corporate nobility added another burden of manorial and personal debt. We will discuss the details in a later chapter; for our purpose here it is sufficient to stress that while a manor was usually passed on to a single male member of the family, male and female siblings also received a share of the inheritance in the form of a cash settlement that was usually engrossed on their brother's estate. Heirs were obliged to pay out to their siblings the annual interest due on their capital and to pay out the capital over the course of years or decades as prescribed in the father's will. Ludolf Baron Bruiningk, for example, ordered that "after the course of two years my son has to pay his sisters not only the annual interest of the capital which comes to them, but also pay each of them annually 500 silver rubles from the capital, however all of the capital can be recalled by them only after ten years." 3 9 In addition, daughters frequently inherited capital loaned to outsiders. These amounts could take decades to recover, if they were not lost completely. Sophie von Plessen, who in 1802 inherited rights to debts loaned by her father, still had "difficulties" with its recovery in 1831 and complained about "non-payment of interest stretching over many years." Even one of her brothers defaulted in paying her portion of inherited capital engrossed on his estate. 40 These obligations, which

36

PÖNICKE, p . 475.

" N o c h ein Wort über das Recht des Güterbesitzes in Livland," Das Inland, 11 May 1838, p. 292. N o such figures were available for Kurland though the situation there was not much better, esp. after the 1820's. See Kurländische Güterchroniken, vol. 1. 38 HUECK, Darstellung, P. 141. 39 BRUININGK, Das Geschlecht, no. 43, Testament. May 3,1802. 40 HI, Baltikum 400/382. Letter of May 14,1831 to her sister Dorothea von Budberg. See also Baltikum 400/380, 387. Complications also arose because of the changing value of the paper ruble as opposed to the silver ruble, and wills were set in either currency. Whereas a silver ruble exchanged for 1 paper ruble and 50 kop. in 1789 to 1810, the silver ruble climbed to three paper rubles and 82 kop. in the period from 1810-1830. In 1839, minister of finance E. F. Kankrin brought order out of the chaos created by the wildly fluctuating course of the paper ruble (assignat), substituting for it a sounder paper ruble with a stable relationship to the silver currency. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:276. 37

93

often stretched over generations, were a major liability for manor heirs. Theophil v o n Campenhausen, for example, u p o n the death of his father in 1841 proposed to his siblings that the debt engrossed o n the inherited manors o w e d to the heirs of his grandfather's sister should be settled for a lesser sum or, if n o agreement could be reached, that the heirs take the case to court for settlement. 41 Table 4: Account b o o k of Berendt v o n Behr Income

S. Rbl.

Expenses 1829

Cash holding Lease and yield manor Schmolden Yield manor Pinnow Lease manor Sargatz Received interest Loaned out capital Compensated for business trips

149,6 1617,20 3320,42 1100 130 293,12 172,32

Compensated wine expenses

110,13

Won in Boston

3,24

Expenses for Schmolden Spent on Pinnow Spent on Sargatz Paid out in interest Paid off on capital Paid to my wife Costs for stay in Wolgast (435), house furnishing (295) Expenses on business trips (172), other small travel expenses (38) Clothes for me (92), wife (58), other gifts Expenses for children, clothes and instruction Pay for servants (66), clothing (86), pension for Ringe (16) For wine (170), books (18), newspaper (11), stamps (21) Honoraria Edsangken, Billroth (84), doctors (72) Carriage horses, harness, etc. Cemetery fence (35), lottery (30), cards (37), Christmas gifts Total Expenses for 1829

Total Income for 1829 Cash Remaining

41

6897,20 27,33

S. Rbl. 48 21 165 3057 450 200 750

210 175 245 168 257 156 815 134 6870

HI, Baltikum 400/432. The complications arising from inheritance laws and private loans can be traced through several generations of the Campenhausen family and were quite common among noble families. See Baltikum 400/267, 166, Senateur Balthasar von Campenhausen. Betr. seines Nachlass. 1800, Testament der Martha Baranoff, geb. Campenhausen, 1811. For similar cases, see Kurländische Ritterschaft 701 XIV. 7. Karton 3; LlEVEN, Urkunden, 1:354—419. 94

High debt burden could consume up to half a lord's budget as illustrated in the account book of Berendt von Behr for the year 1829. 4 2 Von Behr owned three manors, two of them leased out, and lived part of the year in town. Over half of Behr's annual income went to the discharge of debt obligations and very little in repayment of principal; as a result he barely managed to balance income and outgo. Behr's situation was not unusual. Some lords, especially in the 1840's, reported a net deficit of income over expenses. H . J. von Winkler, for example, wrote on his annual accounts for 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 4 8 that "again this year I worked for nothing," since his expenses exceeded net proceeds by 312 rubles and 48 kopecks. 43 Given the level of bankruptcies and foreclosures, this level of return was not unusual. Behr himself would have been in deep financial trouble if his educational expenses, a constant woe for parents then as now, had been higher. H e listed 245 silver rubles (926 paper rubles) for his children's clothing and instruction. The children probably attended a private school in town where tuition fees were lower than at boarding school (from fifty to sixty paper rubles per year depending on grade attended). Tuition, r o o m and board at a well known private educational institution such as Krümmer was 600 paper rubles in 1829. A male tutor received a salary of 1500 paper rubles a year, a governess less. A university course of study at Dorpat required at least 600 paper rubles a year, the sum 42 Behr's accounts are rendered as they appear in his account book. Double entry bookkeeping was not common in this period and net proceeds of the various branches of the manor economy were not available. As Hueck noted in 1845 "there is a lack in the land of exact accounting of net proceeds..." Most manor lords did not include in their expenses upkeep of family, manor servants, and employees or building repairs, though this amounted to about one-third to one-half of their expenses. This makes an accounting of the manor economy very difficult. See HUECK, Darstellung, pp. 335-337, cited in KAHK, Krise, p. 108. FRIEDRICH VON KLOPPMANN, Chronik der Majoratsgüter Postenden und Lubb-Essern (Mitau, 1865), pp. 51-52. In his account on how he farmed the manor Munnales in the 1830's, C. F. von Hueck specifically mentioned that he had learned double entry bookkeeping in Jena and how this benefitted his manor management. HUECK, Gut Munnales, p.

187. 43 Cited in KAHK, Krise, p. ILL; Winkler's accounts showed deficits for the years 18461852. Ibid. Of Behr's total expenses 44.5 % went to interest. The private papers of Christoph von Campenhausen provide much evidence on the economic difficulties between 1810 and the 1830's. HI, Baltikum 400/415-421. See the account book by August von Hagemeister and other letters in this file for another example of a deficit economy. L W A , Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 7, p. 47. 44

CARL THEODOR HERMANN, "Erinnerungen 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 3 7 , " B M 38 (1891): 4; HEINRICH

SEESEMANN, Dorothea (Doris) von Ungern-Sternberg. 1787-1828. Ein Lebensbild, nach Briefen und anderen Unterlagen. Baltische Erinnerungen und Biographien (HannoverDöhren, 1979), pp. 292, 306, 382. A governess received a little less than 1000 paper rubles (about 250 silver). "Das Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesen in den russischen Ostseeprovinzen," Das Inland, "Zweite pädagogische Beilage," (Dorpat, October 9, 1850), p. 52. In this period a hundred paper rubles were worth twenty-seven silver rubles. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:276. In 1845, a dollar was worth one and a half silver ruble. HUECK, Das Gut Munnales, p. 41. 95

alloted to a literati son in the period from 1829 to 1832, though this would probably not have been adequate to support a scion of the corporate nobility.44 Behr's income would not have allowed him to keep a son in the Imperial guards, where annual supplements of 1,400 to 2,000 paper rubles were not uncommon.45 Overall, Behr's lifestyle was fairly modest, though he spared few expenses when it came to status: expenses for the upkeep of carriage and horses constituted the second highest item in his budget. Behr, like most lords, tried to minimize cash expenses (of those years Johann C. von Gruenewaldt wrote that this was the prime "task of good and economical household management") by relying on manor production for food, clothing, heat, and light.46

T h e N o b l e s T u r n to the State Faced with economic difficulties all around, the corporate nobility sought to alleviate its situation with state subsidies and agrarian innovation. Serious economic conditions in the provinces had not yet persuaded the majority of the corporate nobility to rationalize their agararian economy along the lines of their counterparts in the German lands. Rather than face up to economic facts that pointed toward modernization, most looked to government aid and subsidies. Government economic support was actively courted and invited (the creation of credit institutions is only one example). The corporate nobility saw no contradiction between its requests for help and its opposition to any challenge to its privileged position. The government, in turn, was often inclined to be generous: subsidies to Baltic agrarian innovation were justified as providing useful models for Russian agriculture at the same time as they provided a lever the government could use to press for agrarian reform. In the first decades of the nineteenth century the corporations sought 1) the restitution of the preferential nobiliar right to the lease of crown estates; 2) guaranteed government liquor purchases; and 3) government aid for a new enterprise, merino sheep raising.

Crown

Estates

The preferential right to the lease of crown estates (Domäne) was especially crucial to the corporations of Livland, Osel, and Kurland, where the majority of the crown estates were located (140 in Livland and Osel together and 183 in 4 5 H S A , Livländische Ritterschaft 702. N r . 82, p. 19; Kurländische Ritterschaft 701. VI, 3, N r . 21. Letter of Carl von Lieven to son Otto, 7 February, 1818. 4 6 GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1:26.

96

Kurland in 1841).47 The capitulation agreements of 1710 between the Livland corporation and tsar Peter I stipulated that crown estates could not be alienated (clause 14) and that the Livland corporation, especially its "deserving and poor," enjoyed a preferential right to these estates for the "maintenance and recovery of the prosperity of the Livland nobility" (article 17).48 This right was considered a form of compensation for the devastation of the Northern War and was confirmed several times by Russia's rulers in the 18th century. Usually crown estates were leased out for twelve years at a time at the moderate rate of sixty silver rubles per Haken, and sometimes for free, as a means of support for impoverished noble families. The number of these estates, however, fell through the course of the eighteenth century as Russia's rulers gave crown estates for life or with the right of inheritance to the Empire's dignitaries and courtiers. The main reason the Livland corporation stopped protesting against the alienation of crown estates was its recognition that it needed the support of these very dignitaries and courtiers for the defense of its privileges. In 1790 the government began to ignore the corporation's preferential right to the lease of crown estates and by the second decade of the 19th century the fiscal agency of the government in the provinces (Kameralhof) started to offer crown leases to the highest bidder. With the pending emancipation of the Baltic peasantry in 1816 the corporations of Livland and Kurland petitioned the government for a restitution of the preferential right, but the petition was denied despite the support of Baltic governor-general Marquis Fillipo O. Paulucci. Repeated appeals into the 1830's were unsuccessful, as the government needed the crown estate income to support its offices and activities in the provinces.49 Wealthy burghers often outbid corporate nobles for crown estate leases, and by 1861 sixty-two (77%) of eighty-one crown estates in Livland

47 Most of Livland's crown estates dated from the 17th century, when the Swedish crown confiscated those manors of the corporate nobility where title was unclear. There was some restitution upon Russian conquest by Peter. At the end of the 18th century there were 101 crown estates in Livland. Of these sixty-four dated from the Swedish reduction, eight fell to the state later because of lack of heirs, two were bought by the crown, and there is no information on an additional twenty-seven estates. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:18. Kurl a n d s crown estates supported the ducal administration until the time of Russian conquest. Estland had only seven crown estates. See NOL'DE, Ocherki, 2:663-668; on Ösel, see V. P. BUXHÖVDEN, " U b e r das Besitzrecht an Kronsarrenden auf Ösel," in Das Inland, N o . 17,27 April 1838. 48 The same understanding also prevailed in Kurland. HEINRICH A. VON BOCK, "Landschaft - Creditverein - publike Güter in Livland," Das Inland, N o . 50, 14 December 1838, pp. 802-808; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:18-20. Both these sources recount the history of crown estates. 49 Ibid.

97

were in burgher hands, nine (11%) were leased to service nobility (mainly retired military), and only nine (11 %) to the corporate nobility.50

Guaranteed

Liquor

Sales

The corporate nobility, with Estland playing the leading role, displayed more persistence and toughness in its efforts to win government commitment for set liquor purchases. Income from liquor sales played a significant role in the manor economy of Estland and Livland. The crown had placed liquor orders for decades, but the size of the orders declined after reaching a high point at the end of the eighteenth century. Manors tended to overproduce, resulting in falling prices and much unsold liquor. By the 1820's the corporation of Estland became alarmed when twenty-two manors were foreclosed by the credit institution. The Estland corporation then took the lead in a fight for guaranteed liquor purchases by the government.51 As the secretary of the corporation, Baron Wilhelm von Rosen wrote in 1822 to governor-general Marquis Paulucci "it is mainly the lack of a secure market at decent prices ... for liquor that has resulted in the disintegration of the fortune of so many families. I can say, in truth, [the fortunes] of most of them." In 1823, in a petition to Alexander I, Rosen even spoke of the "inevitable demise" of the nobility. Two years later, in another petition, the corporation prophesied that if the local manor lords could not count on a crown order of 250,000 pails (ca. 15 liters per pail), they would stand at the threshold of the inevitable ruin of the manors, because in these provinces the distillation of liquor is inalienably tied to agriculture and the one cannot exist without the other. 5 2

This dramatization of economic woes was not without success. The campaign over liquor orders was calculated and filled with "intrigues and machinations." The Soviet Estonian historian Kahk stressed the "genuine mer5 0 Based on JEGOR VON SLVERS, Das Buch der Güter Livlands und Oeseis (Riga, 1863). N o figures were available for Kurland, but the nobility there was alarmed. F o r them crown estates were very important because of the many entails that disadvantaged the livelihood of younger sons. T h e corporate nobility of Osel fared somewhat better due to its geographical isolation. O f forty-one crown estates, twenty-two (54 % ) were leased to burghers, sixteen ( 3 9 % ) to corporate nobles, and three to the peasantry. Ibid. The nobility argued that their members were better tenants and guardians of the land and peasantry since burghers often subleased crown estates to persons w h o ran down the estates for quick profit. BOCK, " L a n d schaft," p. 68. 51 KAHK provides the most thorough discussion of this issue, Krise, pp. 62-79. K a h k includes in his account the Estonian speaking districts of Livland, Dorpat-Werro, and PernauFellin. See also HUECK, Darstellung, pp. 112, 217, 290; PLSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, pp. 50-53. 52 Cited in KAHK, Krise, p. 64.

98

chant cleverness and ruthlessness" of the Estland corporation. 5 3 Competition over orders was increasingly fierce as other liquor producing provinces also competed and one intrigued against the other. In an account to the deliberating assembly of the Estland corporation, the marshal of the nobility described some of these "machinations" at the fiscal agency for liquor in St. Petersburg in 1826. In order to thwart the plan intended for Est- and Livland, that is, to exclude these provinces completely from a [liquor] contract, and to frighten off from any participation once and for all the more distant provinces, and especially Penza, where the most important distilleries are located, I felt called upon to set the low price of 360 kop. per pail, upon which it was immediately decided that the more distant provinces could not participate in this contract and that Estland, because of its location, could always deliver liquor cheaper than any of the more distant provinces.54 L o w bids eliminated the competition from the Russian interior, but the corporations also played skillfully on their loyalty to the crown; this appealed especially to the Empire's new ruler, Nicholas I, who appreciated the corporations' renewed avowals of loyalty after the Decembrist revolt of 1825 (even though some of the conspirators were Baltic corporate noble officers). 55 In the year after Nicholas' accession, the government granted Estland's corporation a guaranteed contract for 250,000 pails annually. Livland also benefitted, particularly the districts of Dorpat-Werro and Fellin, where most of the distilleries were located. 5 6 In 1835 the corporation of Livland, ever guarding its pocketbook, even prevailed successfully upon the Ministry of Interior to ban the temperance unions that, with the encouragement of the Lutheran clergy, were making inroads among the peasantry. 57 Though government orders secured the economic security of liquor producing manors for about a decade, some more forward looking members of the corporations saw the handwriting on the wall and began to look for additional Ibid. Ibid. 55 Among the 121 arrests made, six were from the Baltic nobility. But Nicholas I received strong support during the uprising from several Baltic noble officers, men like K. von Toll, M. von Gruenewaldt, W. von Löwenstern, A. von Benckendorff and W. von Adlerberg. 53 54

N O L L E , p p . 1 3 0 - 1 3 4 . See [BARON ANDREAS VON ROSEN], AUS den Memoiren

eines

Deka-

bristen (Leipzig, 1869). 56 Kahk's discussion includes the Estonian districts of Northern Livland. He provides statistics of crown orders for 1836. KAHK, Krise, p. 76. There were problems and disagreements into the early 1850's over awarding individual contracts between the corporation of Esdand and her appointed plenipotentiaries, the so-called "liquor commissars" who were to make these decisions. On Livland's liquor production, see Das Inland, no. 34, 19 August 1836 and no. 41, 8 October 1851. 57 The peasantry also exchanged much of its grain for liquor, much to the detriment of peasant agriculture and households. In addition, much drinking took place in the lords' taverns and inns. The corporation also complained to the consistory of the Lutheran church which complied with its request for a ban. GARVE, p. 21.

99

sources of income. They had reason to be concerned, for changing technology in the 1830's, including the adoption of a new steam distillery apparatus and the use of the high yielding potato for distillation led to problems of higher production and falling prices that were again aggravated by increased competition from Russian interior provinces. By the 1840's the market share of Estland's liquor sold in the capital and Petersburg province had fallen from forty-five percent in 1844 to thirty-three percent in 1845 until they stabilized at only sixteen percent after 1846.58 Economic salvation would not lie in liquor production.

Merino

Sheep

The next area in which the corporations sought government subsidies was for agrarian innovation. This did not yet mean a revamping of the old agricultural system, that is, a transition from the dependency on labor rents of the peasantry to a money economy based on the lease and sale of land to peasants that would open the way for an independent and more rational system of manor farming based on hired labor. Instead, the nobility looked for easier means to improve its situation and thought that it had found the answer in a new and what seemed then promising industry, one much recommended by the well known German agronomist A. Thaer. As early as 1809 Thaer had recommended merino sheep for high grade wool to the Baltic German nobility to increase net proceeds from the manors.59 Thaer's advice seemed confirmed when wool prices rose sharply on the world market at the end of 1825, and the confirmation of Thaer's prediction was widely publicized in the provinces.60 A few pioneering manor lords took the lead in 1824 and 1825 and established herds imported from Prussia, Saxony, and Austria.61 Their writings and efforts were publicized in the local press and in Livland's agricultural journal and were followed with

58

KAHK, Krise, P. 68.

59

PHILLIPP, p . 1 0 8 .

KAHK, Krise, p. 80. Kahk discusses merino sheep raising in some detail, see pp. 79-86. Barons Ungern-Sternberg of Dagö-Gossenhof, Otto Gruenewaldt, Chr. Brevem, and Karl A. Chr. Bruiningk studied the business in Germany and even had some of their peasants trained there. GRUENEWAI.DT, Vier Söhne, p. 160; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:412. None the less, sheep raising in the provinces was troubled by resistance of laborers to the new work load and the duties attached to the care of sheep. One of the deficiencies of the labor rent system was resistance of peasants to innovation (not unusual under the corvee anywhere), particularly when new and unaccustomed work had to be performed in excess of ordinary duties and obligations. See HENR1HS STRODS , "Merinosovoe ovtsevodstvo ν Latvii ν pervoi polovine X I X v.," Ezhegodnik, 1960 (Kiev, 1962), p. 387. A. von Hueck commented that because of the fear of further exploitation, the peasants reacted to each change with "indolence, reluctance, and helplessness." HUECK, Darstellung, p. 105; cf. KAHK, Krise, p. 218. The first flock of sheep had been established by a Baron Löwenstern who had 284 sheep in 1800. STRODS, "Merino," p. 379. 60 61

100

great interest by compatriots. Dorothea von Ungern-Sternberg, who lived on a manor near Dorpat, noted in 1828 that "everyone is busy raising sheep."62 The corporations were persuaded of the merit of the new enterprise and managed to provoke the interest of Minister of Finance Kankrin sufficiently that in 1826 the government granted the corporations the substantial loan of 115,000 silver rubles for eight years without interest to promote sheep raising and even placed three crown estates at their disposal as stock farms.63 The industry grew quickly and by 1827 Estland had seventeen herds and Livland thirty-two, for a total of 15,308 sheep. By 1841 this had grown to a total of 200 herds and 184,200 sheep.64 Wool was sold to the local textile industry, which developed in parallel and, after 1838, at regular wool fairs in the towns. 65 Breeding stock was also marketed in other Russian provinces. For a time the new sheep lords received a respectable income from the sale of wool, with net proceeds estimated in 1841 as 101,000 silver rubles per year for Estland, 127,000 for Livland, and 26,000 for Kurland (where grain was still king).66 Such profits motivated Otto von Wolff to recommend in 1833 to his young relative, Ernst von Campenhausen, still a student in Germany that he "study thoroughly sheep raising ... because this is the only thing with which one can achieve anything smart here. Learn about wool, visit several sheep farm breeders so that you will not become onesided."67 Unfortunately, merino sheep breeding turned out to be a risky business. By the late 1830's and 1840's epidemics caused by wet weather and unsuitably marshy pastures decimated the herds at the same time as the price of wool declined, mainly because of Australian and inner Russian competition.68 As Kahk 6 2 SEESEMANN, Dorothea, p. 345. W. von Samson-Himmelstjerna reported in 1834 to his son Karl that "Gruenewaldt has lost 20,000 rubles in wool that he sent to Pernau badly packed." HI, Baltikum 400/685. Letter of 11 November 1834. In 1826 the Livländische Jahrbuch der Landwirtschaft published a handbook for shepherds and their assistants. KAHK, Krise, p. 80. 6 3 HUECK, Darstellung, p. 272; STRODS, "Merino," p. 380, cf. KAHK, Krise, p. 81. In 1828 the Livland corporation opened a stock breeding farm under the direction of Bruiningk on the manor Trikaten. Sheep breeders in Estland, Kurland, and Livland formed their own organizations to exchange information and advice in 1830. 6 4 PÖNICKE, p. 480; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 1:412. See also "Die Schafzucht in den Ostseeprovinzen," Das Inland, nos. 5 , 1 6 , 17, 20, 21, 22 (1841). 6 5 Riga, Reval and Dorpat. KAHK, Krise, p. 79. 66 Ibid., p. 83. Kurland had only 4000 sheep in 1834 which rose to 12,000 in 1841, six times less than the size of Livland's herd, the largest of the provinces. Kurland's soil was more fertile and grain remained the preferred product. STRODS, "Merino," p. 381 6 7 HI, Baltikum 400/647. Letter of July 2, 1833. 6 8 Baltic merchants had previously sold much of their wool in England and Germany whose merchants began to buy cheaper Australian wool. Riga merchants followed suit and also began to buy cheaper wool from southern Russian provinces. In 1845, and again 1851, the corporations attempted unsuccessfully to persuade minister of state domains P. D. Kiselev to impose higher duties on imported wool and also on sheep, since they wanted to corner the market for the sale of sheep to the Ukraine. STRODS, "Merino,", p. 387.

101

noted, the major contribution of the relatively short boom in sheep raising was to introduce a new system of agriculture based on clover and potato cultivation.69 The cultivation of fodder crops led to an improvement in the three field system, as potatoes, clover, and other legumes were planted on the field left fallow; from here a beginning was made to a transition from a three-field to a multifield system.

Economic Innovation, Political Intransigence In spite of continued economic woes, most lords clung to the old agricultural system and were unwilling to make the transition from a labor to a money economy. The majority still felt comfortable with the status quo, especially as nobiliar economic status remained even at worst far superior to that of the native peasantry. The environment of master and servant also promoted an indolence that worked against change. This was hardly unusual in a landed elite. In the 1850's Russia's gentry was being pushed toward peasant emancipation in a process driven and controlled by the Imperial bureaucracy. When the Baltic German nobility finally began serious discussion of agrarian reform in the troubled 1840's, it was not so much economic conditions alone that provided the motive as concern over governmental interference in their privileged status. The loss of a portion of noble privilege with the enactment of new agrarian statutes after 1856 opened the way for a more progressive manor economy in the second half of the nineteenth century and forced the corporate nobility to respond more vigorously to the economic challenge as it faced first the threat and then, in the 1880's, the reality of the abolition of its privileged political position. The result was the release of energy for economic endeavors in order to maintain its economic dominance in the countryside even after the loss of clear cut political dominance. In the first part of the nineteenth century, however, the overall political, legal and economic preeminence of the Baltic German nobility was, despite some warning signals, still solid. This status was supported from below by the major pillar of the corporation, the family. This institution assumed a more emotional role in the life of the Baltic German noble in this period, though familial interest was still primarily directed toward the reproduction of the social system.

69

102

KAHK, Krise, p. 86.

If we should, draw together... our judgments about life and activity in Liv- Est- and Kurland, there emerges in the end a peculiar coalescence of state and social life in our homeland. Intercourse between these two spheres of life happens everywhere and is everywhere necessary; with us the two are almost identical. Private and family life is not opposed to the public... Nowhere is it more difficult to separate the object from the person, because private relations prevail in most cases over public ones. With us the family is projected into the public arena, is of most immediate influence on the course of political and economic affairs, is at the basis of all conviviality, and forms the main subject of interest of its members and of strangers alike;... with us, it is difficult to show where house and family stop and the public arena begins.1

Chapter VI: The " C u l t of F a m i l y "

1800-1855

Julius Eckardt's comments quoted above on the family character of German Baltic society in 1863 were consonant with those of other Baltic Germans who remarked on the "familial character of public life" and "the patriarchal condition in which all Baits consider each other as no more than nuances of one large family."2 This type of patriarchal-familial social order was not unusual in preindustrial societies; in the closed world of the Baltic provinces it arose from the highly developed estate-corporate order of society. Over the course of centuries the four Baltic corporations had grown into extended families whose members knew each other well or, at the least, knew about each other, just as within each province members of the corporate family were well informed about each other's financial and personal affairs.3 One knew, for instance, that the Wolff family was particularly talented in agronomy, and was richly endowed with manors. They were held to be musical as well. The Rosens suffered from 1 2

ECKARDT, Zur Charakteristik, p. 14. In order of citation, BERTRAM, p. 258; SERAPHIM, Im neuen, p. 20; cf. " D i e Familie,"

BM 38 (1891):689; JULIUS ECKARDT, Lebenserinnerungen, 3

ECKARDT, Zur Charakteristik,

2 v o l s . ( L e i p z i g , 1910), 1:78.

p. 8; " A u s einem livländischen Erinnerungsbuche," BM

6 8 (1909):84—123.

103

If we should, draw together... our judgments about life and activity in Liv- Est- and Kurland, there emerges in the end a peculiar coalescence of state and social life in our homeland. Intercourse between these two spheres of life happens everywhere and is everywhere necessary; with us the two are almost identical. Private and family life is not opposed to the public... Nowhere is it more difficult to separate the object from the person, because private relations prevail in most cases over public ones. With us the family is projected into the public arena, is of most immediate influence on the course of political and economic affairs, is at the basis of all conviviality, and forms the main subject of interest of its members and of strangers alike;... with us, it is difficult to show where house and family stop and the public arena begins.1

Chapter VI: The " C u l t of F a m i l y "

1800-1855

Julius Eckardt's comments quoted above on the family character of German Baltic society in 1863 were consonant with those of other Baltic Germans who remarked on the "familial character of public life" and "the patriarchal condition in which all Baits consider each other as no more than nuances of one large family."2 This type of patriarchal-familial social order was not unusual in preindustrial societies; in the closed world of the Baltic provinces it arose from the highly developed estate-corporate order of society. Over the course of centuries the four Baltic corporations had grown into extended families whose members knew each other well or, at the least, knew about each other, just as within each province members of the corporate family were well informed about each other's financial and personal affairs.3 One knew, for instance, that the Wolff family was particularly talented in agronomy, and was richly endowed with manors. They were held to be musical as well. The Rosens suffered from 1 2

ECKARDT, Zur Charakteristik, p. 14. In order of citation, BERTRAM, p. 258; SERAPHIM, Im neuen, p. 20; cf. " D i e Familie,"

BM 38 (1891):689; JULIUS ECKARDT, Lebenserinnerungen, 3

ECKARDT, Zur Charakteristik,

2 v o l s . ( L e i p z i g , 1910), 1:78.

p. 8; " A u s einem livländischen Erinnerungsbuche," BM

6 8 (1909):84—123.

103

hardness of hearing, while the Ungern-Sternbergs had second sight, and the Oeningens were talented, but too haughty and proud.4 If in this ordered Baltic world status and identity derived from the Stand, the corporation, which was itself an expanded or extended family, the major pillar of support for the Stand, and its very foundation, was the family. The family was central to all aspects of Baltic German society; it shaped its members' perceptions of their group and of their place in society and it saw to the internalization of the rules of familial life and social behavior. The family defined the economic and institutional imperatives of education and professional training, of marriage and of the social duties: service to corporation and to monarch. Both identity and status were based upon and preserved through the twin agencies of corporation and family. Family was not, however, a static institution. The very concept of family was changing in the latter part of the eighteenth century under the influence of German classicism and romanticism and these changes also affected the concept of the far-off Baltic German noble family. It was in this period that a new ideology of the sexes redefined the meaning of the family and of interpersonal relationships and led to a cult of the family that emotionalized and sentimentalized family relationships. By the first part of the nineteenth century a new cult of family had established itself among the Baltic German nobility, existing side by side with older traditions of familial interests and expectations with regard to marriage, education, professional training, and social duty.

T h e " W i d e r " and t h e " N a r r o w e r "

Family

Baltic German civil law had a dual definition of family.5 In the first instance, the family consisted of the "totality" of all those persons who stemmed from a "common progenitor," carried his family name, and composed "his family in the wider sense of the word." This loose and wide definition of a patrilineal family, a family that one could trace back for decades and even centuries vertically as a genealogical line, or horizontally as the "extended" family with one, two, or three living generations, was juxtaposed with a tighter definition. Article 262 of Baltic civil law stated that

4

HSA, 702. Pilar von Pilchau, Nr. 42, p. 4; ibid., Blankenhagen, Nr. 39, p. 5; ibid., (Det-

tingen, Nr. 33, "Die drei", p. 11; HI, Baltikum 400/675, diary entry for 18 February 1898; ibid., Nr. 729, diary entry for 12 March 1889. 5 Baltic Germans had their own civil law autonomous from Russian civil law. See chapter 2, footnote 18 on its origins.

104

T o the family in a narrower sense belong the father of the house, and also his wife and the children w h o m they have begotten, s o long as the latter are still under parental p o w e r or live, after the death of their parents, in an undivided household. 6

This family was based, then, on a biogenetic legal definition that included only the members of a common household united in a nuclear family of father, mother, and children. 7 This legal conception of family corresponded with the most common social concept. For Baltic German nobles the nuclear family was the central and most meaningful aspect and experience of their lives. Grandparents did not form part of this "narrower" family. Once a son married, he was expected to set up his own household. Fathers with means assigned to their sons, through a legally binding contract, an estate if they owned more than one or, if they were ready to retire, concluded a legal transaction in which they ceded their manors to their sons in return for a life pension. Such transactions were duly accounted for in the last will in a manner not to disadvantage any other children.8 If there were too many sons in the family and not enough manors, then fathers, or mothers if they had independent means, extended financial aid so their sons could form their own households by the lease or purchase of a manor. In this fashion, Anna von Gruenewaldt, who had inherited a considerable fortune, helped finance in the 1820's the "establishment of independent households" for all seven of her children. 9 In the alternative, a son could look only to a salaried position either at home in the provinces or beyond in the Empire. In this equation, a wife's dowry could play a crucial role in the financial prospects of a newly wed couple. With a well-endowed wife a son would not have to postpone marriage or bring his family to live with parents and wait for his father's death. (This living arrangement was not uncommon among Russian noble families, where it became a major contributor to family tension). At the same time it is worth remembering that given the average life expectancy of Baltic German noblemen and women in the period from 1800 to 1849 (61.7 years for men, 62.3 years for women), many sons did not have to wait overly long for their inheritance, especially as many of them married only in their late twen-

P R O , III, articles 261 and 262. F o r a discussion of the anthropological views of family and kinship, see JESSICA TOVROV, The Russian Noble Family ( N e w Y o r k and L o n d o n , 1987), pp. 66-71. 8 See P R O , III, articles 2745, 2746, 2748, 2756 for the legal provisions of such transactions as they concern inheritance. Inheritance law required an accounting of all property or other expenses passed o n to heirs during the lifetime of a testator. A n exemption was only made f o r expenses paid to facilitate entry into the civil or military services and for education through the university level. T h e testator could, however, require in his last will that these items be included in the settlement of his estate. Ibid., article 2758. ' GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1:33. 6 7

105

ties. 10 The family household sometimes included an unmarried brother or, more commonly, sister of the parents. The family aunt was a familiar and somewhat pathetic figure in the Baltic provinces, since a fairly high number of women never married. In the period from 1800 to 1849, for example, of 176 daughters born to noble families, only 113 (64 % ) married. Many unmarried women lived after the death of their parents with their siblings' families, lent emotional support to the family, and aided in household management. 11 U p o n the death of a mother, a spinster aunt or unmarried niece could take over household management, especially if there were minor children, and could try to fill the place of the mother, including the major responsibility of introducing marriageable girls to society. H e r role only lasted, however, until the head of the household remarried, which happened, as society expected, usually within three or four years. The household was then reconstituted, sometimes with stepchildren, and often with the addition of new children from the second marriage. 12 In such cases, the head of the household was legally obliged to settle inheritance matters with the children of his first marriage. 13

S t a t i s t i c s on R e m a r r i a g e of W i d o w s and W i d o w e r s Table 5: Remarriage of Widowers Date of

Number of Widowers

Marriage

Under 50 years

1700-1749 1750-1799 1800-1849 1850-1899

13 30 32 15

Of these, remarried

Over 50 years Under 50 years 1 14 19 11

8 23 29 10

Over 50 years

2

Interval to remarriage 3,5 3,3 3,8 3,5

10 This sample is based on information in the genealogical handbooks of the corporations. It should be noted that only Estland's and Osel's appear in complete form. As sources the handbooks are not completely reliable. For example, Livland's handbook often omits Russified branches of families. Genealogisches Handbuch der haltischen Ritterschaften, Part: Estland, 3 vols. (Görlitz, 1930-1942); Part: Kurland, 2 vols., incomplete (Görlitz, 19301942); Part: Livland, 2 vols., incomplete. (Görlitz, 1929-1942); Part: Oesel (Tartu, 1935). (Hereinafter GH Est, GH Livl., GH Kurl., GH Oesel). Few couples managed to spend a silver wedding anniversary together. Reinhold Stael von Holstein noted on the occasion of his own silver wedding that "we had to admit that only few [couples] were so lucky to share [this day] together." ( L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 634, p. 35.) For details on marriage ages, see chapter on youth. 11 See Table on Marriage Rates, chapter 11. Unmarried women also moved to town where they often eked out a miserable existence on their irregularly paid inheritance portions, took in noble pensioners, often nephews, who attended town schools or gave music lessons. 12 Of thirty two widowers under the age of fifty in the period 1800 to 1849, twenty nine remarried within 3.8 years. 13 PRO, III, article 278.

106

Table 6: Remarriage of Widows Date of

Number of Widows

O f these, remarried

Marriage

Under 50 years

Over 50 years

Under 50 years

1700-1749 1750-1799 1800-1849 1850-1899

11 27 42 51

5 23 41 34

5 11 8 14

Over 50 years

Interval to remarriage 3,2 3,9 4,6 2,4

A widowed father who could not call on the direct assistance of the "wider" family might send his minor daughters to the home of relatives where the family was intact, and these displaced cousins then became, again usually only temporarily, members of the new family. In order to pool educational resources it was not unusual for non-family noble children to join a family household, for tutors and governesses were expensive and country life made home schooling a necessity. These outside school guests were treated as family members, but their stay in the host family was limited and they retained their primary emotional ties to their own families. Boys who were sent away to boarding schools formed strong emotional ties to their fellow students at school and later at university, but they never connected these friendships with family in the manner of Russian noblemen. As Baron von Haxthausen observed, "the Russian cannot live without a strong family tie. If he has none, he invents one..." 14 (To this day Russians will introduce their cousins as "brothers" or "sisters" and extend kinship terms to wholly unrelated persons, such as the "brother" who is a "milk brother" because the two shared a single mother's milk after birth.) Tutors and governesses were important members of the family household and shared the family's meal in a sign of intimacy. These instructors, particularly the male tutors, were generally well treated, and provided with a good salary, equipage, free room and board. They participated in all the family's activities, including the hunt. Viktor von Hehn noted that in contrast to Germany, where the tutor "was just tolerated, received a small stipend, and was not included in the home circle... with us he is the enlivening center, the oracle of the house, his presence is always welcome in the monotony of life in the countryside." 15 When a tutor was present, he often performed the important task of reading the weekly Sunday sermon to the gathered household, a role otherwise reserved to the head of the family. The tutor occupied the "third place" after the parents, and when Lorenz von Campenhausen's brother-in-law sought a tutor in 1816, he stressed the importance of the role, as the tutor was "to look after the formation of his pupil's heart and take the place of a second father." 16

14 AUGUST VON HAXTHAUSEN, The Russian Empire, its People, Institutions, Resources, tr. Robert Farie. (London, 1856), p. 103; cf. TOVROV, p. 73. 15 HEHN, Über den Charakter, P. 591.

107

None the less, tutors and governesses were transitory figures in the house. For children, who often resented them, they were additional authority figures; put under their charge, children were separated from their parents. Baltic nobles frequently mention their nursemaids in their memoirs of family life. Herbert von Blankenhagen called his nursemaid his "protective angel, who became the confidant of all my joys and troubles, who cannot be thought away from my childhood and without whom my early childhood would never have been what it was."17 At times these nursemaids performed their duties for several generations of the same family and became an important and reassuring symbol of family solidarity and continuity, much like the Russian niania, though, judging by available sources, the nursemaid was not so dominant an influence on the Baltic German as the niania on the Russian nobility.18 In a society characterized by paternalism overall, the head of the household played the role of "father" to his peasants, but no noble would include the peasantry nor, for that matter, house servants in his understanding of family. And though the household was expanded from time to time by the presence of tutors, governesses, cousins, or other noble children, to the Baltic noble the family was confined emotionally to parents and children. It was this nuclear family that provided identity and that gave emotional comfort and sustenance. Kinship with the "wider" or extended family of grandparents, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews, cousins of the first or second degree was renewed at family events like baptisms, birthdays, confirmations, weddings, and funerals. Extended visits from and to relatives stretched over weeks, because country life was lonely and travel a major undertaking. These visits maintained the connections to the extended family, and led incidentally to quite a few cousin marriages, as the sexes were allowed to mix and behave more freely when among relatives. The arrival of extended family also had its negative side when relatives were drawn into a household's personal or financial affairs and routines were disrupted. It was this type of involvement that prompted Count Alexander Keyserling's comment in a letter to a Dorpat Professor that "family life is the most splendid aspect of life in this land, but brings with it the shadow of family coterie."19

16 In order of citation, PETRI, Ehstland, 3:257, 2:462; HI, Baltikum 4 0 0 / 4 3 7 , Letter to Sophie 10 December 1816; cf. CHRISTIAN CARL LUDWIG KLEE, Eines deutschen Hauslehrers Pilgerschaft durch Land und Leben (1792-1818) (Reval, 1910). Not all tutorial situations worked out well and this was particularly true of governesses, who played a more subordinate role to the tutors and in the household. Cf. A[MELIE VON JORDAN], "Aus dem Tagebuch einer Gouvernante," BM 68 (1909):411. Hehn, however, was correct in stressing the superior place of the tutor in a Baltic noble household. For more on their roles, see chapter on upbringing and education. 17 HSA, Livl. Ritt. 702, Nr. 39, p. 19. 18 On the role of the Russian nursemaid and family, see TOVROV, pp. 60-145. 19 KEYSERLING, 1:622.

108

"Wider" family connections in behalf of public advancement in Imperial or provincial service, or private involvement in family affairs, were employed freely on the family's behalf and reaffirmed extended family solidarity. The "wider" family that traced back through the generations was stressed in the socialization of children, where the traditions and customs of the family from generation to generation were held up as a model for the younger generation. Johann Gustav von Rosen, born in 1797, remembered the way that his father inculated in him "from my earliest childhood the feelings of love and respect for the name and the family [Geschlecht]."20 Some progenitors or heads of household like Balthasar von Campenhausen (1800), and Johann G. von Wolff (1813), and even the lifelong bachelor Moritz von Gruenewaldt (1830's), established family foundations to support needy family members, educate them, and aid in the purchase of estates. After the 1860's more and more Baltic German noble families turned to the writing of family histories and created wider family associations to safeguard the status and security of their families and descendants. It is interesting that this deeper historical consciousness awakened only in the time of political trouble of the late nineteenth century, when many noble families developed a siege mentality. Before this period, a noble may have been proud of the traditions of his "wider family," but it was the "narrower" family that defined his existence. The importance of the immediate family in the lives of its members did not mean, in the context of the Baltic corporate-estate world, that the family was an entity separate and apart from society. This is especially evident if the Baltic German family is seen in the context of changes in the concept and meaning of family taking place contemporaneously in Western Europe. Increased urbanization and incipient industrial manufacturing gave rise to greater opportunities to practice trades, professions, and other occupations outside the home. By the second part of the eighteenth century the concept of family had changed from the "whole house" family, which included work life and servants, to the private family. Work life and family life became increasingly separate worlds, especially among the growing classes of burghers. This change in the meaning of family also entailed, as we will discuss later, changing concepts of the nature of men and women. By the first part of the 19th century, the family's function had become, after economic sustenance, primarily emotional. The family was the sanctuary of love and tranquility that stood opposed to the heartless competition of the outside world. In the German lands as a whole the line separating the private, immediate family from the wider outside world were especially sharply drawn, and led in the Biedermeier period (18201835) to a veritable cult of family. 21 But in the smaller world of the Baltic provinces, as Julius Eckardt noted, family and world were not separate, but intertwined. ROSEN, Familiengeschichte, 1:LX. This was especially true among the politically impotent professional class of lawyers, civil servants, doctors, scientists, and clergy in the restoration period. EDA SAGARRA, An Introduction to Nineteenth Century Germany (Essex, 1980), pp. 231-271. 20 21

109

A nobleman's work as manor lord was conducted from the home. His honorary position as local police official (Ordnungs-Hakenrichter), for instance, was conducted from his home but involved worldly business that was brought into the home. Positions he might take on controversial issues before his corporate diet would be largely formulated in his or someone else's home, and could lead to the formation of a faction or party that would also have its origin and conducts its meetings in its members' homes. It was more important for a nobleman like Hamilkar von Foelkersahm, the leader of the agrarian reform party in the 1840's, to display the qualities of a gifted conversationalist at social gatherings in private homes, where he could fascinate and persuade his listeners to his point of view, than to display impressive oratorical skills at sessions of the Livland diet.22 Much if not most of each diet's important business was settled beforehand at the homes of manor lords. The estate-corporate order of the provinces meant that for the ruling caste home, family, and world could not be clearly distinguished. Though a nobleman was emotionally tied primarily to his family, he saw no conflict with the outside world, Eckardt's public arena, and did not feel it was hostile to family interests and well being. Rather the opposite was true, for the public arena complemented the family, for it was there that a nobleman could (and was expected to) work for his family's private interests, lobbying for family members to gain "elective office" such as the desirable judicial positions much coveted especially by Kurland younger noble sons. A nobleman who served in the Empire was thought to be morally obliged to look out for opportunities for other members of his immediate or wide family. Thus in the 1820's when Theophil von Campenhausen was directed to the Russian civil service in the tradition of his "distinguished greatgrandfather, grandfather and uncle Balthasar," no one thought it amiss that the latter was expected to seek a suitable post for his nephew.23 Family and world to the Baltic German nobility were thus not the opposites of the contemporary German (especially bourgeois) family, which cultivated intimacy and withdrawal from the world. Instead, the family was both open to and complemented the world outside. This suited well the politically privileged nobiliar order of the provinces. This is not to ignore that the open aristocratic house was common to nobilities around the world.

22 WITTRAM, "Vormärzlicher Freisinn und ständische Reformpolitik. Zur Erinnerung an den livländischen Landmarschall Hamilkar von Foelkersahm," Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 5 (1956), passim; "Die Generation vor uns," BM 34 (1888), pp. 375-390. 23 HI, Baltikum 400/475. Letter of 16 March 1829; HSA. Transehe'sche Bibliothek. Baltische Ritterschaften. Nr. 484. ERNESTINE VON SCHOULTZ-ASCHERADEN, Memoiren der Baronin Ernestine Schoultz-Ascheraden, geh. Baronesse Campenhausen (Riga 1908), p. 92.

110

T h e " C h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n of the S e x e s " A s Karin Hausen has shown, the German concept of the "character of the sexes," according to which mental characteristics were assigned to the sexes to coincide with physiological distinctions, was the product of social and economic changes that brought about the transition from the 'whole house' family of servants, retainers, and wider kin to the more privatized bourgeois family that promoted a strict separation of private life and working life. Previous generations had defined men and women in terms of status and social position; each sex, each status, and each rank had its own concomitant set of duties and virtues as popularized in the German Hausväterliteratur. The new ideology of German classicism and romanticism, in contrast, worked out and legitimized a code of values and definitions of character operated primarily on distinctions of sex with less regard to rank and status. Men were assigned to economic, political, and public life; women were assigned to marriage, home, and family. These definitions served the important social function of reinforcing patriarchal authority in the family just when patriarchal authority was most under attack in the wake of social and economic changes attendant on the French revolution. 2 4 In the German lands, domestic patriarchy and authoritarian monarchy were reestablished during the aptly named restoration period of 1815—1848.25 The new ideology at the same time also served to reconcile the sexes to each other and to their different spheres of action, for underlying the ideology of the character of sexes was the notion of complements - neither sex could d o without the other and "opposites united to form a harmonious whole" according to an order sanctioned by God. 2 6 This ideology was embraced by educated German bourgeoisie and then spread from the German lands to the Baltic provinces, where German cultural influence was strong and the ideals of German classicism and romanticism were popularized by tutors, teachers, and clergy, many of them either German born or educated in Germany. B y mid-century the ideology of the characterization of the sexes was firmly established in the Baltic provinces. In 1848, Wilhelm von Samson-Himmelstjerna commented to his daughter Eugenie on the future education of her children. 24 KARIN HAUSEN, "Family and Role-Division: The Polarization of Sexual Stereotypes in the Nineteenth Century - An Aspect of the Dissociation of Work and Family Life," in The German Family, ed. RICHARD EVANS AND WILLIAM R. LEE (Totowa, 1981), pp. 51-67. 25 Lawrence Stone argues that both domestic patriarchy and authoritarian monarchy are complementary features of authoritarian state systems. STONE, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 (New York, 1977), p. 152. The conservative concept of marriage and family was elaborated by German thinkers like A. Müller and F. C. Dahlmann. Their teaching of the state start with the family, which is defined through morality, law and religion and which builds the state. The state as an expanded family (state and society are still identical) justifies the monarchical principle. AD AM MOLLER, Die Elemente der Staatskunst, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1809), 1:89, 90; FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH DAHLMANN, Die Politik, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1847), 1:3,4.

111

In my opinion, there is something very serious about allowing daughters out of the house; in contrast, boys must often leave the house in a timely manner... The girl must learn to love her own house above everything else; the boy, however, must go out into the world and learn to found his own house.27 T h e Baltic pedagogue, Carl Hoheisel, recommended in an article of 1858 that a girl's education should foster her " n a t u r e " and fit her for her destiny as wife and mother, an occupation that " o n c e and for all is the höhest because it is the natural one and so ordered by G o d . " As a justification for this destiny, he used the typology of the characterization of the sexes. Both sexes stand in a natural opposition to each other. The nature of woman is more receptive, that of the man more productive; with man reason rules, with woman emotion; man's essence is objective, his activity is directed toward the outside; woman's essence is subjective, her activity is directed toward the inner circle of the family. This difference between the sexes also conditions a difference in education...28 Woman was defined by marriage and family; man by work and public life. This conception was reinforced by German classical and romantic literature. Its sentimental variety in the person of its most famous writer, Jean Paul (1763-1825), the author of Levana, was much admired by Baltic German noblewomen. Moral and religious tracts by German and Baltic German pastors like K. L. Grave (1784-1840) or K. G. Sonntag ( 1 7 6 5 - 1 8 2 7 ) also exerted a powerful influence on the accepted role of women in society. 29 The revival of pietism and the influence in the provinces of the Moravian brotherhood strongly affected segments of Baltic German noble society and encouraged women to express their feelings and emotion. This may have benefitted their child-rearing practices, but certainly it furnished more proof for the notion that women had a sensitivity vastly different from men. 3 0

26

HAUSEN, P. 6 4 .

27

HI, Baltikum 400/685. Letter of 22 November 1848.

28

CARL HOHEISEL, " Ü b e r M ä d c h e n e r z i e h u n g , " BM 1 ( 1 8 5 9 ) : 2 4 1 .

After the 1830's the production of Baltic sermons and religious tracts ceased for a while as German tracts like Zschokkes Stunden der Andacht or Witschel's Morgenopfer became influential. Details on such reading materials are given in "Bericht über ein altes Tagebuch", BM 34 (1888):781-782. The Baltic Lutheran church operated under the influence of rationalism, which stressed morality and its attendant virtues, until the first decades of the nineteenth century, when rationalist teaching was replaced (after the 1840's) by confessionalism and a return to strict orthodoxy. The German writer Chr. Geliert (1715 to 1769) played a key role in the transition from the enlightenment to a pietist-influenced sentimentalism. The influence of sentimentalism in Germany and the Baltic was most vividly represented in the style of letter writing. See, for example, ELISA VON DER RECKE'S letters of the last quarter of the 18th century. Aufzeichnungen und Briefe aus ihren Jugendtagen, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1902), and vol. 2: Tagebücher und Briefe aus ihren Wanderjahren, ed. PAUL RACHEL (Leipzig, 29

1902); HELMUT DE BOOR AND RICHARD NEWALD, Geschichte

der deutschen

Literatur,

vol.

5: Vom Späthumanismus zur Empfindsamkeit 1570-1750 (Munich, 1951), pp. 516-521. 30 On the Moravian brotherhood, see PHILIPP, Die Wirksamkeit-, on pietism in Germany, see EDA SAGARRA, Tradition and Revolution, pp. 48—49; SAGARRA, Social History of Germany, p. 406. 112

Max and Leocadie Barclay de Tolly (1848) (Campenhausen Archiv, H I )

Such convictions gave rise to more intense concentration on the private family, increasing family intimacy and emotionalizing family relationships. This cult of family - shared by literati and patricians as well as the nobility - marked the whole period of the Baltic Biedermeier, which in the Baltic lasted longer than in Germany, into the 1850's and beyond. Almost all observers agree that family and family life were held to be particularly happy in the Baltic provinces. Alexander von Rennenkampff wrote in 1827 of the "longing" that drove young men serving in the Russian military home to seek marriage partners, a longing "that gains greater power in Livland than in most other countries because of the [quality of] domestic family life." Otto Ernst von Ungern-Sternberg claimed in the 1830's that "Baltic family life" in Estland exerted the same strong attraction on natives and foreigners alike, as they all said that "they understood the meaning of the German soul only on the soil of the Baltic shores, where there blossomed for them an unexpected family happiness."31 31

tische

In order of citation, "Aus dem Skizzenbuch Alexander von Rennenkampff's ( 1 8 2 7 ) , " BalHefte

16 ( 1 9 7 0 ) : 1 7 5 ; [EDUARD OTTO ERNST BARON UNGERN-STERNBERG],

Erinnerun-

gen eines alten Livländers (Berlin, 1904), p. 49; cf. WLTTRAM, Drei Generationen, p. 247; ECKARDT, Baltische und russische Culturstudien aus zwei Jahrhunderten (Leipzig, 1869), p. 76.

113

Carl Axel Baron Bruiningk (1782-1848)

114

Elisabeth von Campenhausen wrote in her memoirs that "Livland was held to be the land of happy marriages, of harmonious, immeasurably close-bound family life."32 Baltic Germans - like Germans elsewhere - held that Germans had a particular aptitude for family and family life that distinguished them from the French and Russians, and made them more like the English, who shared "the common Germanic respect" for family life and domesticity. It was on this basis that the governess and writer Johanna Conradi rejected French novels as suitable reading material for Baltic German women because the "easy going French woman" does not have the "sense of the deeper German nature," which is especially disposed toward family life.33 Kohl noted in his travelogue that "among the Germans it was generally accepted that Russian families lacked happiness and satisfaction in home life."34 Lorenz von Campenhausen commented in a letter to his sister in 1817 that his brother's regret over his marriage to a Russian wife will increase as he grows older "especially as the taste for a quiet domestic way of life which is found so much more readily among our German women than among Russians, will attract him ever more in the future."35 In the Biedermeier period, Baltic Germanness was an asset for the family. The emotional overtones of the Baltic cult of family was a phenomenon widespread in society that was influenced by a general cult of emotion promoted by the current of German sentimentalism that swept over all of northern Europe during this period. Sentimentalism stressed the cultivation of delicate feelings and emotions. The inner life of a human being, his heartfelt experience, his emotional and spiritual development and, of prime importance, his relationship with relatives and friends, were assigned the primary significance in life. While in Rome on the day of his mother's birthday on 8 June 1817 the Baltic German student Otto von Gruenewaldt wrote in his diary:

32 HI, Baltikum 400/627, p. 44; in 1838, Ε. M. Reinhold von Klot noted in his diary about his stay at a friend's house how "under this roof one finds order and taste, a comfortable coziness and content domesticity." ibid., Baltikum 400/684, entry of 16 September 1838. 33 JOHANNA CONRADI, "An die weibliche Lesewelt," BM 5 (1862):154. 34 KOHL, 2:353. An exception was made for the family of Nicholas I, whose wife was German. The English lady Elizabeth Rigby, who stayed with her sister's family in Estland, remarked that "the domestic life and habits of the present Imperial family" were extolled not only in Russia, but also in the Baltic. RIGBY, 2:268. Baltic German prejudice notwithstanding, we should note that among educated Russians the values propagated by romanticism and sentimentalism led to a new appreciation of affective ties within families. By the 1820's childhood was also recognized as a special stage. See Tolstoy's idealized description of parents and childhood in his Childhood (1852). Baltic German nobles serving in the Empire most likely encountered these new values of affective ties, emotion, and love in segments of Russian society. 35 HI, Baltikum 400/437, letter of 12 October 1817. The Campenhausen family was generally unhappy about this marriage because of religious differences and the wife's background as the daughter of an Orthodox priest.

115

An important and holy day for me. I often thought of my loved ones and most of all of my magnificent mother, of the human soul that is the most beloved, the most precious there is in the world and that binds me with the strongest ties to life. I have fervently prayed for her life and her well being. What help would there be for me, if, in spite of everything I saw and found attractive in foreign lands, I were not to see her ever again alive and could not tell her everything of what I have seen and learned ?36 The cult of emotion and the emotional outbursts and sentimentality like Otto's that it gave rise to lasted into the 1850's. Linked to this was the cult of motherhood, the "devoutly beloved mother," as the young Alexander von Oettingen addressed his own mother Charlotte in 1817. 3 7 Moritz von Engelhardt, Professor of the history of religion at Dorpat, encapsuled the characteristics of the motherhood cult in his funeral speech for his mother-in-law, Helene von Oettingen, mother of eight children: We have been most fortunate to have had a mother who, keeping always in mind her high and difficult profession, fulfilled the office entrusted to her with all the strength lent to her by God. She was a mother in whom we saw the meaning of mother love, we saw how in her was revealed a love that seeks nothing for itself, that forgets itself completely. She lived for her children only, she shunned neither trouble nor care whenever it was important to promote the bodily welfare and spiritual well being of her children through work and sacrificial activity.38 Motherhood demanded self-sacrifice. As Sophie von Plessen wrote to her niece, Leocadie von Barclay de Tolly, in 1832, "mother love is the most selfless love of all and always forgets the self when it comes to the well being of children." Elly von Campenhausen commented that "mother love is the most beautiful thing the earth can produce because it stands in the closest relationship to God's love." 3 9 The new emphasis on a cult of mother love at least meant that, for bet36 GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, p. 47; cf. BRUININGK, Das Geschlecht, p. 173; HS A, 702, Nr. 43. The cult of emotion was intimately connected with the cult of friendship. See chapter 8 on Upbringing and Education. Such exalted letter writing was in vogue after the 1770's and was modeled on the work of Fr. Klopstock. Cf. J[OHANNES] K[EUSSLER], "Ein altes livländisches Tagebuch," BM 41 (1894):129-134. 37 HSA, 702, Oettingen, Nr. 33, "Herkunft," p. 67; cf. UNGERN-STERNBERG, Erinnerungen, p. 67; GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1:66. In a letter of 30 March 1834 Captain von Smitten, who served in the Caucasus, writing of his mother's death three months after the event said that "providence willed that the most beloved and dearest was torn from me." Earlier he had written about "the most cruel of all news, the loss of my dearly beloved mother." HI, Baltikum 400/667. Cf. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 8, letters of 1 January 1824 and 20 February 1826; ULRICH VON SCHLIPPENBACH, Malerische Wanderungen durch Kurland (Riga and Leipzig, 1809), pp. 7, 9-10. 38 HSA, 702, Oettingen, Nr. 33, "Herkunft," p. 102. 39 HI, Baltikum 400/384, letter of October 1832. Sophie von Plessen was a born Campenhausen who married into the Mecklenburg nobility; ibid., no. 627, p. 121. In a letter to his son Otto on 3 November 1823, Prince Carl von Lieven wrote to him about his deceased mother "if you could have just heard how your excellent mother spoke with such power and tenderness, what one could call enthusiasm, about mother love." HSA, Kurländische Ritterschaft, 701. Nachlass von Lieven. VI, 3. Nr. 21.

116

ter or worse, children received more attention because, in the words of Elisabeth von Dittmar, it was the "holiest obligation" of a mother to devote herself wholeheartedly to the "education and formation of the heart of these love pledges entrusted to us by G o d . " 4 0 The loss of a child was mourned with great emotion for it inflicted an "inexpressible pain" that a mother "could never absorb." In the 1811 death notice of her twenty-one year old daughter, a noblewoman wrote that when "so worthy an object of my love was so suddenly torn from my heart, even nature justifies the furious bleeding of a deep wound. Never was a tear more just than mine!" 4 1 Hardly a family was spared such torment, for child mortality remained high throughout the century. 4 2 If the ideology of the sexes assigned woman to home and family, then as the family became an object of veneration in the first decades of the nineteenth century a whole culture of "true domestic w o m a n h o o d " developed in which the cult of motherhood was but one aspect. Woman, that is wife, mother, daughter, and sister, was required to possess, in addition to the womanly characteristics based on her nature, a whole catalogue of virtues and duties that were to govern and give meaning to her life. O f these the cardinal virtues were "tolerance, patience, submissiveness, obedience, domesticity, modesty, chastity, purity and piety, charity towards others, selflessness, indulgence, fidelity, humility, indusHI, Baltikum 400/407, letter of 12 June 1827. In order of citation, HSA, 702, Oettingen, Nr. 33, "Herkunft," p. 67; PRA/Solms. "Jeanette Koch, geb. Gersdorff, Aus meinen Kinderjahren," p. 1; cf. also "Briefe von Alexander von Meyendorff an seine Cousine Gersdorff 1850ger Jahre"; HI, Baltikum 400/463, "Todesanzeigen". The death of a child was not a matter of indifference to either parent even in the eighteenth century, but the pain was expressed more openly and with greater emotion in the nineteenth. 42 In the period from 1700-1749, of 197 children, 158 lived to age twenty and thirty-nine (20%) died. From 1750-1799, of 572, 419 survived to age twenty, 153 died (27%). From 1800-1849, of 849 children, 660 survived to age twenty, 189 (22%) died. From 1850-1899, of 606 children, 460 survived to age twenty, 146 (24%) died. (Statistics based on GH Estl., GH Kurland, GH Livl., GH Ösel, passim). Many children died of dysentery and typhus. The nineteenth century brought no significant improvement in mortality. The health statistics of Kurland for 1862 list the most important causes of mortality for the population: consumption was the leading killer, followed by croup, cholera, pneumonia, and scarlet fever. In 1863 there were, for example, epidemics of angina, diphteria, scarlet fever and whooping cough. There were only seventy-seven practicing doctors in Kurland in 1862 and nobles often pooled resources to maintain a doctor in their parish. Dorpat university produced great numbers of doctors for the Empire, hence its popular nickname of "doctor factory," but medical knowledge was still insufficient to deal with many diseases. At this time only thirty-one certified midwives (so-called kluge Frauen) were employed on private manors and fifty-four on crown estates. Most certified midwives (trained in Mitau, Dorpat and St. Petersburg) practiced in town. Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Gouvernement Kurland für 1863 (Mitau, 1863): 35-37,123-127; AFLEXANDER] LAURENTY, "Die landärztlichen Verhältnisse, insbesondere in Kurland," BM 2 (1860): 189-228. OTTO VON TAUBE reported that when his mother gave birth to a daughter in 1883, a mid-wife and doctor assisted, but the doctor "was regarded as not very good and dirty." Im alten, p. 27. 40 41

117

triousness, and activity..." As Lila von Kügelgen wrote in 1803 about her sister-in-law, " f r o m Lidi one can learn the virtues of a wife. She is more gentle, more patient, more indulgent than I...; patience ( D u l d u n g ) is the first virtue of w o m a n . " 4 3 Young men looked for these qualities in their future wives and praised a likely candidate's "gentle, lovely character, and unspoilt soul," or her "noble heart and spirit, purity and domesticity." Karl von Budberg wrote, on the occasion of his impending marriage in 1804, that "an amiable girl... awakened in me the longing for the tranquil happiness of domesticity and a satisfying »44

marriage. Never before had the count of women's virtues been so high; the compensation was supposed to be that a life of such enforced virtue would give women an occupation as wife and mother "that once and for all is the holiest because it is the natural one and so ordered by G o d , " for it embodied if not the oldest, then at least "the noblest, highest, most beautiful, and happiest profession." 4 5 Christoph von Campenhausen wrote in the death notice of his wife Clementine in 1828 that she had "faithfully fulfilled all the manifold duties of her profession" and had shown "a sacrificial mother love" toward her numerous children. 46 The wife was the center and soul of home and family and provided a tranquil domestic setting, where order, punctuality and cleanliness prevailed. As the 43

MARIE HELENE VON KÜGELGEN, Ein

Lebensbild

in Briefen,

ed. A . AND Ε . VON

KÜGELGEN (Leipzig, 1901), p. 89. Lila had married the German painter Gerhard von Kügelgen in 1800. Women had to struggle hard to live up to these virtues. The fifteen year old Lilly von Tiesenhausen confided in a letter to her girl friend that "I have prayed daily to my heavenly father to drive out the devil of haughtiness which is in me because it leaves no room for humility and Christian love." HI, Baltikum 400/683, p. 85. This section is based on the diaries, letters, memoirs of the Baltic German nobility during the period. The ideology of the sexes with its concomitant virtues and duties of women dominated the whole nineteenth century. See WHELAN, "The Debate." Woman's many virtues recall the biblical verse in Galatians, chapter five, where "love, tranquility, patience, indulgence, purity" etc. are listed as desirable characteristics of human beings. 44 In order of citation, HI, Baltikum 400/437, Lorenz von Campenhausen, letter to sister Sophie, 21 July 1821; BRUININGK, Das Geschlecht, p. 177; HSA, 702, Oettingen, Nr. 33, "Herkunft," p. 96; HI, Baltikum 400/334. 45 HOHEISEL, "Über Mädchenerziehung", p. 241. 46 HI, Baltikum 400/430. See also L W A , Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 438, p. 5. Death notices, called "notifications" were fairly common in this period and aside from praise for a spouse or sorrow over the death of a child, often also included a description of the last days of the deceased. In another death notice in 1829, Otto von Ungern-Sternberg praised his wife Dorothea "who was gifted by God with clarity of mind and goodness of heart... domestic virtues and proficiency ... and was the pillar of her home ... with a giving and selfless love and unconditional trust in God." SEESEMANN, Dorothea, p. 384. The emotional tone of these death announcements disappeared later in the century. We should note that the Campenhausen and Ungern-Sternberg families were influenced by pietism, but not the (Dettingens. The qualities of women mentioned were the same for pietist or orthodox Lutheran families. Friedrich von Seydlitz characterized his wife of thirty years as a "loving and caring, active, and above all else domestic spouse." HSA, Estländische Ritterschaft 702, Nr. 106A. 118

Wolff family tutor wrote of the woman of the house, "she is the model of a housewife; order, cleanliness, and a quiet effective activity" characterized her home. Her son, Karl von Wolff elaborated in 1838 that m y mother excelled not only in her unbelievably great order and cleanliness, but also in unheard of activity. She never had an assistant in her household, did everything herself with [only] a c o o k and gardener, together with w h o m she p r o d u c e d all the provisions for the long winter. Daily she had to provide for thirty-two domestic servants and artisans as well as provide a table for four G e r m a n people and for the master's table, which consisted of nineteen persons. She also had medical knowledge and a hospital with ten beds. 4 7

When such a wife was held up as a model to other women, it is no wonder that they might be daunted by the many duties demanded of them. If so, there was help from another source, religion. It was religion that enabled a woman to carry out her manifold selfless duties, because Christian piety and a humble child-like faith were a God given part of woman's nature that would help her make it through each day. As Helene von (Dettingen wrote in 1852 to her son, whose new wife was experiencing religious doubts, "a woman, a dependent poor being, can only be happy if she lifts her heart to God." 4 8 Sophie von Hahn reported in her memoirs how a Countess Medem told her husband in an exalted tone "that he could administer her fortune as he wished, but not those subjects which God had entrusted to her personally as a housewife, mother, and Christian." 49 Faith in G o d was to be a woman's solace while she discharged her many duties. Luckily, G o d had also provided her with a helpmate, a lifelong companion, the husband to whom she was tied in a "union of souls." 5 0 The notion of the complement of the sexes, that "opposites unite to form a harmonious whole," lay at the basis not only of the ideology of the sexes, but of the conjugal relationship as well. Emmy von Campenhausen noted in her diaries that "two become one," for "separated they form only parts and not a whole.... All unity arises only from union." 51

H u s b a n d s and Wives The ideal marriage was based on friendship, companionship, and lifelong mutual affection. This conjugal style of marriage had taken hold in the Baltic by the third part of the eighteenth century and increasingly replaced the patriarchal 4 7 H I , Baltikum 400/412b. Marie Clementine de Fallois de Floville (1759-1821), the Belgian born daughter of a colonel in the Russian army, was the wife of J o h a n n Gottlieb von Wolff and mother of ten children. She was well k n o w n in Livland as an excellent housewife and gained f a m e through a hospital she ran o n her manor where she even operated o n patients. 4 8 H S A , 702, O e n i n g e n , N r . 33, " H e r k u n f t , " p. 98. 4 9 HAHN, In Gutshäusern, p. 193. 50 ANDERSON, pp. 53-54.

119

style of marriage, described in the Hausväterliteratur, where the husband wielded unlimited power, and duty and obligation substituted for sentiment and emotion in the relation between husband and wife. 52 The change in personal relationships within the conjugal family was expressed by Baltic German noblemen and women when they referred to their spouses as "life long, faithful companions, friends and comrades through life" tied to each other by "mutual affection." 5 3 The newly wed Marie von Smitten wrote to her mother in 1842 that she was "confident about her future" because " G o d gave me a faithful friendship which will lead me to eternal peace through all worries and troubles." 5 4 Mutual affection was thought to be indicative of a long and solidly based friendship and companionship. As early as the eighteenth century a companionate relationship implied that husband and wife spent time together and shared mutual concerns in the manner of much admired English (but not French) upper class couples. 55 Outside the domestic circle, relations between the sexes were sufficiently separate and formal to provoke special commentary by foreign travelers such as the Germans Kohl, Buddeus, or the Englishwoman Elizabeth Rigby, and even among Baltic Germans themselves. 56 Men and women entered the dining room separately and did not mix at the dinner table (bunte Reihe). After dinner men went off to smoke and play cards; women were left to their handiwork and talk. The same pattern prevailed at balls, official social events, and church. Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake, bemoaned the lack " o f ease, sociability and intellect which renders English society so delightful." 57 Buddeus speculated that the separation might be the result " o f the absence of any kind of affection between couples," though he conceded that one might "learn more if one knows them in their domesticity." 5 8 Couples behaved more informally and with less stiffness when amongst themselves or within the family circle. There, too, however, their spheres of activity were kept quite separate.

HI, Baltikum 400/675, entries for 14 February 1871 and 8 March 1880. Modern historians have stipulated a linear evolution from patriarchal to companiate style of marriage beginning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though it is more likely that these styles co-existed for an extended period with companionate marriage coming to the fore in the eighteenth century. 53 For examples, see HI, Baltikum 400/154, letter of 4 November 1795; ibid., no. 437, letter of 12 June 1817; SEESEMANN, Dorothea, p. 137; HSA, 701, Nr. 21, letter of 20 November 1821; ibid., 702, Nr. 42, p. 28. 5 4 HI, Baltikum 400/654, letter of 28 October 1842. 51

52

55

ANDERSON, p . 5 2 .

56

RIGBY, 1 : 1 7 8 , 2 : 1 3 2 , 2 6 8 ; BUDDEUS, Halbrussisches,

2 : 3 9 0 ; UNGERN-STERNBERG, Erinnerungen,

p p . 1 5 6 - 1 5 7 , 3 0 9 ; PETRI,

Ehstland,

p. 1 3 .

57 RLGBY, 2:132. In the 1850's it was customary among the Russian provincial nobility that men and women dined in separate rooms. ROOSEVELT, p. 240. 58 BUDDEUS, Halbrussisches, pp. 157, 309.

120

The husband was responsible for the management of the manor economy whose proceeds supported the household. He also had obligations and duties to work in the administration of the countryside and represented the family at meetings of the diet. At home, he was the authority figure for his children and participated in their upbringing, especially that of sons, who passed to his supervision between the ages of seven to nine. The wife was in charge of the complex management of the household economy. This included keeping stores, supervising and feeding house servants and workers, attending to charitable work, and rendering medical assistance. Elizabeth Rigby commented that the duties of an Estland manor lady were not confined "to ordering dinner, scolding servants but, like those of our grandmothers of a few generations back who directed the weighty concerns of a large country residence, include the weaving of linen, making of candles, boiling of soap and brewing of liqueurs."59 Constance von Wolff wrote to her sister-in-law in 1818 that "I have now much domestic business ahead of me... the preparation of feathers has cost me much time and I am glad that this work is off my back. Soap also needs to be boiled this week."60 The manor lady was assisted by a housekeeper or, if wealthy, an extra assistant, a "Mamsell" who kept her informed of the needs of the household. The wife was also manager of the so-called Hofmutterei, that part of the manor economy that involved the dairy and poultry economy, whose products, such as butter, she marketed herself.61 Her manifold responsibilities gave the manor lady a feeling of self worth. Still, a wife's duties were those of manager, not physical laborer. The two Oettingen brothers "rightly feared," upon their return from an exploratory trip to the United States in 1852, "that our Baltic women would not be able to measure up to the exhausting work life of an American farmer's wife."62 And though manor ladies' duties of management had existed for centuries, by the nineteenth century the economy had advanced, life had become easier, and many duties could be assigned to servants. This left the lady free to concentrate much of her time on the well being of her family, her husband and the children whose upbringing was her most important responsibility. Though their spheres of activity were separate, the conjugal couple took an interest and concern in each other's affairs. That the husband's work was conducted from his home promoted a partnership relationship. Husbands involved 59

RIGBY, 1 : 1 3 7 .

HI, Baltikum 400/426, letter of 27 May 1818. Many manor ladies kept manuals, often passed down through generations, which specified when and how jobs had to be done; family recipes were also included. 61 See HAHN, In Gutshäusern, p. 161; SEESEMANN, Dorothea, pp. 204, 369. Hofmutterei, so named after the Hofmutter, a manor worker who supervised all work and personnel under the direction of the manor lady. 62 HSA, 702, Oettingen, Nr. 33, "Die drei," p. 11. 60

121

their wives in manor affairs, and many warm letters to their wives attested that they were confident that in their absence wives would handle their affairs competently and report to them regularly on the state of the manor. As Sophie von Hahn commented, her mother-in-law "was a companion and co-worker well informed about her husband's business." In their correspondence with their husbands wives discussed the state of agriculture, the manor economy, and prices for produce. At home in the evenings they talked about their work and "economic and other problems." These were often concerned with the children's education or the perpetual problem of finding the right tutor or governess. Couples read newspapers or novels to each other and husbands participated in the family's evening entertainment.63 Obviously, not all conjugal relationships were so companiable. Sophie von Hahn remarked that her sisterin-law "adored her husband" and "yet there was no commonality of intimate intercourse nor companionship between them."64 Some couples divorced, and a glance at the genealogical registers of noble families attests that divorce was not rare among the Lutheran Baltic German nobility. 65

Divorce Divorce was a matter for the church and was regulated by Lutheran law. The first reason allowing for divorce was the adultery of either partner. Sex is seldom mentioned in the sources except for occasional warnings by fathers to their student sons about its effects on health or such comments as the observation that a widower had contacted syphilis because "his nature was still very active" and he had infected his new wife. 66 Young women were ignorant of sex. Illegitimate children existed and, if fathers cared for them, one could tell their origin from their last names. An illegitimate Igelstroem became a Gelstrom, a Szoege von 63 In order of citation, HAHN, In Gutshäusern, pp. 1 5 4 , 1 6 9 ; PRA/Solms, J. Koch, "Aus raeinen Kinderjahren," p. 18. This section is based on the correspondence, diaries and memoirs of the Baltic German nobility. See, for example, PRA/Solms, "Briefe von Moritz Gotthard Gersdorff an seine Frau 1 8 2 1 - 1 8 2 7 " ; HI Baltikum 4 0 0 / 4 2 0 ; ibid., Nr. 6 4 4 , 6 8 4 and 9 2 9 ; SEESEMANN, Dorothea, pp. 3 6 4 , 3 6 7 - 3 6 9 and passim; HSA, 7 0 2 , Pilar von Pilchau, Nr. 4 2 , "Aufzeichnungen", p. 2 8 ; BRUININGK, Das Geschlecht, pp. 1 3 9 , 1 7 8 - 1 7 9 . 6 4 HAHN, In Gutshäusern, p . 177. 65 Divorce was still scandalous and aroused much comment in society. Lila Szoege von Manteuffel commented on an unhappy marriage: "the tortures of an unhappy marriage - is there a misery, a pain, which equals it? Hell itself could not think up anything more terrible." ( K ü G E L G E N , Ein Lebensbild, p. 4 9 . ) One unhappy woman, Bertha von Foelkersahm, who persevered in her marriage, characterized marriage to her friend Emmy von Campenhausen "in cutting words as an institution of discipline and punishment (Zucht- und Strafanstalt)." HI, Baltikum 4 0 0 / 6 7 5 , diary entry for 21 February 1870. 66 Though Christoph von Campenhausen wrote to his son Ernst on 24 September 1833 that he should not "make false use of those bodily enjoyments provided by God," he himself contracted syphilis after his first wife's death. See HI, Baltikum 400/413b and 580.

122

Manteuffel a Goeze, an Ungern-Sternberg a Bergstrom, a Patkull an Akull. 67 Usually these offspring were the children of Estonian and Latvian peasant girls and one can assume that many a wife who did not divorce noticed, as had Elisa von der Recke in the 1770's, that "many peasant boys who watch the geese and pigs look like my husband." 68 Other reasons for divorce were "mean spirited desertion of either partner, long, even if unwilling absence of a partner, lack of affection or inability to perform marital duties, infectious disease, insanity, dissolute life, harsh and life threatening treatment, legally proven intention to dishonor either partner, and severe criminality, including unnatural sex." 69 Elizabeth Rigby, in whose country divorce was exceedingly hard to obtain, called the "facility of divorce" under Lutheran church law a "social evil" and was dismayed that "an incompatibility of temper and mutually avowed dislike are here admitted as sufficient grounds" for divorce, which was "seldom obtained for any graver reason." 70 We shall examine elsewhere some of the causes for divorce; these were connected not so much with early marriage for girls, as Rigby thought, as with freedom of choice of marriage partners. And contrary to Rigby's impression, marriages survived and most conjugal relationships were based on an affection that arose from a long and lasting friendship and companionship.

Love Couples spoke of their mutual affection, not of their love. Was love then even regarded as a necessary prelude to marriage? The ideal of romantic love had 6 7 Some fathers had their illegitimate sons trained in the trades and, depending on the status of the mothers, sponsored good marriages for their daughters, occasionally even into the nobility. See ALEXANDER A. IGELSTRÖM, "Erinnerungen des Grafen Alexander Archibald Igelström," Baltische Hefte 16 (1970):25, 145; ROSEN, Familiengeschichte, p. 40; cf. PETRI, Neuestes Gemähide, 2:164-166, 384; GROSBERG, pp. 14-15. See the figure of "Onkel Jascha" in ENGELHARDT, Die Kavaliere von Illuxt, pp. 17-18. 68 RECKE, Herzensgeschichte, pp. 227, 294. Recke also "openly kept mistresses in the house." Ibid., p. 278. Elisa's marriage to a sensual man who could not relate to his wife's sentiment, sensitivity and lack of interest in the physical side of married life, ended in divorce. Elisa was good at writing about love, and one cannot but be somewhat sympathetic to her frustrated husband. 69 Gesetz für die evang.-lutherische Kirche in Russland (SPb, 1832), article 118. 70 RIGBY, p. 234. Until 1857 divorce in England required an act of Parliament. According to JONATHAN GATHORNE-HARDY there were about two divorces in England a year between 1715 to 1852. Afterwards, a Matrimonial Causes Act created a civil court for divorce suits based on matrimonial offence, usually adultery. Marriage, Love, Sex and Divorce (New York, 1981). In the provinces there was some discussion in the Lutheran Church (stimulated by the Prussian Lutheran Church) of tightening up divorce law in the 1860's. MFORITZ GEORG] KAUZMANN, "Ein Wort über das Ehegesetz," B M 6 (1862): 449-458. This discussion was probably a reaction to rising divorce rates not only in the Baltic or Prussia, but across Europe after the 1850's when political and socio-economic changes undermined the patriarchal family. WAGNER, p. 94.

123

been propagandized by the romantics since the eighteenth century and had struck a responsive chord among at least some of the young people in the Baltic. Dorothea von Keyserling, for example, wrote to her fiance in 1807 that "I love you and love you as you have never been loved before nor will ever again be loved." 71 But love, the passionate love advocated by the romantics, was also distrusted by those who preferred a "heartfelt love of friendship," untainted by passion. When Charlotte von Knorring sent her future husband, Friedrich von Sivers, a present in the color of friendship, lilac, he assured her of his love and asked her for the meaning of the lilac color. She replied You ask me for the meaning of the symbol of friendship. A true heartfelt love I gladly give to the man of friendship, because I regard friendship as everlasting. Passion always flees very quickly and generally takes love with it. Everything which degenerates into passion is disgusting to me because loathsome passion rarely leads to anything good. Therefore, my good Sivers, give your heartfelt love a different name because even the word is hateful to me.72

This young lady's strong feelings about the pitfalls of love were shared by many of her elders. When Carl von Lieven's son Otto wrote to his father about his passionate love and his desire for immediate marriage, Lieven warned that a "heartfelt mutual love" was a "good basis for marriage," since "it makes the duration of it bearable, yes, pleasant and makes one happy;" passionate love, on the other hand "passes together with passion."73 Romantic love, then, was not a necessary or expected prelude to marriage; preferable was a "heartfelt love of friendship" that could be equated with mutual affection. This was what was both desired and expected, and formed the most solid basis for the conjugal relationship. This relationship and familial relationships generally were emotionalized in the first part of the nineteenth century and led to a cult of the family. This new ethos of family characterized by emotion and sentiment suggested that an important shift had taken place away from the previously dominant role of familial interests and expectations in favor of individual family members' emotional needs and concerns. In the Baltic German noble family, however, the shift was more apparent than real. Though the family was venerated and eulogized, and though individual family members, especially children, received more care and attention, the balance was still very much in favor of familial interests and expectations. The reproduction of the

71 HI, Baltikum 400/331, letter of 3 January 1807 to Hermann Campenhausen. See also Minna von Behr's love letters to her fiance, a Mirbach, whom she assured that "my heart only beats for you." (LVAA, fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 13, Lietas Nr. 999, pp. 270-273, letters of 15 June and 15 July 1800.) On love and the romantics, see PAUL KLUCKHOLM, Die Auffassung der Liebe in der Literatur des 18. Jahrb. und in der Romantik (Tübingen, 1966). 72 HI, Baltikum 400/429, letter of 8 November 1817. Judging by the correspondence the couple enjoyed a happy though short marriage since she died within seven years. 73 HSA, 701, VI, Nr. 21, letter of 23 January 1837.

124

social system of the Baltic German nobility and its family was influenced by the interplay of legal, economic, and social forces that structured interpersonal relationships and assured that familial interests predominated over those of the individual.

125

C h a p t e r V I I : The F a m i l y as P r o g e n i t o r of the Social System The cultural system that emerged in the first part of the nineteenth century among Baltic German nobles was characterized by a new ethos of emotion and sentiment. This ethos was directly linked to the legal, social, and economic forces that influenced the dynamics of the family's life, emotional tone, and relationships. The reproduction of the social system was safeguarded by legal precepts. Respect for law and legality was a revered tradition among the Baltic German nobility, as these were the prime safeguards that guaranteed their privileged status. The large number of legal documents relating to family property transactions preserved in the letter chests ( B r i e f l a d e ) of manors and contained in family histories attests to the importance of legality in Baltic German noble consciousness.1 Family law established guidelines for family organization and conduct and for patterns of inheritance that served as a major mechanism of control over family behavior. A daughter, for example, who married without her parents' consent knew that she faced disinheritance as a legal consequence. A son was aware that a father had legal discretion to grant him special monies for his studies or career advancement over and above his future inheritance portion and above that of his siblings. Such legally sanctioned discretion was a powerful inducement to assure a child's obedience and acquiescence to parental will. The law reinforced parental influence in economic matters. Parents controlled the means of production that affected the future life chances of their children. A daughter's match frequently depended on her dowry; except in Estland, where a dowry was mandatory, this was a matter of parental discretion. A son's marriage depended on the parents' willingness to help him set up an independent household, just as his career choice was affected by parental expenditures on education and training. Social forces reinforced parents' economic control. Baltic noblemen and women were expected to conform to social norms, to marry or practice a profession suitable to their status, and this of course restric-

1 See, for example, HSA, Kurländische Ritterschaft, XIV.5. Karton 1. Brieflade Gross Dahmen; XIV.6. Karton 2, Brieflade Güter Suhrs and Atlitzen; XIV.8. Karton 4, Brieflade Steinensee; XIV.7. Karton 3, Gutslade Berstein; XIV.2., Nr. 42, Brieflade Ehnau; Nr.4, Brieflade Zierau; L V A A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 4, lietas Nr. 103. Fond 1100 contains much information on inheritance matters. Cf. also the family histories cited in the text.

127

ted marriage circles and career options. Legal, economic, and social forces were weighted heavily in favor of familial interest and discipline.

T h e L a w of t h e F a m i l y Baltic German noble family law developed under the influence of Roman, medieval German, and Swedish law; not surprisingly, it favored the maintenance of patriarchy in the family. 2 Conservatism and domestic authoritarianism were closely connected in the history of the provinces. Marriage was a matter not of sentiment but of the distribution of power, and in a politically authoritarian environment this favored patriarchy. The law did not in the least reflect the emotional tone and sentiment of the new cult of the family that characterized Baltic German family culture in the first part of the nineteenth century. In this respect, we should note that family practice and custom did not always follow legal norms. They cannot therefore serve as a completely reliable guide to family relationships.

Husband

and

Wife

The Baltic German noble family was defined by two legal relationships, that between husband and wife and that between parents and children. According to Baltic civil law, the husband conferred upon his wife all the rights and privileges of his estate - if she belonged to a lower one - and of his family name. If the wife, however, married below her estate, she kept the rights of her estate only for herself. There were no legal barriers to marriage with commoners, as existed until the 1860's in Prussia (with the exception of the upper bourgeoisie).3 Married couples owed each other fidelity. 4 The husband had the right to demand of his wife "obedience and subordination to his will," to "determine her domicile" except in case 2 Roman law assumed levitas animi in women and German medieval law posited that women's deficient defensive capacity or ability to bear arms {Wehrfähigkeit) required male guardianship. Both these views were reflected in Baltic medieval law. The Baltic civil code was enacted in 1864, amended in 1890 (and 1912), and re-edited in 1893. 3 R E I N H A R T K O S E L L E C K , Preussen zwischen Reform und Revolution: Allgemeines Landrecht, Verwaltung und soziale Bewegung von 1791 bis 1848 (Stuttgart, 1975), p. 105. 4 An adulterer was not permitted to marry the person with whom he committed adultery. Civil courts usually forbade remarriage of the guilty party, whatever reason for the divorce. Only an appeal to the Lutheran High Consistory could overturn this verdict. Remarriage was granted only if the innocent party was dead, missing, remarried, or granted permission to the guilty partner. A divorced wife received back the property she brought into the marriage, half of the property a couple had earned together, and had a right to alimentation until she remarried. Gesetz für die evangelisch-lutherische Kirche in Russland, articles 80, 81; PRO, III, articles 124-126.

128

of criminal acts on his part that led to exile or prison, and to demand "of the wife participation in the household under his overall control and, in case of need, material support." In addition, it was the husband's right to function as "the representative and adviser of his wife, to represent her rights within and outside the court, and to pursue legally all offences and felonies against her person."5 The wife, in turn, had the right to demand material support according to the husband's estate and wealth, irrespective of her own means and protection, and also assistance in all "incidents of life, especially in her legal affairs."6 The husband was thus the undisputed head of the household and the manager of its domestic economy, a situation that implied that the legal status of the wife was one among other domestic servants. It was only in the running of a part of the manor economy, cattle-and-dairy management (Vieh- und Milchwirtschaft), that a wife had a legally assigned task, and Baltic German noble women were conscious of their rights in this regard. Lorenz von Campenhausen wrote to his sister, as he and his wife settled on their estate in Livland, that "Helene has much desire and the best will for the part of the agricultural economy which devolves upon her according to the laws of the land."7 A wife owed her husband unlimited obedience; Baltic law saw no need to justify this subordination by reference to any moral postulates or divinely sanctioned order. (In contrast, Imperial Russian law put the relationship between married couples not in terms of rights, as in the Baltic, but in terms of mutual duties and put the wife in charge of the household economy).8 Patriarchy was firmly anchored in Baltic law in respect to the basic relationship between married couples, and was equally reflected in the allocation of property rights between couples. Marriage entitled the husband to the role of "guardian (protector, adviser, and assistant) to the wife." 9 The husband administered his and his wife's pro5 PRO, III, article 8. This section on family relationships is restricted to the main principles of family law as it applied to the corporate nobility (Est-, Kur- und Livländische Landrechte). Livland law was applicable to the Ösel nobility. For details, see ibid., articles 1-240. 6 Ibid., article 9. See also ERDMANN, System des Privatrechts, vol. 3: Das Familienrecht, pp. 350-378. 7 HI, Baltikum 400/437, letter of 8 October 1816. s PSZRI, X , articles 100-109. A Russian husband was obliged to "live amicably with his wife, to love and respect, and protect her, to support her financially and to excuse her mistakes." Ibid., article 106. The wife was obliged to love, respect and to be obedient to her husband, to whom she was subordinated, and to be a supportive housewife. Articles 107-108. Cf. Die Rechte der baltischen Frau (Riga, 1893), pp. 1-5. Patriarchal authority and the patriarchal family were also firmly established in Russian statutory law and reflected the needs of the autocratic order for socio-political stability. See WAGNER, pp. 61-81. 9 PSZRI, X , article 11. The mundium of the husband over the wife was incorporated in the nobility's Land- und Ritterrechte, from the German code, the Sachsenspiegel, and from Roman law. See ERDMANN, Das Güterrecht, pp. 3—47 for a discussion of the various sources of Baltic legislation; cf. ERDMANN, System, 3:393-469. A. BULMERINCQ provides a convenient overview of the historical evolution of provincial law in "Die Rechtsbildung und das Rechtsstudium der Ostseeprovinzen," Β Μ 22 (1873): 68-78.

129

perty, and he could put his wife's property to his own use without public account; in case of dispute, the common property was regarded as the husband's.10 Only indisputable evidence presented by the wife that the property was exclusively reserved for her use separately as the so-called Sondergut could lead to an exemption. The husband had no right to such separated property, a category of property specifically reserved by the wife or others for her own administration and use. In addition, the wife had exclusive rights to anything that she earned on her own with the husband's agreement, to pocket money (Nadelgeld) granted by the husband, to interest and savings from her Sondergut, and to the so-called Morgengabe, a husband's gift to his wife the morning after the wedding.11 Parents used the wife's right to separate property to assure their daughters' financial security even into widowhood. Hermann Fr. von Behr, for example, reminded his daughter in his last will not to permit the Sondergut granted to her by her parents to fall into the hands of her husband, so that she could always "live according to her station and wealth."12 Except for separated property, a husband had complete disposition over his and his wife's property and even in the case of separated property the wife had to ask her husband's advice and agreement in order to alienate it.13 Baltic laws restricting a wife's property rights were similar to those of married European and American women until the end of the nineteenth century, with the exception of Russian women, who governed their own property, including their dowries, completely independent of their spouses.14 A wife had one recourse in property matters: when she could prove to the court that her husband "squandered or bankrupted" the property, she could request to become the administrator. In addition, if "the husband was prevented from administering the property through absence, illness or in any other way," PRO, III, articles 12, 41, 71, 82, 96. Ibid., articles 27-28. 12 HSA, Kurländische Ritterschaft 701, XIV.4. Brieflade Zierau. Testament 1801. Marital contracts were a fairly common device in the eighteenth century for parents to secure their daughters into widowhood, and though these contracts followed the guidelines of the law, they often stipulated measures assuring daughters' lifelong security. For examples see, ibid., Nr. 34, "Heiratsvertrag Juliana J. von Behr mit Carl N. von Korff, 1771"; HI, Baltikum 400/699, "Aus dem Reuter'schen Archiv. Eheberedung Carl von Reutern und Julie von Schwertzell, 1809." 13 PRO, III, article 29. There were differences in the civil law of Livland and Estland towns for wives who engaged in trade. The law also permitted variations in property settlements through prior marital contracts which, however, were not allowed to change "the legally ordered mutual personal relationships of the marital couple." Article 70. On details, see HERMANN VON LUTZAU, "Ein Beitrag zur Lehre von den Eheverträgen," BM 72 (1911): 145-171. 14 PSZRI, X , articles 109, 115-117; cf. Die Rechte, pp. 5-6. Upper class Russian women seem to have had this right since the eighteenth century. See WAGNER, p. 66. In Baltic civil law a husband could not be forced to pay for his wife's debts unless they were contracted on his order, or in an emergency, or the proceeds were used by him. PRO, III, article 56. 10

11

130

the wife could assume its management. "Under some circumstances" the court could be asked "in such a case for protection." 15 In practice a husband could be induced by the family to assign full control over his property to his wife, as happened in the case of the capable Charlotte von Oettingen in 1810, after her spendthrift husband had brought the family close to bankruptcy. She singlehandedly restored the family's finances. 16 There was a contradiction here in laws on the position of women, for on the one hand they were given over to the guardianship of their husbands and assumed to be incapable of handling their own or their husbands' affairs while, on the other hand, they were assumed capable of the very same if their husbands were proven incompetent or incapacitated. N o n e the less, the weight of law favored the husband in the marital relationship.

Parent

and

Child

The rights of the wife as a parent were more equal to those of her husband. Parental power over children was "mutually" shared, though the will of the father superseded that of the mother in case of disagreement. Such a case occurred particularly in disagreements over marriage; though under the law both parents had to agree to a marriage, a mother's approval was negated by the father's objection. Lila Szoege von Manteuffel and Marie von Grote both suffered from their father's rejection of their choice of marital partners despite their mothers' support. 1 7 The mother had the right of appeal to court, and could then secure the right to the children's exclusive upbringing only if it was found that the "father's will was harmful to the children." 18 Parents were obliged to care for children materially and to provide them with a "good Christian education," and to select their children's future profession according to their estate, so long as it was "not completely contrary to their inclination." 19 Parents had the right of discipline, while children owed parents "obedience, respect, love, and support in old age." 20 Children gained majority at age twenty-one. At that point a son could set up his own household even against his parents' agreement. A daughter, however, could only do so with permission of her parents or when she married. Then, regardless of her age, she was freed forever from parental control, Ibid., article 31. H S A , 702, Oettingen, N r . 33, "Herkunft," p. 47. She later separated from her husband and managed the family's manor while raising three children. 17 H S A , Livl. Rittersch. 702, Stael von Holstein, N r . 82, p. 43; KüGELGEN, Ein Lebensbild, pp. 10-12. 18 P R O , articles 197, 198. 19 Ibid., articles 200, 204. After age 17, children could appeal to the courts for permission to change professions if parents consistently refused such a request. Ibid. 20 Ibid., article 209. 15 16

131

even if she divorced her husband while still a minor. 21 The age for marriage was set by Lutheran Church law at eighteen for a son and sixteen for a daughter. The agreement of both parents to a marriage was required, but could not be denied without a "valid reason." 2 2 When in 1836 the motherless Ernestine von Campenhausen accepted her future husband's marriage proposal without her father's knowledge - an understandable action on her part, given her father's negative attitude toward suitors - her family and others were "in shock" because it was a "proceeding very difficult to justify" in terms of law and custom. 23 Children of majority could be denied parental permission only on the basis of reasons enumerated in the law of the Lutheran Church. Grounds for denial of the prospective suitor were known criminal acts on the part of the suitor, contagious disease, alcoholism, immoral behavior, insults to parents or grandparents, abduction, secret agreement to marriage, guilty party in divorce, ill match in age and education, and non-Christian religion. 24 For a daughter matters were far more serious than for sons, because if she married against her parents' will and did not attain their consent after the fact, she was disinherited in both Livland and Kurland and in Estland her inheritance portion was significantly reduced. 25 Parents were not legally obliged to provide their daughters with a "dowry or bridal treasure" except in Estland; there the father or, after his death, any brothers, owed the daughter a "noble wedding and dowry" according to their status and wealth. 26 Customarily parents provided a dowry, and this could be crucial to conclude a match. But daughters realized that obedience to parental will was essential, since the law did not require a dowry. Parents represented their children in all legal and other affairs, but were not allowed to conclude any legal business of their own with them without the participation of a properly constituted court for orphans. 27 It was on the basis of the violation of this right that Reinhold Stael von Holstein was legally able to overturn a family transaction in which he had renounced his right to an estate in favor of his brother in return for an annual pension. The contract had been concluded between his father, his brother, and himself when he was sixteen Ibid., articles 231-235. Ibid., article 205. 23 HI, Baltikum 400/627, p. 70; cf. HSA, Transehe'sche Bibliothek, Nr. 484, Memoiren, p. 137. 24 Gesetz für die ... Kirche, article 70. 25 PRO, III, article 2857. 26 Ibid., article 2857. In 1837 Lisinka von Hagenmeister's dowry cost 1,500 Rbl. S., in a period when on average 450 Rbl. S. was spent on a dowry. The dowry lists contained a detailed account (down to the last button) of expenses for silverware, china, table and bed linen, furniture, clothes, material for clothing, stockings, and types of buttons. Often these supplies lasted a lifetime and parts of such a dowry were passed on to daughters and granddaughters. L W A , fond 764, Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 7, pp. 182-186; also HI Baltikum 400/415b, dowry for Leocadie von Campenhausen. 27 PRO, III, article 213. 21 22

132

years old. In his memoirs he wrote that in 1835 his father had arranged for this "family transaction" and "I signed it because of my father's wish" though "I was not at that moment when I did this of age." His execution of the document was found to be legally invalid and, after much unpleasantness, the family transaction was annulled.28 Guardianship rights over minor children upon the death of a mother were granted to the father, who became sole guardian with full use of his children's property without public accounting. Upon remarriage, the father remained the full guardian of his children, but had to settle, with the assistance of an orphans' court, the mother's share of the property on his children.29 Unless the father left upon his death a testament in which he appointed a guardian, the mother became guardian without legal confirmation, also with full use and no accounting of the children's property. In Estland and Kurland, the widow remained a guardian of her children if she were "capable" and did not remarry, but with the assistance of an adviser appointed by an orphans' agency. In Livland, one or two advisers were appointed, whenever possible male relatives of the father, who assisted her in the "tutelage" of the children, and particularly of their property, while upbringing was "preferentially" her domain. 30 In this fashion, the twenty-three year old August von Oettingen became in 1846 the adviser of his mother and then the guardian of his underage siblings.31 Upon remarriage, a mother lost her role as guardian in Livland and Kurland; the orphans' court appointed other guardians whose first task was the settlement of the father's estate on the children. None the less, the remarried mother could continue to look after the children's welfare and education, though guardians had to agree to expenses, under court guidance, and were supposed to consider the mother's wishes in all "important matters." The mother, in turn, had the right to "control" the administration of her children' property and to appeal to the court if she detected irregularities.32 In Estland, a mother upon remarriage remained her children's guardian with the help of an adviser. Court guardians were only required until the father's estate was settled.33 That a woman's guardianship rights were more circumscribed than that of the man was a reflection of the levitas animi, evident in the husband's power over a wife's property. But a wife's rights in regard to children were overall more equal with those of the husband, a departure from Roman law, where the father 28

HSA, Livländische Ritterschaft 702. Stael von Holstein, Nr. 82, pp. 4, 40-42. PRO, III, articles 276, 278, 279. 30 Ibid., articles 2 8 0 , 2 8 1 , 2 8 2 ; THEODOR SERAPHIM, "Die angebliche Alleinvormundschaft der Wittwe nach kurländischem Rechten, " BM 10 (1864): 490-506. 31 ARVED VON OETTINGEN, "August von Oettingen," BM 59 (1928): 116. 32 PRO, III, article 285. See, for example, the complaint of Anastasie von Stackelberg against two of her daughters' guardians, who had "ruined" her daughters' inheritance, the manor Lilienbach. EAA, fond 854, nimistu 2, järjek. 3853. 33 PRO, III, article 283. 29

133

wielded undivided power over the children. The organization of family according to the respective rights of marital partners to each other and to their children, and the respective property relations of husband and wife were important guidelines for family behavior. In this regard legal patterns of inheritance were particularly important for their effect on the social system and on family relationships.

Family

and

Inheritance

Inheritance affected the behavior of each family member, for what one did or did not inherit could have a tremendous impact on life chances. 34 The law permitted the parent to settle a portion of the child's inheritance during his lifetime or to grant a child extra money for studies or career advancement. When Reinhold Stael von Holstein as a y o u n g man in an Imperial guards regiment agreed to marry in 1838 without at first asking for his father's consent, his father, who looked upon the marriage as completely unsuitable, threatened him with expulsion f r o m the family and disinheritance, announcing "that he must renounce any pecuniary support" which he had received until then. The young Stael complied, since his expenses in the guards far outdistanced his salary. 35 Obedience and acquiescence to parental will were much more easily assured when children's economic prospects were dependent on the parents, and this dependence could be made to continue after a parent's death. A widow with children in Livland and Estland (beerbte Witwe) remained in full control of her husband's property without public accounting, though she could not sell or mortgage real property without her children's agreement. Here again the w o m a n was assumed to be mentally competent to act as her husband's successor in the management of property, even though her inheritance status was in some respects that of a child. In Liv- and Estland, except in the event of remarriage, a widow could not be forced, even by her major children, to proceed to the partition of her husband's property (in Kurland she had to partition after a year). 36 Only in case of a widow's death or her voluntary agree34 See the perceptive comments of the anthropologist J. GOODY on the impact of inheritance on family behavior. Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe 1200-1800, ed. JACK GOODY et al. (Cambridge, 1976), p. 1; cf. ANDERSON, p. 67. See also HSA, Transehe'sche Bibliothek. Baltische Ritterschaft. LEONHARD VON KROEGER, "Über den Einfluss der Abtheilung auf die Erbfolge," Dorpat University Magisterschrift, Riga, 1857. 35 HSA, Livländische Ritterschaft 702, Nr. 82, p. 27. 36 Α Kurland noble widow also received her Sondergut and could demand the return of anything else she brought into the marriage or double interest on such monies or could take a daughter's portion of her husband's property. If she had no property of her own, she received a tenth part of the cash available and a child's portion of cattle and house furnishings.

134

ment to a division did the children of a Liv- or Estland widow come into their inheritance. If she partitioned the property within a year, she still had full usufruct during that year. When she proceeded to the partition, a widow first separated her Sondergut

and anything else she had separately gained or inheri-

ted during marriage, all "transportable goods" (fahrende

Habe),

that is person-

al property, which included the manor inventory, house furnishings, cash, jewels, and those products of the soil that were still on the manor. In addition, she received a child's portion of the manor. 3 7 If a widow had only sons or only daughters, she received a portion equal to theirs in the manor, but if the sexes were mixed, she received a son's double portion. 3 8 As opposed to a wife, a widow held a secure and independent position, for she was no longer under the guardianship of her husband. 39 Customarily, widows proceeded to a partition of their husbands' property within a year, as did Anna von Gruenewaldt, the mother of four sons, in 1822. She also ceded to her children her inheritance share in the manors, a practice not uncommon among better-off widows. 40 A widower inherited in Livland his wife's personal transportable property including her cash, whereas manors or invested money went to the children upon majority. In Estland he kept full use of everything, even if children were of age, and in Kurland he received a child's portion when the children reached majority. Remarriage required an immediate settlement with children under court supervision. 41 A widow's financial provision made her independent of her

37 Her right to the manor's inventory was not a liability to the heir until the second part of the century, when with the start of a capitalist manor economy inventory became expensive. Earlier, most farming was done with peasant tools and animals. In Estland the widow had the right to a manor portion as a life estate or to a cash settlement which remained hers and could be spent at will. In Livland such a cash settlement was an option, but had to revert to the children upon her death. PRO, III, articles 1723-1727. 38 Ibid., articles 1709-1734. If the children died before the widow, she kept half her husband's property and the transportable property of the manor, while her husband's relatives, who were her heirs at law, received the rest. In Estland she received a cash settlement for the manor portion. Article 1734. 39 A childless widow (unbeerbte Witwe) was not as well off in inheritance settlement unless her husband made a financial settlement on her in his will; this was an incentive to assure the woman's good behavior. Such a widow stayed in control of her husband's property for one year and six weeks and then had to pass all of it on to her husband's nearest relatives, except for her Sondergut, personal property, and her husband's monetary provision. It was not uncommon that a childless widow ran into difficulties in settling with her husband's heirs. For an example, see Dorothea von Campenhausen's letters to her adviser, a Baron Engelhardt, to help her deal with requests and problems over estate settlement problems with her brother-in-law Christoph. The widow left her home in Livland, the manor Orellen, to live in Mitau near her Keyserling relatives. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 400, pp. 89-93. 40 GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 2:46. See also, the widow Sophie von Knorring's settlement with her children in 1842. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 436, pp. 3-6. 41 PRO, III, articles 1752 to 1769.

135

children. The status of the family, however, depended most of all on the "inheritance order" of manors, for on their ownership depended the family's participation in the privileged political status of the nobility. Most European nobilities practiced primogeniture to keep land holdings intact, and so disadvantaged younger sons and daughters. Therefore, many nobilities also adopted the practice of limiting the number of marriages and the size of their families. The Baltic German nobility was neither as exclusive nor as controlling.42 The major principle governing manor inheritance in all three provinces was the "prerogative of the male line over the female." This preference was based on the tenet that "the manor remains with the same blood from which it came" in order to maintain "the splendor and prestige of the family." 43 Livland law went furthest in assuring the "prestige of the family," since its laws forbade the alienation of inherited manors (Erbgut) during a testator's lifetime, except with the heir's agreement. If a sale took place without such agreement, then the nearest blood heir had a pre-emptive right to the manor. In the case of bankruptcy and ensuing public sale of a manor, heirs in Livland, but not in Kurland and Estland, could exercise the pre-emptive right.44 Kurland's custom of entail (seventeen percent of manors in 1863), with preference accorded to the first-born son and then to others in the male line, was another means of maintaining family prestige, albeit at the expense of younger sons, something that explains the high number of "Krippenreiter" among them. These principles were mandatory for testators, and their last wills are replete with references "to the instruction of the laws of our land." 45 Manors were to be kept in single ownership, with the male line given preference over the female. Daughters inherited the manor only in the absence of a son, and it was the unmarried daughter who was favored for single ownership. Legally, though, both male and female children of the family were assigned shares in the manor with males favored over their sisters with a double portion (in Kurland a triple portion). If male heirs were present, daughters always re42 In France, younger sons were often placed in the church and the heir avoided payment of cash settlements. Other sons did not marry and their inheritance portions reverted to their families. The strict Westphalian Cathedral nobility compensated younger sons, who neither inherited nor were allowed marriage, with superior educations and offices in the army, civil, or Cathedral chapter service. REIF, Westfälischer Adel, pp. 24-313. 43 PRO, III, articles 1890,1655, 1914, 2710. 44 Ibid., articles 960, 961, 969, 970, 1620. Until 1866 (and the abolition of exclusive noble right to manors), the corporate nobility also enjoyed the pre-emptive right to all manors offered for sale. Russian statutory law also recognized a patrimonial principle in inheritance that favored males. The law limited the disposal of some immovable property that had become associated with the patrilineal kin-group (rod). Like Livland law patrilineal kin had a redemption right (within three years) to patrimonial property sold to non-kin. See WAGNER, pp. 227-233. 45 BRUININGK, Nr. 43, testament of L. A. von Bruiningk 1809; cf. LIEVEN, Urkunden, testament of F. von Aderkas 1805 and passim.

136

ceived their portion in a cash settlement. 46 M o s t often this made unmarried sisters life-long dependents of their brothers, since their portion was engrossed on the manors and brothers were often unable to pay even the annual interest. Given the general indebtedness of manor lords, debts to family members were not given the highest priority. Disinheritance was strictly regulated, with causes ranging from bodily harm or strong insult to parents, criminality, sexual relations between a son and a stepmother or a daughter and a stepfather, a daughter's forbidden marriage, insanity, and joining a circus or theater group without parental consent. 4 7 Loutish behavior towards parents or the stubborn pursuit of an artistic career without parental blessing could have disastrous consequences. F o r the purpose o f keeping manors in single ownership, even when heavily indebted, manors were temporarily regarded as unencumbered and their debts reverted to the testator's other assets. If the testator had not already done so, the manor or manors were then assigned a cash value with the consent of all heirs. If the other heirs agreed, it was customary to lower this monetary assessment in order to ease an heir's future debt burden. If there were enough manors for all male heirs, they could agree among themselves on assigning ownership. If there were only two sons and one manor, the oldest brother assessed the cash value of the manor within six weeks (in Kurland primogeniture prevailed) and the younger son at that time had to decide whether he wanted to accept the manor for that price or concede it to his older brother in return for a cash settlement of equal value. 48 At this point considerable family pressure could be exerted to influence the decision, which was most frequently made in favor of the oldest brother. 4 9 If three or more brothers were in contention for an insufficient number of manors, then all assessed the respective cash values of the manors and the decision on future ownership of manors or equivalent cash settlements were made by lot. Such a decision could lead to considerable family tension, as it did in the Gruenewaldt family in 1823, when four sons drew lots for three manors and an equivalent cash settlement. O n e brother, Ivan, married with a child, had hoped to gain the manor Orrisaar, which he already managed, but it fell instead to his younger brother, Alexander, a high school student. Ivan him-

46 PRO, III, articles 1896-1929. If there were only daughters in a family, each of them received an equal share in the manor, though the unmarried daughter became single owner. Daughters could legally object to the assessment of manors. In the Pilten district of Kurland, sons were absolutely preferred for inheritance and daughters had a right only to support and a dowry. Article 1930. Sons and daughters had equal shares in a mother's manor in Estland and Kurland whereas in Livland sons received a double share. 47 Ibid., article 2022. 48 Ibid., article 2712. 49 BUXHOEVEDEN, Die Öselsche Ritterschaft, p. 15; cf. HSA, Livl. Rittersch. 702, Blankenhagen, Nr. 39, p. 16.

137

self drew the cash settlement. Their mother reported in a letter of 11 January 1823 to her absent son Otto the impact of this family event. You can imagine the mood of all of us because this case determines the impossibility of Ivan receiving Orrisaar, though you, too, did not let us know what was your will in case Orrisaar fell to you. All joy disappeared for the evening, everybody sat still by himself in tears. I felt almost as sorry for Alexander as for Ivan, because his situation was the most troubled one. Alexander's [good] luck was forgotten because of Ivan's failed hopes, so that perhaps only I thought of him and then also very late. He sat then also in tears, and so the first day of the new year, in which we foresaw only joy, ended in great pain. The next day I noticed a great coldness in the older brothers toward Alexander, and when I asked for the reason, I heard that Alexander's guardian had asked him, immediately after the lot was drawn, whether he wanted to concede the manor to Ivan. He believed that the orphan court would agree to this decision ... and Alexander supposedly answered that he could not agree immediately, he wanted to think it over ... Ivan heard and took it amiss, Moritz [another brother] even more so, [because of] this lack of brother love and proof of great selfishness, whereupon they neglected him completely. 50

Alexander's mother was not unsympathetic to Alexander's position, though she also felt that his "dear self had great value for him." After three days Alexander several times offered his inheritance through intermediaries to his brother, but was turned down because Ivan had begun to hesitate and his wife's "absolute" refusal settled the matter. To avoid such problems a father, with the agreement of other male heirs, could designate a preferred heir for a manor, though this involved a legal contract among all the parties. The well known agrarian experimentalist, Otto von Gruenewaldt, chose his youngest son Georg over his older brothers as heir to the fourth generation family manor Koik because the youngest was an outstanding agronomist.51 Manor inheritance law was the most important means to ensure the reproduction of the political and social order of the Baltic noble family. The order of inheritance favored the male over the female line and, with the exception of Kurland, no special preference was shown for a first born son. This at least assured family harmony, as sons neither resented nor wished each other ill because of preferential inheritance. The female line was only considered in the absence of sons; when no direct descendants existed at all, the manor reverted to the bloodline, that is, to the nearest male relative.52 In practice, a father had considerable influence over the disposition of his property and therefore over his children. He could designate a preferred heir to a manor, during his lifetime assess the value of manors, assign property to allow a son or daughter to marry, 50 GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1:68-69; cf. DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste, p. 59; HS A, Estl. Ritterschaft 702, Schubert, No. 8 0 . ; Kurland. Ritterschaft 701, XIV. No. 40. 51 OTTO VON GRUENEWALDT, Erinnerungen. Studentenzeit (Reval, 1927), p. 98. 52 For an explanation of the technical terms of the inheritance line and of the rights of agnates, cognates, consanguines, and uterines, see ERDMANN, System, 1:100-103.

138

and influence a son's occupation by paying educational or professional expenses. After a father's death, sons could be pressured by family members to give up their manor rights for a cash settlement. Thus the law established the parameters of inheritance as well as the boundaries of the legal relationships between parent and child. The law had evolved in support of the maintenance of the social system of the Baltic German noble family, and though practice and custom were not always reflected in the law, its norms had to be respected. After the law, economic factors were the primary means of reproducing the social system of the family. Noble children's future standard of living depended on their parents' financial means; this gave parents an important lever of control over marriage and career. The hierarchically status oriented society of the Baltic provinces also limited marriage and career circles and was another instrument at the family's disposal in maintaining its identity and status. In these two areas the overall balance favored familial duty and familial interests and expectations.

The Marital

Market

Lawrence Stone in his work on the English family stresses three components of control in spouse selection. The first is the element of initiative: do parents or children take the initiative? The second is the extent to which either party could object to marital choice. The third is the institution of courtship, like the London season or chaperonage, both instrumental in chanelling and assuring parental control. Familial control as a matter of course restricts the eligible field not only along social, but also economic lines. Stone also distinguishes other grounds for spouse selection, including "interest, mutual affection, romance, and sexual attraction;" these function to a greater or lesser degree to the present day. Stone emphasizes also the importance of economic considerations and domestic skills in spousal choice, matters already discussed in the "culture of true domestic womanhood." 53 Social norms exist in the first place to assure that young men and women meet suitable partners. In the Baltic, marriageable girls were "exhibited" at a number of social events at the times families customarily came to town. The marriage market operated at meetings of the diets, the semi-annual official period of settlement of accounts, the mid-summer period in late June, and at the winter social season in town. These events were marked by official balls, formal musical or cultural events, and receptions at appointed evenings in private 53 See STONE, pp. 270-314; ANDERSON provides a convenient overview of Stone's w o r k and a c k n o w l e d g e s its severe limitations because it is b a s e d primarily on the u p p e r classes. Approaches, p p . 4 9 - 5 3 , 85.

139

homes.54 At such events the status-oriented Baltic German society permitted little or no mixing of the orders. Most of these affairs were quite formal and did little to promote closer acquaintance. Girls were chaperoned by mothers or other female relatives. Even at balls, couples danced for the most part without speaking, and men returned their female partners immediately to their separate womens' tables, where chaperones sat with watchful eyes. Lorenz von Campenhausen when on the lookout for a spouse noted at the Estland diet in Reval in 1816 that the "number of unmarried women was very large. Most marriages are concluded at this time, which is at the same time also pay day." He commented how "difficult it is to be in homes, because any conversation with girls soon arouses comment" for "social conditions here do not allow closer conversation with unmarried persons without exciting attention." 55 Young women did not go out unchaperoned. In essence, one could look over the eligible candidates, but closer acquaintance was difficult. There were a few exceptions to this rule. Cousins could more freely associate with each other and this led not infrequently to cousin marriages; many families found these attractive because they kept property in the family. In some cases, the consequences of such a marriage were unfortunate. Nicholas von Oettingen's marriage to his cousin Alma von Stryk resulted in a large brood of children, but five of the nine had abnormalities.56 Though the genetics was not understood, such results led some to hesitate to enter such a marriage. Others believed that such marriages were banned by the church and bible. Thus Alexander von Giildenstubbe, who wanted to marry his cousin, Anna von Vietinghoff, tried to convince her of its rightness in a letter written in 1812: In case you have second thoughts because of the degree of our relatedness, I assure you with all that is most holy and dear to me that according to the judgment of honest, experienced,

54 F o r examples, see HSA, Transehe'sche Bibliothek, N o . 484, Memoiren, pp. 4 9 - 5 0 ; PETRI, Neuestes Gemähide, 1:339-340 and passim. L W A , Apraksta N r . 14, Lietas N r . 633, p. 14. 55 H I , Baltikum 4 0 0 / 4 3 7 , in order of citation, letters of 7 May 1818, 27 July 1818, 9 September 1821. Lorenz, who did not marry or settle down to farming until 1825, spent more than a decade reporting to his homesick sister Sophie in Mecklenburg on social and family affairs in the provinces. 56 HSA, 702, (Dettingen, Nr. 33, "Die drei," p. 77. T w o children were eventually paralyzed from the waist down because of spinal abnormalities, two children were mentally defective and died young, and one daughter suffered from a heart defect and died at twentyone. This misery caused the mother a one-and-a-half year stay in a mental hospital. Cf. THEODOR HERMANN PANTENIUS, AUS den Jugendjahren eines alten Kurländers (Leipzig, 1915), p. 44; as a literary theme, see PANTENIUS's short story "Der alte Jungherr und seine Liebe" in Kurländische Geschichten (Stuttgart und Berlin, n. d.), p. 41.

140

and knowledgeable men, a closer connection between us is not forbidden by the Bible and is allowed, after a dispensation, by the laws of our land.57

A slightly less formal opportunity to meet candidates could be offered by a brother's student friends, often fraternity brothers; they had more informal access to the family circle, but even then undue familiarity aroused comment. In the countryside, pastors and their children, commonly the only close neighbors with a similar lifestyle, usually had social contact with a neighboring noble family, and this occasionally led to socially mixed marriages. The marriage circle was narrowed to suitable candidates of the right social and economic status, for there was, of course, economic stratification among the nobility. These concerns are reflected in C. von Igelström's letter to a cousin who had asked his help in assessing family background and economic status of a young Estland nobleman, a von Essen, who had asked for her daughter's hand. Igelström assured his cousin that he had conducted very discreet, but thorough, inquiries. Igelström first discussed Essen's family background and connections with other noble families through his parents, brothers, and sisters. Next he turned to the family's financial situation after first reminding his cousin, who was residing in St. Petersburg, that "there are no fortunes here like the ones one hears about in Petersburg. There are only three rich families here which are the Uexküll, Dellingshausen, and Buxhoeveden. However, the father of Mr. Essen is very well off according to our manner of living." Igelström noted that the father owned three manors and a "fine house" in town and that he "owes no debts to our bank nor capital which require annual interest payments." He agreed with his cousin that "fortune does not make for domestic happiness, but facilitates it," and assured her that the young man had good financial prospects and that he saw no obstacles to the match.58 Such communications were probably quite common in this period. Who took the initiative in making contact? Throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century, the initiative was taken by parents.59 By the first part of the nineteenth century, the question of initiative and free choice of partners was more complex. The parents of both parties still had to agree to the choice of partners, for the law as well as custom required this. If the would-be couple did not obtain the requisite approvals, and ensure that they were properly conveyed 57

BUXHOEVEDEN, Die Oeseische

Ritterschaft,

p. 24; cf. WILHELM VON KÜGELGEN,

Zwi-

schen Jugend und Reife des Alten Mannes, ed. JOHANNES WERNER, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1 9 2 5 ) , 2:45. Lila von Kügelgen-Szoege von Manteuffel disapproved of her son's interest in one of his Estland cousins and diverted him, successfully, from this course. Some families like the Kurland Keyserlings were known for their many cousin marriages. See the work of TH. PANTENIUS cited above on the ill consequences of cousin marriages. 58 L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 442, p. 20, Letter of 14 January 1828; see also p. 21, letter of 7 February 1828. Cf. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 13, Lietas Nr. 999, p. 289. 59 JULIUS ECKARDT, Jungrussisch und altlivländisch (Leipzig, 1871), p. 356.

141

back and forth, the parents who failed to follow the proper forms of the approval process were regarded "unworthy of respect and honor." Johann Erich Stael von Holstein wrote to his oldest son about the "impossible" behavior of the parents of his younger brother's marital candidate. Have ever parents who claim the right to respect given agreement to their daughter's marriage without first assuring themselves that the parents of the other party were [also] in agreement? Did not, for example, all of our four sons-in-law pass on to us in writing the expressed wish of their parents to be connected with our daughters before we expressed our agreement through any comment at all, and did not the parents of our three daughters-inlaw also do the same? 60

In most cases, parents or another close relative such as a sister would approach the parents of a prospective spouse. The parentless Lorenz von Campenhausen asked his sister, who had advised him on suitable candidates, to "make a declaration in his name to the mother" of his future bride. 61 Several patterns coexisted at this time. Parents could select the candidates themselves and, after the approval of the other parental party, inform their children of the decision taken. Most children complied. In this fashion, the sixteen year old Charlotte von Buxhoeveden was informed of her impending marriage.62 Her marriage ended in separation; most similarly contracted marriages did not. The son or daughter might be the initiator, and in such cases the parents would act at the request of the child, if they approved of the child's choice. After a young man had the opportunity to observe a young woman at social affairs he might feel an "affection" for her. After discrete inquiries about her financial status, her character and her domestic skills (which were highly prized), he would ask his parents to approach hers. The cult of the family, with its portrayal of the nature of women, the family, and "true domestic womanhood" had an effect on young men's "affection" for a girl. Carl von Bruiningk listed as desirable qualities in a girl "a noble heart and spirit, modesty and domesticity." He wrote in his permission letter to the mother of his choice, "I think as my ideal of a spouse of a helpmate for life, a gentle feminine being with a faultless heart, receptive for all the quiet domestic virtues with a pure soul."63 In this way sentiment entered marital choice. It is noteworthy that parents in cases like these spoke of their children's "free choice," though the free choice could operate only with parental approval. The marriage of Leocadie von Campenhausen to Max (Ernst Magnus) Barclay de Tolly in 1825 was illustrative of the components of children's free choice. Leocadie's mother, Clementine, reported on the event to her other children. The bridegroom's mother, the wealthy widow of the fieldmarshal Prince 60

HSA, Livl. Ritterschaft 702, Stael von Holstein, N r . 82, p. 23. H I , Baltikum 400/437, letter of 9 July 1821. 62 HSA, 702, Oettingen, Nr. 33, "Herkunft," p. 47. 63 This was quite a formidable list of assets, but in this case, the marriage turned out very well. BRUININGK, letter of 14 December 1802, p. 178. 61

142

Michael Barclay de Tolly, "selected" Leocadie for her qualities of "modesty, natural friendliness, and openness devoid of coquetishness". The princess informed her son, who was traveling abroad, of her decision and requested his return. After Max observed Leocadie at several balls, his mother approached Leocadie's mother - the father was absent - through an intermediary who knew the family. Clementine wrote: I was so taken aback that I trembled and cried. After much thought about what to do, we agreed to tell Leocadie only at bedtime because that evening she was to see Max at a social function and she is much too open to be able to act the hypocrite, everybody would have noticed it. That evening I was uneasy when I saw Leocadie talk in a friendly manner with Max; I knqw about his intentions, and knew h o w far from such thoughts was Leocadie. I kept thinking, what will she do, will she take him or not? That evening at bedtime I informed her little by little. She cried and said that father was not there. Thereupon I told her that I already had spoken several times with father and we had agreed that if we had no criticism of the object, then children had completely free choice. She could do what she wanted. Thereupon she did not think further, but decided to take him. 64

Leocadie's "free choice" was no doubt much influenced by her parents' position. After Leocadie's father's approval was obtained, the engagement became public. As was the custom, the parents set the terms and length of the engagement. The match with de Tolly was a splendid one for the Campenhausens, not so much because Leocadie was raised in rank to princess, but because, as her uncle noted, "in pecuniary matters" Leocadie's parents, who had to provide for thirteen children, could be "very satisfied." 65 Though freedom of choice was thus circumscribed, nevertheless parents like Otto Count Keyserling placed much emphasis on "freedom of choice". Keyserling wrote to his future sonin-law that his "daughter was of an age where she can decide herself about her future. My house is open, you can come for visits." Needless to say, his invitation was a sign of approval of the match.66 Parental approval was dependent on family reputation, occupation, and, above all, financial considerations. Familial interest required that children marry within the ranks of their own Baltic German nobility or, at least that they choose spouses of respectable German, French, or Italian nobility. Marriage into Russian noble families most often occurred among those with Imperial service careers, and especially among the poorer Estland nobility. On occasion parents would withhold approval of such a marriage, as did the Kurlander Prince Carl von Lieven with respect to his son Otto, because "though he loves the Russian nation," his grandchildren would be alienated from him, since they would be 64 H I , Baltikum 400/415, letter of 10 February 1825. The de Tolly family emigrated from Scotland to Riga where they joined the patrician class and then gained admission to the corporation. 65 H I , Baltikum 400/437, letter of 30 March 1825. Lorenz noted that this marriage "arose completely from affection." 6 6 H I , Baltikum 400/331, letter of October 2,1806.

143

Leocadie von Campenhausen 1825 (Campenhausen Archiv, H I )

144

Magnus (Max) Prince Barclay de Tolly and his wife, Leocadie. (Ca. 1830) (Campenhausen Archiv, HI)

raised as Russian Orthodox. O t t o complied and eventually married a Kurlander. 6 7 Daughters rarely married Russians because of prejudice against Russian family life which reputedly lacked domesticity and family happiness; if parents approved, it was usually because of financial considerations: even a very good match with a Russian noble was considered a mesalliance by society. 68 Fathers often objected just as much to suitors away in military service in the Empire. Reinhold Stael von Holstein's suit of Marie von Grote, for example, was rejected for that reason. After repeated entreaties, von Grote recommended that Stael leave the service and secure himself a manor in the provinces. 6 9 Objections to military careers by young girls' parents was a major reason why those young men who could afford to do so left military service after a few years and returned home to look for brides. Unsuitable careers of any sort were cause for objection, with artists high on the list. Only "after renouncing" his career as an artist did Carl von Budberg gain parental permission for 67 Lieven was a convinced Lutheran with strong pietist leanings. One of his sons, Alexander, married a Russian noble woman. HSA, Kurland. Ritterschaft 701, Lieven, Nr. 21, letter of 28 October 1838. 68 BUDDEUS, Halbrussisches, 1: 313. 69 Stael complied and the marriage took place, though it ended tragically. Three days after the wedding his bride died from poison, haplessly administered by her mother, who confused the poison with her daughter's medicine. HSA, Livl. Ritt. 702, Nr. 82, pp. 43-45. Cf. the case of Woldemar von Löwenstern in Denkwürdigkeiten, 1: 80; EAA, fond 854, nimistu 7, järjek. 178, letter of Friedrich to his brother 4 August 1809.

Lorenz von Campenhausen (1830) (Campenhausen Archiv, HI)

146

Ottomar Baron Buxhövden of Padel (1810-1861) (Photo Marburg)

147

i t - · · · ν - • η » •'» « r p t w

ra

»^«v«·?

Helene Baroness Buxhövden, b. Freytag-Loringhoven (1807-1877), wife of Ottomar Β. (Photo Marburg)

148

marriage.70 And when the Rhineland painter Gerhard Kügelgen approached Wilhelm Zoege von Manteuffel through an intermediary with a declaration of intent toward his daughter Lila, Zoege turned him down on two counts, his artistic career and also his lack of nobility. Zoege's daughter Lila, who deeply resented her father's "noble haughtiness" had the exceptional will power to force her father's reconsideration, but only after making herself so ill that her life was truly threatened. Her deeply shaken father relented, but only on condition that Kügelgen restore his lost nobility and acquire a manor in Estland. Kügelgen purchased a patent of nobility through the Viennese court, but Lila convinced her father to desist from forcing a change of career, as Kügelgen was totally unsuited to a life of farming. The pair was allowed to marry and left the provinces, first for a painting career in St. Petersburg and then to Germany.71 Lila's stubbornness was exceptional, as most children complied with parental wishes with little demur. Parents often vetoed a proposed match not because of the individual, but because the suitor's family was deemed unacceptable. Ernestine von SchoultzAscheraden noted that "G. Wolff, with his wife's support, spirited his daughter away because a Transehe aspired to her, and these two families were always in different parties in the diet."72 Such "party" allegiances were especially notable among the families of the small and insular Osel corporation, where two groupings of families existed that hardly ever intermarried over the course of two centuries.73 But of course political considerations were not nearly so important as financial, especially in this period when many families were experiencing hard economic times. In such cases, the parental veto was most decisive and the parental motivation most bared. Buddeus commented that "among the nobility, marriage is a business deal."74 The future financial security of a daughter was of vital concern, just as a son's match that brought in a significant dowry could be vital for family finances and holdings. These considerations were hardly unique to the Baltic. Two poems by an anonymous Livland noblewoman, and published in 1781 in Hupel's Nordische Miscellaneen, show the same universal attitudes and apply through the nineteenth century as well as the eighteenth. Then, as always "wealth played a large role" in marriage matters.

HI, Baltikum 4 0 0 / 3 3 1 , letter of 3 May 1804 to Hermann Campenhausen. KOGELGEN, Ein Lebensbild, pp. 10-50. H e r father also insisted that her children be raised as Protestants, since Kügelgen was Catholic. 72 HSA, Transehe'sche Bibliothek, Nr. 484, "Memoiren," p. 110. 73 One group was composed of the Buxhoeveden, Ekesparre, Buhrmeister, Stackelberg, Ditmar, and Freytag Loringhoven families, the other of Güldenstubbe, Sass, Pilar von Pilchau, and von zur Mühlen. Only a few families, such as the numerous Nolcken, and the small Poll and Toll families, stood apart and married into both groups. BUXHOEVEDEN, Die Oeseische, p. 22. 74 BUDDEUS, Halbrussisches, 1:309. 70 71

149

Money Covers All Shortcomings Ten thousand Thalers have significant value! If the girl is dumb, If she has property, Then even if blind and stupid, None the less she will be desired for a wife. The Best Choice A girl whom luck has endowed with riches Has everything even if she lacks reason and virtue: A swarm of fools will be busily engaged For her hand, which they choose only for money. 75

Some families formulated strategic plans for the marriage wars and expected their children's compliance. There may not have been many "rich matches" in the provinces, but everyone knew who they were, and the occasional "rich heiress" could expect a flock of suitors under parental command. 76 The most notorious case, and one that aroused endless talk in society, was that of a certain Miss Liphardt, supposedly "the richest heiress" in Livland in 1818. According to Lorenz von Campenhausen, she had a fortune of half a million rubles from her grandfather. 77 The victor in this war was Karl von Löwenstern, who carefully followed his family's plan. As his brother Woldemar put it, " m y hrother Karl was engaged in a serious business and conquered the prize, the hand of a rich castle miss, sole heiress to a considerable fortune that was at her disposal from the day of marriage." 78 Campenhausen elaborated on the circumstances: Miss Liphardt lived in Dorpat and it was there that many young men went before Löwenstern became the victor. Löwenstern's family had set much into motion for this marriage, and so many intrigues were attributed to them that they traveled abroad, leaving only the prospective bridegroom behind. 79

Financial considerations were decisive and many a young man like Reinhold Stael von Holstein complained of difficulties when competition "from his richer rivals" like Pahlen and Pilchau lessened his own chances. Lorenz von Campenhausen noted that it went without saying that "daughters of bankrupt families would in all likelihood not make good matches." 80 3:178, 190. HI, Baltikum 400/437, letter of Lorenz C. to sister Sophie of 12 June 1819. 77 HI, Baltikum 400/437, letter to Sophie 17 May 1818. 78 Denkwürdigkeiten, 1:19. 79 HI, Baltikum 400/437, letter to Sophie 27 July 1818; for other examples, see ibid., Nr. 625, p. 29. 80 In order, HSA, Livl. Rittersch. 702, Nr. 82, "Erinnerungen", p. 30; HI, Baltikum 400/437, letter to Sophie 27 August 1818. Casimir von Meyendorff expressed his relief over the marriage of a friend's daughter, a Miss Wrangell, to a Baron Korff of Kurland, writing " G o d looks after his own. The parents have eight children and cannot give her a dowry." P R A / Solms, letter to his cousin of 23 January 1820. 75

76

150

The marriage market was so restricted by legal, social, and economic parameters that it was hardly surprising that a significant number of noble children never married. Buddeus and Petri were surprised by the "many unmarried" people in the provinces, many more than in Germany. Petri noted the disproportionate number of women at social events and attributed this, in Estland at least, to the absence of young men with no other means of support in military service.81 Parents of course, then as now, did not favor military men for their daughters. Marriage figures for the period of 1800-1849 confirm Petri's and Buddeus's observations. Of 630 children in our data collection, only 424 (67 %) married. Sons' marriage rates were higher within this group. Of 320 men, 231 (72%) entered marriages, whereas of 310 women, only 193 (62 %) did so. This period marks the lowest marriage rate over the course of two centuries. In the eighteenth century over the period 1700-1749 the percentage of marriage was seventy-six percent for children of both sexes, with women doing slightly better (or worse, depending on the point of view) than men since eighty percent of women married as opposed to seventy-six percent of men. The Northern War and its devastation had decimated the population, and the need for population recovery perhaps promoted marriages. Table 7: Number of Children Who Married'1· Date of Marriage 1700-

Number of Children Who Married Over 20 years

Of these married

Number of Sons Who Married %

Over 20 years

Of these married

Number of Daughters Who Married %

Over 20 years

Of these married

%

123

93

76

62

44

71

61

49

80

361

285

79

168

130

77

193

155

80

630

424

67

320

231

72

310

193

62

290

218

75

161

125

78

129

93

72

1749 17501799 18001849 18501899

* Source: G H Estl., G H Kurl., G H Livl., G H Oesel

From 1750-1799, a period of economic recovery, marriage rates rose from seventy-six percent to seventy-nine percent for all children. Sons' rate went up slightly from seventy-one to seventy-seven percent, while the marriage rate of daughters remained constant at eighty. After 1800 there was a noticeable drop 81

BUDDEUS, p. 309; PETRI,

Neuestes Gemähide,

1:260, 363.

151

to sixty-seven percent in the first part of the nineteenth century and then to seventy-five percent (seventy-eight for men, seventy-two percent for women) in the period from 1850-1899, when the economy was improving. The figures for the eighteenth century were never again equaled. These numbers explain the ubiquituous fixture of the unmarried Baltic noble aunt who helped care for her parents or for her siblings' families or who lived in town, usually under straitened circumstances. For these women life was usually harsh and restricted. 82 Careers were not an option, for a career was not deemed commensurate with noble status, though a few brave souls took up governessing or teaching if they had sufficient education and if their families were in desperate enough financial straits. It is no wonder that girls dreaded the unmarried state and that parents were concerned about their unmarried daughter's future security. In the extreme situation social barriers were breached. Although literati were not invited to the nobles' gatherings in the towns, in the countryside contact was perforce maintained across class lines, though still only within the German community, most frequently with the families of ministers and doctors. In addition, chance social events, such as a brother's fraternity gathering might lead to acquaintances. In the extreme, a pastor, doctor, lawyer, civil servant or university professor could be a suitable marriage partner for a girl not chosen by a nobleman. Eighteen literati listed in the Dorpat University student fraternity Estonia, for example, married noblewomen in the period from 1821-1860. Six of these men were pastors, seven doctors, three civil servants, one a lawyer, and one a manor owner. The student corporation Livonia listed eighteen such marriages in the period from 1822-1859, of whom eight were doctors (two in state service), five pastors, two professors, and three civil servants. The Curonia listed seventeen marriages of literati to noble women in the period 1808-1859, of whom five were pastors, four doctors, six with legal careers in Kurland's judicial system, one a professor, and one a manor owner. But though cross-class marriages such as these occasionally occurred and could make up in some respects for the number of young men away in the Empire on service careers, the large number of unmarried women indicates that this was a route not commonly chosen. As for unmarried sons, of 139 whose professions were listed in the genealogical registers, sixty-seven percent served in the military and twelve percent in the

82 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a few charitable institutions were founded for unmarried women and widows, often endowed by wealthy noble widows. H o m e s existed in Fellin, Mitau, Arensburg and Reval (Fräuleinstifte). The Katharinenstift in Mitau, for example, was founded in 1789. T h e charter stipulated that a woman had to buy into the institution (200 Thl. Alb.); the money went into the capital fund. Afterwards an annual fee (forty Thl. Alb.) was required for r o o m and board; for an additional twenty Thl. a woman could request a single room. See, for example, Statuten des adeligen Fräuleinstifts zu Dorpat (Dorpat, 1818); also L W A , fond 214, Apraksta N r . 1, Lietas N r . 393-409.

152

civil services, while a smaller percentage were lessees or administrators of manors, foresters, and, more rarely, doctors or writers. Imperial service narrowed the marital options for both men and women, but when men did marry while in service, they usually married (in Estland's case at least), overwhelmingly, Russians. In addition to local and Russian partners, men more than women had the opportunity to marry both women from foreign nobility and Baltic German and foreign burgher women. Data of the student fraternity Livonia between 18221859 illustrate this trend. Of 129 men, eighteen (14%) remained unmarried, eighty-four (65 % ) married Baltic German noblewomen, five (4 %) married Russians, five (4 %) other foreign nobility (four German, one Italian), and eighteen (14 %) burghers or literati daughters, among whom four were Germans, one Swiss, and three French. Of eighty-four men of the Estonia fraternity in the period 1818-1860, eighteen (21 %) remained unmarried, fifty-one (61 %) married Baltic German noblewomen, one each a Russian noble, a German noble, and a Polish burgher, and eight Baltic German literati daughters. In the Curonia fraternity between 1808-1859, of eighty nobles, fourteen (18 %) stayed unmarried, fifty-three (66 %) married Baltic German noblewomen, three (4 %) foreign nobles (two German and one French), two Polish women while on army service, and seven (9 %) literati daughters. 83 These data are only of university educated men and therefore selective, but they confirm that a significant number of men never married. When they did marry, a majority chose Baltic women of their own status or women of the foreign nobility whom they met during studies or travel abroad. Marriages such as these promoted the network of international family connections which made the Baltic German nobility an important intermediary for the Empire and abroad especially valued in the diplomatic service. A good number married below their rank. There is no information on their economic status, and though some nobles married women whose fathers' occupations are listed as merchants, this does not necessarily mean that financial considerations such as a significant dowry were decisive. 84 The figures suggest that social barriers were hardly immovable, particularly as men had the advantage of raising their wives and children to their own rank. Personal diaries and correspondence and the stories that they tell show that sentiment was occasionally allowed to prevail over familial interest, but the numbers show that in most cases familial interest, status, and rank predominated, and the majority of nobles either married their own or simply remained single. 83 Information was not always complete in the student fraternity registers, though it is probably sufficient to indicate trends. Fraternity statistics in this chapter are based on Album Curonorum 1808-1932, ed. WILHELM RÄDER (Riga, 1932), Album Estonorum (Tallinn, 1939), Album Livonorum 1822-1939, ed. WILHELM LENZ (Otterndorf, 1958). 84 Other professions of fathers were those of pastor, doctor, professor, lawyer, and librarian.

153

Familial

Interest

and Career

Choice

Career choice was another area of familial interest essential to maintaining status and identity. Career choice was influenced by family tradition and by social and economic constraints. August von Kotzebue's instructions to his descendants in 1850 about appropriate occupations serves as a useful guide to family goals. His comments were preceded by a citation of the accomplishments and many service distinctions of the Kotzebue family. August had himself reached the position of major general in the Imperial army. Kotzebue then elaborated: A good, I can say a famous, stock (Stamm) is an invaluable treasure; therefore you must preserve it loyally and purely ... My dear sons, explain to your children that no sacrifice is too much to preserve the nobility of their mind and birth. If unhappy circumstances should force one among you into an occupation which is unsuitable to his estate, then do it under an assumed name. Do not taint the name of Kotzebue... A human being graces any occupation that has fallen to his lot, but our forefathers only held those occupations noble that were based on landed property and made them independent ... therefore all occupations which are paid for by the public are not noble, because a person becomes dependent on others, whether they may be of the same or lower status... If you cannot do otherwise, serve the state as civil or military servants or become simple free peasants, but abandon your name if you want to become doctors, lawyers, artisans, and above all merchants. Even the position of artist I do not regard as noble, if it does not lead to the highest level of fame and accomplishment. The acting profession I have always regarded as degrading, even if one achieves its highest perfection. Take this judgment of your father to heart, my dear sons and grandsons; it rests on a deep feeling of lofty pride.

Kotzebue justified his position further by stressing that an occupation of the type he recommended made one noble, "that is magnanimous." He acknowledged that the path of life he advised was "strewn with difficulties," but "one must be able to make sacrifices for a great stock." 85 The ideals and sentiments Kotzebue expressed were shared widely by his compatriots. Family tradition was perhaps the most important element when parents made a career choice for sons, and most sons followed the tradition. The family's honor, respect, and prestige were important components of tradition. Many a son was "destined" for military or civil service in the tradition of his family, regardless of personal inclinations. Theophil von Campenhausen, for example, an oldest son, followed his father's instructions in preparing for civil service, a career completely at odds with his inclinations. But as his father wrote, "for this oldest son I held it a patriotic duty [to enter the Imperial service], since our grandfather, father, and brother enjoyed so much grace and distinction in service." 86 Alexander von Budberg, Andreas von Löwis of Menar, and Moritz von 85 86

154

HSA, Estl. Rittersch. 702. Familienarchiv Kotzebue. Nr. 4. HI, Baltikum 400/437, letter of 9 January 1819.

Gruenewaldt were selected by their fathers out from among their sons for military service, at an early age and without regard to their own wishes. The Stackelbergs and Meyendorffs traditionally sent their sons into diplomatic service.87 Some of Osel's families, like the Buxhoeveden, Eckesparre, FreytagLoringhoven, or Ditmar, traditionally sent their younger sons, given the limited opportunities of the island, into Imperial service. Estland's nobility sent their sons preferentially into the military, though here as in Osel family tradition and economic needs were mutually supportive. Eduard von Löwenstern (1790-1831), for example, the youngest of ten siblings (of whom five brothers already served in the military), wrote when he was entering a hussar regiment at the age of sixteen and a half, "as a poor Estland nobleman I had no other prospect but to try my luck in the military." 88 Fifty members of Estland's prolific Wrangell family (with almost a hundred percent male members) served as officers under Alexander I and Nicholas I; ten reached general's rank. The military tradition in this family was strong enough to have General of Infantry Carl von Wrangell plead "on his knees" with his orphaned seventeen year old nephew in 1816 that he not pursue his love for medicine, but "become a military man" in order not to "compromise the family." 89 Family tradition was maintained with less difficulty when children's life chances were dictated by financial considerations. This is most clearly shown in the Kurland family of the distinguished naturalist, Alexander Count Keyserling. Alexander's family had a long and distinguished service tradition in Kurland and Prussia. With only one manor and seven sons in the family, outside employment was a necessity. Four of the Keyserling brothers were already employed in Kurland's service and one in the Prussian. In a letter to his parents in which Alexander requested a critique of his ideas for a career and asked for an expression of his "father's wish" in this matter, Keyserling wrote that if he became a jurist, then he had to enter either Russian or Prussian service, as he could 87 HI, Baltikum 400/475, letter of 16 March 1829; GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne; KARL LUDWIG BLUM, Ein Bild aus den Ostseeprovinzen oder Andreas von Löwis of Menar (Berlin, 1846); repeated entreaties sometimes managed to change a parent's mind. Otto Magnus von Stackelberg (1787-1837), who was training for the diplomatic service at university in Göttingen, but secretly studied his real love, the classics, music, and the arts, was finally reprieved from his duty by his mother. OTTO VON PETERSEN, Goethe und der baltische Osten (Reval, 1930), p. 148. Nine noble students of the Curonia (1808-1860), four of the Estonia (1818-1860), and nine of the Livonia (1820-1860) studied diplomacy at Dorpat. 88 EDUARD VON LÖWENSTERN, Mit Graf Pahlens Rettern gegen Napoleon, ed. G. VON WRANGELL (Berlin, 1902), p. 12. 89 Geschichte der Familie von Wrangell, ed. WILHELM BAENSCH, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1887), 1:32; 2:595. Michael von Wrangell complied with his uncle's wishes, but after his uncle's death and a financial blow to his independent means, he left service and became a doctor in 1831, eventually entering civil service as an obstretician and pediatrician. Over the course of the nineteenth century the Wrangells contributed fifteen generals and eighteen highly ranked (fourth and fifth) civil servants to the Empire. Ibid., 2:595-600.

155

not serve in Kurland since "too many brothers already have positions there." H e then discussed the pros and cons of an "academic" or "practical" career like medicine that would give the service status and income he needed; Alexander was above all interested in the study of nature. Keyserling's father granted his wish to become a naturalist and Alexander entered Russian service in 1841. 90 Keyserling later returned to the provinces and purchased a manor in Estland, which was bought and supported by the dowry of his Russian wife, the daughter of Minister of Finance E. Kankrin. Baltic German noble family tradition favored either the military or civil service, but the military tradition remained stronger until the 1770's, when more nobles began entering the civil service; throughout the eighteenth century and through the Napoleonic period status required that a young noble serve in the military at least a few years and then, if he were financially able, return to the provinces with a military rank of at least captain. After the Napoleonic wars and even before the political problems of the period after the 1860's, the nobility felt less pressure to enter service. 91 This observation applies particularly to Livland's nobility and less to that of Estland or Osel. 92 Even Livland's Campenhausen family failed to uphold the family tradition of Imperial service when, after the death of the distinguished and childless uncle Balthasar, his nephew and brother's oldest son Theophil managed to persuade his father to allow a career switch to his real love, farming. After that, few Campenhausens entered Imperial service and none equaled the distinguished service careers of their ancestors. A similar pattern prevailed in the numerous Wolff family, where for the hundred years before the turn of the twentieth century no Wolff appeared on the civil service list. Even though some entered the military service, only a few made the military a lifelong career.93 The causes for the diminishing numbers probably lay in the increased difficulty of entering Russian service. Beginning with Alexander I's reign, the Empire expanded its educational network at all levels. Russians became more com-

90 KEYSERLING, 1:37; EDMUND RUSSOW, "Alexander Graf Keyserling. Ein Gedenkblatt," Β Μ 39 (1892):249-272. 91 " A u s den Erinnerungen des Schuldirektors Pastor Werbatus," BM 67 (1909), pp. 9798; RENNENKAMPFF, "Ein Sommerritt," in Aus vergangenen, p. 12; ECKARDT, Baltische und russische, p. 73; KOHL, 2:424. 92 Kurland, which joined the Empire late in 1795, had a tradition of noble service in Prussia (113 Kurland noble officers served in the Prussian army at the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756; of seventeen male members of the Mirbach family, born between 1730-1765, fourteen served in the Prussian army). The ducal administration also provided paid service at home, and after Kurland's annexation by Russia, highly connected families at the ducal court cultivated good ties with the Romanov court and held high service positions. Kurland still had the highest numbers of Krippenreiter. GEORG VON RAUCH, "Die baltische Frage im 18. Jahrhundert," in Aus haltischer, pp. 25, 30. Lessing's hero, the Kurlander Major von Teilheim, in his Minna von Barnhelm was not an unusal figure for the time.

156

petitive as service candidates. During this period, educational requirements were introduced for service (in 1809), including minimal literacy in Russian for promotion into the eighth rank of the civil service. Though the educational requirement was abolished in 1834, Russian remained essential for success in both military and civil service and for entry into the Empire's elite institutions. 94 Baltic German nobles had traditionally neglected the study of Russian, a neglect much criticized by some Baltic observers. 95 Andreas von Baranoff complained bitterly of his lack of Russian in a letter to his aunt as he was preparing to take an entry exam for the Russian service in 1810: I feel quite strongly, how wrong it is that one so rarely teaches Russian to children in Livland, because now learning the language of my fatherland is costing me not only much effort, but also much time.96 In the first part of the nineteenth century Russian was taught more widely, but still just as badly as earlier, since good teachers were rare and pupils lacked commitment. Alexander von Keyserling, who entered service in 1841, informed his father in a letter that " I have applied myself to learn the Russian language with more seriousness. If I bring it to something, then I can regard my position here as forever secured." 9 7 The new Russian language requirement affected Baltic German service careers and made service overall less desirable. As we have already noted, the presence of Baltic German nobles in elite positions in the first

WOLFF, Die Reichsfreiherren, pp. 10-11. PSZRI, 1st ser., 30, n. 23559. The law also required mastery of a foreign language, history with geography and statistics, Roman and natural law, and natural sciences. This posed a formidable hurdle for the vast majority of civil servants and aroused widespread dissatisfaction among the nobility, leading to constant violations until its final abolition in 1834. ZAIONCHKOVSKII, pp. 30-33. One of Keyserling's brothers failed his Russian entry exam into the elite School of Jurisprudence and died in Petersburg the following year, consumed by his failure, though it was expected that he would pass the test on a second attempt. In the eighteenth century French was the language of the Russian elite and French was emphasized among the Baltic German nobility. KEYSERLING, 1:15; WHELAN, "Balthasar," p. 51. 95 JANNAU, Sitten und Zeit, pp. 25, 26; PETRI, Ehstland, 2:399; HUPEL, "Der in Lief- und Ehstland," p. 498. A good illustration of the difficulties in learning Russian in the provinces is provided in "Uber den Zustand und Anbau der Russischen Sprache in der Provinz Estland," Das Inland, no. 39,25 September 1837; see also the report about the establishment in 1840 of a Russian library for Gymnasium students in Riga, which had neither a Russian bookstore nor library, despite a population of 15,000 Russians. Das Inland, no. 20, 15 May 1840. SERGEI GENNADIEVICH ISAKOV, Russkii iazyk iliteratura ν uchehnykh zavedeniiakh Estonii XVI11-XIX stoletii, 2 vols. (Tartu, 1973). % HI, Baltikum 400/161, letter of 14 November 1810; cf. Peter von Meyendorff, Ein russischer Diplomat an den Höfen von Berlin und Wien, ed. OTTO HOETZSCH, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1923), 1:XXI. In 1837 the future diplomat P. Meyendorff wrote to his mother (in French) upon entering service that "knowledge of Russian is to a young man worth much more than a 1000 ruble salary." Cited in NOLLE, p. 173. 93 94

97

KEYSERLING, 1 : 1 1 6 .

157

half of the nineteenth century was still notable, but by the eve of the Great Reforms Russians clearly predominated in greater proportion to their overall numbers in the Empire. The government's increased interest after the 1830's in unifying the provinces with the Empire further mitigated against family traditions of Imperial service. Instead, compensation was found in a shift to "honor service" (Ehrendienst) in the Baltic, for this was also considered service to Emperor. Both the Campenhausen and Wolff families followed this course. Whereas the distinguished civil servant Balthasar von Campenhausen in 1793 felt that only Imperial service gave prestige and honor (not to mention income) and disparaged elective service in the provinces, one of his sons noted almost twenty years later that "his brothers had legimitized themselves" by that very same service.98 Such changes in perception helped shift family traditions from Imperial to Provincial service, though many families still carried on the Imperial tradition, particularly in Estland and Osel, where a poorer economy limited other options. Whatever the reasons for entry, Imperial service was honorable, suited noble status and family tradition and not incidentally provided income. It was also instrumental in making new career areas acceptable to noble parents. After 1800 there was a significant growth of interest in the world of nature everywhere in Europe. Imperial service allowed Alexander von Keyserling to become a geologist, Gregor von Helmersen a geologist and mineralogist, Alexander Th. von Middendorff a zoologist, and Karl E. von Baer a naturalist." Other young natural scientists like Karl von Ditmar or A. von Gruenewaldt found employment in state service in government mining concerns. (The natural sciences could also be justified as preparation for more modern farming, a preoccupation of the nobility.) In 1840 on a visit home to Kurland, Keyserling noted that nobody made fun of his "strange occupation," which was indeed new and unusual in this period; parental permission had been granted in the context that it provided honorable employment in the service of the Empire. 100 The most suitable and therefore most common occupation of a Baltic German nobleman was that of farmer (Landwirt), a calling that confirmed a nobleman's independence in the world. But this was not simple - or simply - farming. Service to the corporation was an integral component of the role of 98 HI, Baltikum 4 0 0 / 2 3 5 , letters to Hermann of 9 July and 17 November 1 7 9 3 ; ibid., Nr. 437, letter of Lorenz to Sophie of 10 December 1816. 9 9 NÖLLE, Wirksamkeit, pp. 8 0 - 1 2 8 . During this same period a number of Baltic German nobles in the military service, who had received their education in the corps of cadets, became well known explorers (Adam J. von Krusenstjern, Fabian von Bellinghausen, Otto von Kotzebue, Ferdinand von Wrangell). 100 KEYSERLING, 1:108. In the first part of the nineteenth century eight noble Livonia students studied the natural sciences, but only two from the Curonia and Estonia fraternities. Others, however, like Keyserling studied the sciences abroad. See also GRUENEWALDT, Vier

Söhne, 158

2:243.

landlord, and service ideally required legal training. As an Oettingen brother wrote in 1841, law "was in a certain sense the predestination of a noble from the countryside (Landsche)." m A father's insistence on this course could go against the grain, as was the case, for example, with Rembert von Schoultz-Ascheraden, heir to his father's manor, whose love of medicine was sacrificed to his father's choice of law.102 Law was accordingly the most frequent course of study listed for noble students of the provinces' student corporations in the first half of the nineteenth century. Forty-four percent of the Livonia fraternity, thirty-nine percent of the Estonia, and sixty-five percent of the Curonia studied law; the higher Curonia percentage is explained by the importance of legal training in the competition for paid positions in the Kurland administration.103 A Baltic German noble did not generally practice law in return for fees. The study of law rather gave a status suitable to the gentleman farmer who served his corporation. 104 Law was also traditionally the subject chosen by the nobility in the German lands. Germany's law faculties had a reputation as social playgrounds for the wealthy and lazy scions of the nobility. Although law was the dominant course of study, fathers also selected other training for their farmer sons. Among the Estonian and Livonian noble student fraternity lists, agriculture (oec) and cameral (administrative) sciences were both held suitable as preparatory subjects for farming, and held second place to law (thirty-one percent in the Estonia, twenty percent in the Livonia, but only eleven percent for the Curonia, where philosophy held second place). For sons who did not study at university because of lack of ability or finances, fathers arranged for practical training internships at other manors. After training, the young men became administrators until they took over their father's manor or made themselves independent as lessees. Farming, then, was the predominant parental choice of the landowning Baltic German nobility, not a surprising choice, as their status and identity was derived from the land. It was the occupational choice least likely to cause tension between familial expectation and an individual's own wishes, as land was part and parcel of a young nobleman's heritage and determined who he was. As Kotzebue stressed to his descendants in the letter cited earlier, burgher professions such as law, medicine, theology, or teaching were not "status appropriate" (standesgemäss), for their practice would make a nobleman depenH S A , 702, Oettingen, N r . 33, " D i e drei," p. 4; cf. BRUININGK, p. 159. H S A , Transehe'sche Bibliothek. N r . 384, Memoiren, p. 137. 103 This number was insufficient to fill the many positions only open to the corporate nobility or reserved for them. This problem was raised in 1840 (and again 1861) in the Baltic press, Das Inland. See chapter VIII on upbringing and education for a discussion. 104 We should note that law may have been the most popular course of study, but even so not enough nobles trained in it to fill the almost two hundred positions in the administration that required legal knowledge. See chapter X I . Figures based on Alb. Liv., Alb. Cur., Alb. Est. 101 102

159

dent on others for his income. 105 Although most noble fathers would have agreed with Kotzebue, increasing flexibility in this area indicates that by the first half of the century the nobility was beginning to adapt to socio-economic changes. When one of Otto von Gruenewaldt's sons in the late 1840's decided, with his father's approval, to become a doctor, his great aunt could still comment that "he has thrown away his knightly sword." 1 0 6 But Gruenewaldt was no longer alone in such a choice. In the period from 1808 to 1860 nine out of eighty-five noble students of the Estonia fraternity chose medicine, and thirteen of one hundred and thirteen of the Livonia in the period from 1808-1860. Only the Kurland nobility, with only one medical student, still clung firmly to the "knightly sword." Medicine had opened up as a career choice by then, perhaps partly because it could be regarded, as Christoph von Campenhausen wrote to his son Leon (of whose medical career choice he approved), as being also "useful for a future farmer." 1 0 7 Medicine was also in Keyserling's words a "practical career" for Imperial service, and the Livlander A. von Rennenkampff, for example, after he received his medical degree found employment as a physician in Imperial service as early as 1834. Occasionally a Baltic German noble would open a practice in town, as did Roderich von Engelhardt in Riga in 1846, or medicine could lead to an academic career, as it did for Guido von SamsonHimmelstjerna or Georg von Oettingen. 108 Professorial careers - though not high school teaching - were becoming acceptable to Baltic noble families in the first half of the nineteenth century; there were quite a few Baltic nobles among Dorpat professors. Moritz von Engelhardt's and Arthur von Oettingen's desire to be theologians was accommodated in this way. 109 Those noble youth who studied philosophy or history at Dorpat in this period (Estonia seven, Livonia five, Curonia thirteen) may have been thinking of academic careers, though few made it into professorial ranks. The first part of the nineteenth century saw, then, a widening of career choices. In general, though, career choice remained determined by familial interest, by tradition, and by economic needs. Imperial service and farming continued to be H S A , Estl. Rittersch. 702. N o . 4, Kotzebue. GRUENEWALDT, Kindheitsparadies, p. 9. 107 H I , Baltikum 400/413b, letter of 9 M a y 1832. 108 Alb. Liv., passim. 109 Three brothers of the talented Oettingen family taught at Dorpat (physics, medicine, theology). Another three brothers (August, Nikolai, Eduard) gained leading positions in provincial service. August, who also had aspirations to an academic career, gave it up because of the "wish of his father." H S A , 702, Oettingen, N r . 33, " D i e drei," p. 20. Other noble professors at D o r p a t during the century were, among others, G. von Helmersen, C . von Ditmar, Werner Zoege von Manteuffel, J. von Uexküll, Axel von Freytag-Loringhoven; others taught in Germany. For more detail, see GRIGORII VASIL'EVICH LEVICKIJ, Biograficbeskii slovar' professorov i prepodavatelej imperatorskogo Iur'evskogo byvshago Derptskago universiteta za sto let ego sushchestvovaniija. 1802-1902 (Jur'ev, 1902). 105 106

160

the professions most appropriate to notions of family status and identity. As careers in the natural sciences acquired more prestige (and perhaps also because in Imperial Russia they could be carried out within the Imperial civil service), they too, were increasingly seen as respectable, as were also medicine and the academic professions generally. As in the choice of marriage partner, children generally complied with their parents' wishes in making a career choice, a compliance fostered by prolonged socialization and familial interest.

161

True estates (Stände), in contrast to fleeting professional guilds which consist today of different individuals from [those it consisted of] yesterday, are unions of individuals who have thrown together almost all of their interests and viewpoints to promote the well-being of the whole, into which an individual is born to absorb from earliest childhood the great idea of self-sacrifice. The more the eternal purposes of the corporate Stand are imprinted on the life and upbringing of the child, the more inborn [become] his true and eternal fundamental views of life and not simply superficial manners and even less arrogance toward others - the more they become the unconscious property of each member, so that the corporate body is shaped that much stronger and the more eternal in spite of enemies to the left and right.1

C h a p t e r V I I I : U p b r i n g i n g and E d u c a t i o n The preservation and continuation of the social system of the Baltic German noble family was effected through a variety of legal, economic, and social forces. Marital and career choices helped determine status and security. Family upbringing and education were themselves in large measure the determinants of marriage and career choice. The family shaped its members' perceptions of the family itself and of the family's place in society, and the family ensured the internalization of the rules of social life, including the social life of the family itself. In the family children learned to curb their passions and accommodate their desires to the demands of others. As we noted earlier, in the last decades of the eighteenth century the family evolved from a functional and economic unit (the "whole house") to a domestic unit tied by bonds of sentiment and affection. The retreat of the family to the private home led to a redefinition of woman's nature and woman's work as women were assigned to the domestic sphere and childrearing became perhaps their most important task. In the Baltic the cult of "true domestic womanhood" and motherhood mediated a change in 1 CARL ERDMANN, "Ewige Personen," Β Μ 39 (1892):670. Professor of law at Dorpat University, Carl Erdmann delivered a series of public lectures on Baltic German values in 1889 at a time when the nobility was overall on the defensive.

163

True estates (Stände), in contrast to fleeting professional guilds which consist today of different individuals from [those it consisted of] yesterday, are unions of individuals who have thrown together almost all of their interests and viewpoints to promote the well-being of the whole, into which an individual is born to absorb from earliest childhood the great idea of self-sacrifice. The more the eternal purposes of the corporate Stand are imprinted on the life and upbringing of the child, the more inborn [become] his true and eternal fundamental views of life and not simply superficial manners and even less arrogance toward others - the more they become the unconscious property of each member, so that the corporate body is shaped that much stronger and the more eternal in spite of enemies to the left and right.1

C h a p t e r V I I I : U p b r i n g i n g and E d u c a t i o n The preservation and continuation of the social system of the Baltic German noble family was effected through a variety of legal, economic, and social forces. Marital and career choices helped determine status and security. Family upbringing and education were themselves in large measure the determinants of marriage and career choice. The family shaped its members' perceptions of the family itself and of the family's place in society, and the family ensured the internalization of the rules of social life, including the social life of the family itself. In the family children learned to curb their passions and accommodate their desires to the demands of others. As we noted earlier, in the last decades of the eighteenth century the family evolved from a functional and economic unit (the "whole house") to a domestic unit tied by bonds of sentiment and affection. The retreat of the family to the private home led to a redefinition of woman's nature and woman's work as women were assigned to the domestic sphere and childrearing became perhaps their most important task. In the Baltic the cult of "true domestic womanhood" and motherhood mediated a change in 1 CARL ERDMANN, "Ewige Personen," Β Μ 39 (1892):670. Professor of law at Dorpat University, Carl Erdmann delivered a series of public lectures on Baltic German values in 1889 at a time when the nobility was overall on the defensive.

163

how mothers viewed their childrearing roles. Children benefitted from this change because they received more attention.2

Childhood Culture-wide changes were instrumental in developing the new concept of childhood. Enlightenment and Romantic thought placed great emphasis on the individual, his inner life and his emotional needs, and also on the individual's rights in society. The ideal was an autonomous, harmonious, and developed personality. In this process, the moral and physical development of children received particular attention. Rousseau, the author of Emile, OH de I'education (1762), urged educators to regard children not as miniature adults but as distinct beings with their own rights. Education, Rousseau posited, should appeal to the child's nature rather than attempt to discipline or conquer it. Under Rousseau's influence, major literary figures of German classical culture (1770-1830) like Herder, Kant, Schiller, and Jean Paul, and pedagogues like J. H. Campe, J. B. Basedow, and the Swiss J. H. Pestalozzi focussed on childhood as the most crucial period in the formation of character. Pestalozzi, the author of the influential Lienhard und Gertrud (1780), made the home the place of a child's education and assigned mothers the central role in children's upbringing. Jean Paul in his pedagogical work Levana (1807) recommended that parents create a joyful, open atmosphere for their children. He regarded heartlessness and lack of fantasy in a child's life as the greatest sins of childrearing. Jean Paul stressed the value of warmth in relations between mother and child. His recipe for a happy childhood was love: "teach [your child] to love, then you do not need the ten commandments - teach [your child] to love, then your child will have a rich, improved life;... teach to love, I say, that is: love!"3 Warmth, love and understanding in childrearing were also recommended by pietists, who practiced what they taught in several boarding schools in Northern Germany and Silesia

2 Much of the research on childhood over the past thirty years was provoked by PHILIPPE ARIES'S controversial book on childhood, published in 1960 (L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous I'ancien regime, Paris, 1960). He argued that the concept of childhood as a distinct and important phase of life began to grow in Europe only after the fifteenth century. The Middle Ages had its own concept of childhood as shown most recently by JAMES A. ScHULTZ's The Knowledge of Childhood in the German Middle Ages 1100-1350 (Philadel-

phia, 1 9 9 5 ) . 3 Excerpt of Levana in Die Erziehung. Pädagogen und Philosophen über die Erziehung und ihre Probleme, ed. WILHELM FLITNER with an introduction (Bremen, n. d.), p. 250; also pp. 158-307. By mid-eighteenth century it was already recognized that a love grounded in authority was an effective tool of education. Since the reformation, Lutherans had recommended love and care as well as moderate discipline in the upbringing of children.

164

that were attended by the offspring of pietist Baltic German nobles.4 The Baltic German pastor and former teacher A. Schwartz advised parents and educators to respect their children, for children have a highly developed consciousness of human dignity, and must therefore be treated with special respect. Children should be "loved and trusted" and treated "fairly" for "the feeling of justice and injustice, though deeply embedded in [every] human soul, is especially strong and vigorous in youthful souls." 5 This view of a child's nature was a sharp departure from earlier centuries, when children were held to be symbols of evil, and the only means of controlling their undisciplined natural urges was harsh punishment. Parenthood now entailed new responsibilities and duties. Children were independent human beings whose feelings had to be respected. Love and warmth were integral elements of childrearing and would foster the good that exists in each child and thus benefit also society. By the first decades of the nineteenth century this increased focus on childhood and the responsibilities of parenthood had taken hold in the Baltic provinces. Alexander von Igelström noted in his reminiscences of the time: W e certainly received a great treasure f r o m o u r loving parents, especially f r o m o u r magnificent love-breathing, forbearing, and indulgent m o t h e r , and this treasure was love, love for o u r family, love for o u r home, love t o w a r d others that was c o m m u n i c a t e d through intimate intercourse a m o n g ourselves. 6

Jean Paul's teachings may have produced this atmosphere in the Igelström home, but indeed Alexander, even as he praised his parents' loving attitude to himself and his brothers and sisters, had his own negative attitudes about the new educational theories. Igelström noted that: Rousseau's Emile

and Jean Paul's Leviatan

[sic] had made an unhealthy stir and exercised a

significant influence o n the education o f y o u t h , especially in educated homes, and called f o r t h m a n y r o m a n t i c and extravagant ideas about duties and their fulfillment that n o b o d y had previously thought about.

According to Igelström, under the influence of these ideas his father decided to "dedicate his whole strength to the education of his children, and to direct and instruct them himself!" The enterprise turned into a fiasco for both children and family, since the father was wholly uneducated, but persisted in his self-appointed task, using various methods in series, now those "of Pestalozzi," then 4 LUDWIG FERTIG, Zeitgeist und Erziehungskunst. Eine Einführung in die Kulturgeschichte der Erziehung in Deutschland von 1600 bis 1900 ( D a r m s t a d t , 1 9 8 4 ) , pp. 3 - 6 3 . JOHANN BERNHARD BASEDOW, Das Methodenbuch für Väter und Mütter der Familien und Völker (3rd edition; Dessau and Leizpig, 1773). 5 A . SCHWARTZ, " Ü b e r Liberalität in der J u g e n d e r z i e h u n g , " in B M 2 ( 1 8 6 0 ) : 9 2 - 9 3 . S c h w a r t z w a s influenced b y the pietist p e d a g o g u e and theologian C h r . D o e d e r l e i n (1714—1789) w h o s e w o r k he cites in s u p p o r t o f his pedagogical ideas. 6

IGELSTRÖM, P . 4 5 .

165

of "some Englishman" (Locke). In consequence, his son judged himself and his siblings "uneducated" and, as concerned character, "unformed dough." (Just as he failed as a pedagogue, Igelström's father also neglected his business affairs and led a once rich family into dire financial straits.)7 The growing acceptance of childhood as a distinct phase in life encouraged parents to become more involved with their children. This new set of attitudes toward child development with its emphasis on individual autonomy and rights did not usually replace, but often co-existed with an older set of attitudes that was directed to role training to make children fit the norms and requirements of adult society. Such training required emphasis on obedience, discipline, respect and deference toward authority, and proper comportment. The difference was perhaps that this role training was now practiced in a more flexible and less harsh manner. Emphasis on restrictions, obedience, and discipline were the traditional characteristics of the patriarchal family. Cultural changes make themselves felt gradually and are linked with economic and social factors. Among Baltic German noble families, the family's educational, economic, and religious status were significant determinants of parental attitudes. Wealthier and better-educated parents and those families that were influenced by pietism were more receptive to new trends. Among pietist families the intense involvement of both parents in their children's upbringing was particularly notable. As Christoph von Campenhausen wrote in 1828, he and his wife were very concerned about "the outer and inner education of their children" and "both were prepared to make any sacrifice for the instruction necessary for our children."8

7 In order of citation, ibid., pp. 42, 44, 43. A. VON RENNENKAMPFF noted how a "Baron Boye raised his sons on Rousseau's Emile." "Ein Sommerritt," p. 14. The book by Pestaloz z i s co-worker ROSETTE NIEDERER on women's education (Blicke in das Wesen der weiblichen Erziehung für gebildete Mütter und Töchter) was also very popular. See HEINRICH SEESEMANN, "Theologische und literarische Bildungsinteressen in Dorpat und Estland zwischen 1815-1835," Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 4 (1979):577-587. On Jean Paul's influence, especially on women, see L. VON SCHROEDER "Aus den Tagen der Empfindsamkeit," BM 38 (1891), pp. 570-588. The first private school on the Pestalozzi model was founded in 1810 in Riga. The school held several public events at which its methods were demonstrated and pupils' achievements shown off. See Rigasche Stadtblätter, No. 27, 5 July 1810, pp. 238-239 and Nr. 40, 4 October 1810, pp. 361-362. On the influence on popular education of the enlightened pedagogue R. Becker (1752-1822) in Estland, see OTTO ALEXANDER WEBERMANN, Studien zur volkstümlichen Aufklärung in Estland, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Folge 3, Nr. 110 (Göttingen, 1978). 8 HI, Baltikum 400/406, letter of 12 April 1824 to brother Hermann. Cf. the Bruiningk family, Otto von Ungern-Sternberg, Carl von Lieven, W. von Himmelstjerna families cited in this study. This section on childhood is based on letters, diaries, memoirs, pedagogical writings, and literature of the nobility.

166

B i r t h to A g e F i v e Whatever attitude or model of childraising prevailed in a family, and in many families the practices of child development and role training co-existed, the Baltic German noble family modified the new model of child development with older methods common to nobilities elsewhere. Parents continued to assign small children to the care of nannies and older ones to the charge of tutors and governesses. Infants were entrusted to the care of wetnurses, usually unwed peasant girls who had recently given birth. Wetnurses took over all physical care of the children. A noblewoman did not as a rule look after her infant's physical needs, and in the rare case, as did Alexander von Keyserling's daughterin-law in the 1870's, she "shocked" her household and bystanders.9 The practice of breastfeeding, which promoted a mother-child bond from infancy and was much recommended by Rousseau among others, was still uncommon except among pietist women. Dorothea von Ungern-Sternberg, for example, wrote to her sister-in-law about the "joy of breastfeeding her baby boy" and Christoph von Campenhausen noted that his wife's breastfeeding was beneficial "to their newborn child."10 After infancy, usually at age two, native nursemaids (Wärterin) took over childcare duties until ages four or five, when in families who had the financial means a nursery governess {Bonne), often French Swiss, assumed day to day care and offered the children a painless entry to French, a language highly prized in noble society. Infants and children of tender age (up to age four, the so-called Hätschelperiode) spent their days in the company of their nursemaids in their own quarters and did not share meals at their parents' table.11 As a result, small children learned Estonian and Latvian from the cradle, a useful skill for their future role as master or mistress. Marie von Wolff could write to her sister Sette in 1810, "our little girl does not yet speak our language."12 In communicating with younger children, even parents and older siblings used the native languages. After age four, familial contact increased and children usually mastered German by age five or six.13 The assistance of nannies was essential to noble women, who in addition to caring for large families had manifold household management and social duties. Christoph von Campenhausen noted with regret that "our French Swiss nanny is leaving. Leocadie [daughter] already speaks French fluently as do few her age; both TAUBE, Im alten Estland, P. 147. HI, Baltikum 400/475, letter to Hermann of 25 December 1811; SEESEMANN, Dorothea, pp. 204, and 243, 244. 11 The so-called grosse Tisch; younger children ate at the Katzentisch. 12 HI, Baltikum 400/431, letter of December 8, 1810. 13 See KOHL, 2:374—375; Otto von Ungern-Sternberg, a widower with five children, commented on his youngest daughter, "she is cute and amusing, and rattles off constantly in a babble which consists of a mixture of Russian, Estonian, and German." Letter of 24 September 1819. SEESEMANN, Dorothea, p. 113. 9

10

167

children were attached to her, much to the benefit of their outward polish and inner refinement; this aided my Clementine [his wife] greatly in their supervision." 1 4 Noble families had on average 5.9 children in the period 1800-1849, of w h o m 4.3 lived on average to age twenty. O f our data file on 151 Baltic noble families in this period, ninety-six (64 % ) had five and more children (11 % had more than ten). 15 The loving care of nannies in a child's early years provided the emotional security crucial to fostering love and trust. Ties of family affection were maintained through visits with parents and siblings and the participation of children of all ages at familial festivities like Christmas (which by the 1820's was the most important family holiday), at social events like summer picnics and parties, and at family vacations on the beach, a custom that became increasingly more common from the 1830's, when sea baths became highly recommended by medical experts. 16 In her travel account Elizabeth Rigby noted with disdain that "an invitation to heads of families of estates includes children" for "children of all ages are here palmed off on all society, greatly to everyone's mutual inconvenience." 1 7 Baltic parents, in contrast, thought that intercourse between children and the adult world was an essential component of children's training for their future roles in society. Even the pietist O t t o von Ungern-Sternberg commented in 1819 to his future bride: 14 HI, Baltikum 400/406, letter to brother Hermann, August 1816. It is interesting to note that ALEXANDER VON KEYSERLING'S English nanny left his employ in 1846 after less than a year's service because "the mother occupies herself too much with the child," as much a comment on Baltic German customs as on English expectations. The mother, daughter of Minister of Finance Kankrin, whose father was German, was well integrated into her adopted world, though she and her husband had to communicate in French. Ein Lebensbild,

1:276.

15 Based on GH Estl., GH Kurl., GH Livl., GH Oesel. The genealogical handbooks also recorded the number of children who died in infancy (the term "young" was used), but provided neither names nor birth or death dates. We cannot be certain that stillbirths were included. A. VON KEYSERLING was constantly afraid of losing one of his children, since he "had so few, only three, a small number," and he did lose one daughter. Ein Lebensbild,

1:616. 16 The mania for sea bathing came from France. See, for example, HI, Baltikum 400/929, letter of Charlotte von Sivers to her husband, 31 July 1828; UNGERN-STERNBERG, Erinnerungen, p. 44. Ungern mentioned that "at least 28 sea baths were obligatory." Das Inland regularly reported on bathing spots and cures at the Baltic Sea; see for examples, nos. 20 (1837), 31 (1839), 45 (1840), 46 (1844), 9 (1844), 31 (1845), 20 (1854), 32 (1852), 24 (1852). 17 RLGBY, 1:174, 2:135. Rigby's comments reflect her English background. The nineteenth century saw the rise of the nanny in England. Rigby's attitudes are well summarized in the words of Jane Austen's niece. "Children were kept in the nursery, out of the way not only of visitors, but of their parents. They were trusted to hired attendants, they were allowed a great deal of exercise, were kept on plain food, forced to give way to the comfort of others, accustomed to be overlooked, slightly regarded, considered of trifling importance." Cited in JONATHAN GATHORNE-HARDY, The Unnatural History of the Nanny (New York, 1973), p. 61. Apropos of physical exercise, Rigby while in Estland missed the flushed faces of English children engaged in physical exercise.

168

I regard the intercourse with the greater circle of acquaintances not as a great pleasure, but as a social duty, especially in regard to the education of the children, who must learn to live in the world, even if they are not to be educated for the world. 1 8

Direct parental involvement with children increased after age five. Mothers and fathers had differing roles. The father was the head of the family to whom children owed "respect," and who expected from his offspring the order and discipline that he himself had usually experienced in military service. A father's attitude towards his children reflected the sterner of the two poles that, according to pastor A. Schwartz, G o d himself had implanted in parents: "earnestness and strictness in the father," "love" in the mother. 19 The father was a remote figure and regarded with awe. H e joined the family for evening entertainments like reading and, in the absence of a tutor, conducted the Sunday morning devotions when the household gathered. 20 H e became more involved with boy children when they reached an age of seven to nine, when he assumed primary responsibility for the guidance of their instruction. It was then also that he began to introduce boys to the world of men, teaching them of horses and riding, of the hunt and its lore, of shooting, and of estate business, riding across the land and showing his boys his own love for his land and his and their inheritance. It was the father who impressed on his sons the importance of love and duty to monarch and country and family. 21 At least to the extent of having a role model, boys profited from their father's presence in the home, as a Baltic German nobleman's work and home lives were not lived in separate worlds. Towards his daughters, who remained in the female sphere, fathers tended to be more indulgent than towards sons, though daughters also were expected to regard him with reverence. 18 SEESEMANN, Dorothea, p. 152, letter of 16 N o v e m b e r 1819. The diary kept by the children of the Engelhardt family reflects this active social life. The diary also provides insight into the daily schedule of children in noble households. A m o n g the children a strict hierarchy existed, graded by age, which kept the "little o n e s " separate from the " b i g " brothers and sisters. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta N r . 14, Lietas N r . 207; a busy social life is also reflected in the diary of L. Keyserling later in the century (1874). L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta 14, Lietas N r . 397. 19 SCHWARTZ, p. 91; on fathers, see for example, H S A , 702, Oettingen, N r . 33, " H e r kunft," pp. 80-81, GRUENEWALDT, Lebenserinnerungen, H S A , Livl. Ritterschaft 702, N r . 4 2 , p . 3. 2 0 ALEXANDER VON KEYSERLING, for example, regularly read to his children and introduced them to R o m a n history. Ein Lebensbild, 1:18. The morning devotions were often "regarded as a plague" by children. H S A , 702, N r . 33, Oettingen, " H e r k u n f t , " p. 81. 21 Ibid.., p. 3; see also GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1: 20, 21, 24; ROSEN, Familiengeschichte Rosen, 1:LX. " A u s den Lebenserinnerungen von Fr. von Brackels (1830-39)", Altlivländische, p. 219. In the first part of the nineteenth century it was popular to name or call children by Russian names (Bogdan for Gottlieb), or name them for members of the imperial family, another sign of devotion to the dynasty and Empire. EICHHORN, "AUS den Erinnerungen," in Aus vergangenen, p. 78; ERIK AMBURGER, " Z u r Frage der Übertragungen von Vornamen ins Russische und zurück," Baltische Familiengeschichtliche Mitteilungen 8 (1938) (Tartu, 1939): 50-51.

169

At H o m e with Mother The mother was the center of the household. She was the "calming pole" and "soul of the house" for the family and in charge of its overall well being. Woldemar von Löwenstern reminisced about "the dear image of my mother ... to whose loving care and tenderness I owe the beautiful memory, unequalled by any other happiness, of serene childhood years." 22 As Paul von Mühlendahl wrote to his mother in 1818, it was she who had provided the children with love and nurture, solace and support.23 Around the age of five, when they began instruction in the basics, mothers became their children's first teacher. As memoirs, diaries, and correspondence attest, parents expected their children above all to learn "respect and punctual obedience" to their elders and authority, "punctual fulfillment of duties, diligence, attention, order, truthfulness, self-control, loyalty, cleanliness, morality and good conduct." Away on vacation, Charlotte von Berg wrote to admonish her six-year old daughter to be "a good and obedient child" and "industrious." These were also a reflection of the Lutheran Church's values of obedience to authority and strict fulfillment of duty. Local wisdom also held that children's character benefitted from the absence of luxuries in food or dress.24 After 1800 such principles, which reflected an older model of childrearing, were practiced less harshly, with love and forbearance, so as not to crush children's spirits and sense of dignity. If forbearance failed, then physical punishment, particularly for boys (girls were more likely to be put in the corner and shunned) was administered with birch rods or slaps to the ear, often by the mother herself, if not, then by the father or the tutor. Though in the 1820's physical punishment was outlawed at Baltic German schools, it remained a constant home remedy throughout the nineteenth century. Otto von Taube confessed that his tutor's beatings brought him twice almost to the point of suicide.25 Emmy von

2 2 In order, ROSEN, Familiengeschichte Rosen, 1:LXXXVIII; GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1: 35; LÖWENSTERN, Denkwürdigkeiten, p. 19. 23 EAA, fond 1443, nimistu 1, järjek. 3, letter of 27 April. 2 4 EAA, fond 1874, nimistu 1, järjek. 1108, letter of 18 September 1842 . See, for example, SEESEMANN, Dorothea, p. 394 (letter of Louise von Aderkas to her brother Otto, 17 January 1831); GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1: 21, 24; HSA, Estl. Ritterschaft 702, No. 106a; HI, Baltikum 400/644, Ernst Campenhausen to son; ibid., Nr. 585, Esther Campenhausen to Roderich Freytag von Loringhoven; ibid., Nr. 685, Wilhelm von Samson-Himmelstjerna to son, letter of 27 February 1829; ibid., Nr. 588, Alice von Sivers, "Erinnerungen," p. 5; BIENEMANN, Altlivländische, passim. 25 TAUBE, Im alten Estland, p. 20. Cf. HSA, 702, Hansen, Nr. 78, p. 10; GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1: 35; KÜGELGEN, Ein Lebensbild, p. 105, letter of 28 December 1804; HAMILKAR BARON FOELKERSAHM, "Ein Livländer in den Wirbeln des 20. Jahrhunderts," manuscript, Waldkraiburg, 1979, library, Herder-Institut, p. 29.

170

Campenhausen's diaries reflect her inner pain and agony when she had to listen to her boys' screams as they were punished by their tutor for school failures. On March 19, 1881 she wrote how "each fight in the classroom, each punishment and execution has an impact on me as if I had to bear all this discipline myself, and the anxious question plagues me whether Palen's (tutor) dull, pedantic way, however dutiful or selfless, is the right one for the education of our boys." 26 A child's life became more serious at the age of seven, when it was legally judged to be a rational being and its education became more formal. It was now that a tutor or governess might be hired if allowed by the educational and financial status of the parents. Though education had been a salient value of the Baltic German nobility for centuries, those less well off, especially the Estlanders, who could not afford an extensive education for their children, were wont to belittle the value of education.27 Contemporaries criticized the tendency of this group to send sons into military service with no more than elementary knowledge gained through haphazard parental instruction or that of a tutor of ambiguous background. 28 None the less, educational demands for boys increased overall at the beginning of the nineteenth century, partly in consequence of the imperial government's active encouragement and support of an expansion of public and private education in the provinces. This emphasis, in turn, raised an interest in girls' education beyond domestic skills, since a girl was expected, among other things, to understand her future husband's interests.

HI, Baltikum 600/675; see also entries for 6 November, 18 December 1881 and passim. Figures for university attendance of Baltic Germans abroad are incomplete. However, in the seventeenth century about 100 to 200 entered German universities per decade, this figure rising to about 300 in the eighteenth century. ARMSTRONG, pp. 67-68; see WHELAN, "Balthasar" for a discussion of education as a value in the 18th century. See also H[EINRICH] J[ULIUS] BÖTHFÜHR, Die Livländer auf auswärtigen Universitäten in vergangenen Jahrhunderten (Riga, 1884); JULIUS ECKARDT, Livland im 18. Jahrhundert·. Umrisse zu einer livländischen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1876). 28 See PETRI, Ehstland, 2:400; A tutor commented toward the end of the eighteenth century that "parents did not want much education" and usually objected that "much knowledge creates headaches and conceit." Aus den Aufzeichnungen eines livländischen Hofmeisters am Ende des XVIII Jhdts. (Riga, 1894), p. 11; cf. UNGERN-STERNBERG, Erinnerungen, p. 34. Poorly educated nobles started their service below officer rank. This could become problematic for a son if he did not receive at the beginning of service confirmation of his nobility from the heraldry department of the Senate in St. Petersburg. In such a case the boys were subject to corporal punishment. See the appeal of Fr. von Grotthuss to the Kurland marshal of the nobility, Count Medem, to issue a certificate of nobility to his two sons because they lived in terror of corporal punishment and the heraldry department was late in confirming their noble status. Grotthuss described himself as a poor man. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 6, Lietas Nr. 2, letters of 27 February and 17 June 1822. See also H. Ernst von Transehe's similar appeal for help to the Council of the Diet of Livland. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 75, pp. 19-23. 26

27

171

Tutors a n d G o v e r n e s s e s Many parents could themselves provide their children little more than the most basic instruction; where finances allowed, they relied on the help of tutors and governesses. These, mostly of German origin, had been a customary fixture in Baltic German noble homes in the previous century, but their presence now gained in urgency and importance. Expenses for tutors and governesses often meant considerable sacrifice for parents; neither was it easy, particularly in the first decades of the nineteenth century, to find suitable persons for long term employment. A constant problem was the isolation of the countryside, a loneliness that caused some tutors to become so depressed or melancholy that they left their positions. This problem became the bane of Alexander von Keyserling's existence. Documents of the time are replete with references to difficulties connecting with the educational staff, as finding the right tutor or governess would require a father's trip abroad or the mobilization of the family's entire network of friends, relatives, and acquaintances.29 Hiring tutors became easier when Dorpat University began to produce its own graduates in greater numbers. It became customary then for students, especially for prospective clergymen, to spend some time as a tutor. Of the forty-three students of divinity who were listed in the Curonia fraternity register between 1808 and 1820, twentyeight served for some period as tutors. 30 Some families rented, acquired or built homes in towns (Livland's nobility preferred Dorpat itself) and spent the school year in town while fathers remained on the estate or leased it.31 A tutor's position in the noble household was more independent than that of a governess because his responsibility to his charges did not extend beyond the classroom. He participated in all the family's activities and often became the intellectual focus of the family circle. More personal involvement was expected of a governess, whose duties extended beyond classes for girls to supervising lessons in comportment and polish for both sexes. O. von Taube said that he learned from his governess "good manners and bearing, everything that concerned deportment, the consideration of a gentleman, the transformation of friendliness into politeness, and the union of all this with the concept of honor." 32 Governesses played an important role in the production of future 29 See, for example, KEYSERLING, 1:340, 355, 383 and passim; SEESEMANN, Dorothea, p. 282. 30 Theology students predominated in the applicant pool, but students of philosophy, history, and law also took their turn before taking up other professions. 31 Some better off parents also went abroad for their children's education as did Gotthard von Budberg in 1810, a father "who lived only for the future happiness of his children." HI, Baltikum 400/437, letter of Lorenz Campenhausen to sister Sophie. 32 TAUBE, Im alten Estland, p. 171; see also AMALIE JORDAN, "Aus dem Tagebuch einer Gouvernante (1840)," BM 68 (1909):385^tl5 about a governess's life and role; also KARLOTTO SCHLAU, Als Gouvernante auf kurländischen Gütern (1846-1850). Aus Briefen von

172

ladies and gentlemen. Social confidence, ease, and sureness of manners were the mark of the nobleman. Children reacted with ambivalence to their tutors and governesses, seeing them sometimes as interlopers who separated them for extended periods from their parents, especially their beloved mothers. N o wonder then, that vacation times were especially welcomed, since tutors and governesses usually departed during those periods. If parents could not afford a tutor or governess, or if they wanted to be actively involved themselves, fathers and mothers, sometimes with the help of their older daughters, themselves continued the education of their children up to the age of nine or ten. 3 3 Alexander von Keyserling, for example, took up the education of his son at age four and of his daughter at age eight, while in the Oettingen family first the mother, then the maternal grandmother, instructed the five brothers until age ten, when they were sent off to boarding school. The grandmother taught reading, writing, orthography, arithmetic, biblical history, and geography. The Oettingen father expected and received regular reports on school progress. In the Gruenewaldt family the mother organized and then supervised a school staffed with a tutor. Wilhelm von Samson-Himmelstjerna reported that he spent five hours a day instructing his children. 34

S e p a r a t i o n of the Sexes Around age nine or ten the sexes were separated, boys passing to the closer supervision of their fathers and of male tutors, and girls remaining in the female Franziska von Zuccalmaglio, Beiträge zur baltischen Geschichte, vol. 16 (Wedemark-Elze, 1996). These letters also include good descriptions of noble social life. On tutors, see HERMANN, "Erinnerungen," in Altlivländische, p. 43. In 1834 the government regulated examinations for private teachers who had to have a finished university education and tutors who had to be at least graduates of public or religious schools. This led to an increasing professionalization of teaching. SCHLAU, Als Gouvernante, p. 4. 33 Otto von Ungern-Sternberg's sister L. von Aderkas advised her newly widowed brother against putting his oldest daughter, then nineteen years old, in charge of the education of the younger children in addition to household management, saying this was an excessive responsibility and might spoil her youth, since "the school and education of the little loved ones is such a holy duty that it cannot be conducted along with household management by one and the same person." Letter of 17 September 1829 in HEINRICH SEESEMANN, "Nachtrag zur Arbeit 'Aus dem Leben unserer Urgrossmutter Dorothea (Doris) von Ungern-Sternberg'. Die ersten Jahre nach ihrem Tode 1829-1837," (Manuscript, Nassau, 1977, library, Herder-Institut), p. 381. 34 HSA, 702, Oettingen, Nr. 33, "Herkunft," p. 67. The Oettingen grandmother was dedicated, teaching three hours in the morning and two in the afternoon and even took the boys along on her travels so that they would not miss their lessons. The children did not reciprocate this attention with love and particularly resented her emphasis on conventional modes of behavior. Alexander von Oettingen wrote of the "all too severe discipline" of his grandmother, "Haus und Heimat," in Heimatstimmen 2 (1906), p. 26. Cf. HI, Baltikum 400/437, letter of 12 June 1817, and ibid., Nr. 685. 173

sphere under the care of mothers and governesses. In the opinion both of pedagogues and noble society, boys required "manly guidance" by age nine or ten. The pedagogue C. Hoheisel recommended that as long as a child is a child, that is a neuter, which means that differences in the inner nature of the sexes have not yet appeared, as without a doubt occurs a few years before puberty, both sexes can be treated the same without damage to either-

After age nine or ten, however, children should be educated and instructed separately.35 The underlying reason for this separation was an ideology of the sexes that socialized boys for public life and girls for home, marriage, and family. After reaching their first decade, boys spent their school time with male tutors who took on the role of "second father," sometimes in another home with families who all pooled their resources for a tutor. If the family could afford it, they might be sent to a boarding school. The intent in all cases was to promote self-reliance and the independence of action and thought necessary for later roles in public life. Mothers dreaded this separation and treated their male children in advance with special warmth and indulgence. Marie von Wolff admitted that she "spoilt her son," and Sophie von Hahn bemoaned the expected departure of her oldest son to boarding school, writing "what would I not give if he were a girl, because he will so soon have to leave my sphere forever." 36 Sons, in turn, long remembered their first shock of separation. Reinhold Stael von Holstein recounted a "bitter pain of separation from my mother," his "protective angel" whose attitude to him from childhood was a "tenderness that had no limits." His happiest time during the year occurred during school vacations when he was again his "mother's child." 37 The different treatment mothers accorded boy children supports Philippe Aries' suggestion that during the transition to modern capitalist society boys became "children" whereas girls remained "little women." 38 A boy spent so 35 In order of citation, SEESEMANN, "Nachtrag Dorothea," letter of 17 November 1829, p. 382; HOHEISEL, "Über Mädchenerziehung," p. 242. 3 6 H I , Baltikum 400/426, letter to sister Sette of 10 December 1810; H A H N , In Gutshäusem, p. 332; On 5 April 1827 Otto von Ungern Sternberg wrote to his sister Louise that the decision of his brother to send his three sons to boarding school in Germany "cost the poor Trude [their mother] many tears." SEESEMANN, Dorothea, p. 321; cf. HI, Baltikum 400/415; Clementine von Campenhausen wrote to her sons in school abroad, "Oh, you children, you cannot divine how the maternal heart so far away from you is rich in sorrow and agony for you." Letter of 25 December 1825. Ibid. 37 HSA, 702, No. 82, p. 1; cf. ibid. No. 78, p. 7. Stael's mother provided him with emotional and financial support into manhood. Μ. E. von Uexküll-Güldenband also wrote loving letters to her absent son Georg, calling him "tenderly loved," and assuring him "I think often and much of you" with "tender mother love." EAA, fond 854, nimistu 7, järjek. 178, letters of 14 May 1801,1 July 1802 and passim. 3 8 PHILIPPE ARI£S, Centuries of Childhood. A Social History of Family Life (New York,

1962), p p . 6 0 - 6 1 .

174

much of his early life with women that there was at first little identification with the masculine role. At around age ten he was then inserted with little or no preparation into an almost entirely masculine world. A boy's development was forever marked by this discontinuity. Girls, in contrast, passed both childhood and youth in the continuing milieu of women, learning their roles from the example of mothers and female caretakers.39 Elizabeth Rigby was appalled to find that "female children" were "miniature versions" of their mothers, who at social gatherings "wander from room to room and are constantly reminded from four years of age and upwards to be feminine."40 Girls were to repress their natural spirits and behave in a subdued and responsible manner, emulating their mothers. It is this that made them appear to be "miniature versions" of their mothers, though in dress they were marked as "children" no less than boys.41 Boys more than girls were allowed and even encouraged to experience a distinct childhood. Their play was encouraged and it was usually they who took the lead, though sisters were often invited to participate in their games. Parents encouraged their children's fantasy life as recommended by Jean Paul and the pedagogue J. H. Campe, whose immensely popular book Robinson the Younger (1779) provided the model for childplay as a process of learning. Campe incorporated into his version of Robinson Crusoe Rousseau's advice that children should be active participants in a story. In Robinson, children re-enact Robinson's island life, dress like him, and build themselves a hut, all under the benevolent eye and guidance of the family father as he recounts to them Robinson's story.42 By the 1830's much of child play consisted of costume play. Children dressed up and acted out the tales of knights and heroes of old, modeled on the Goldene Heldenbuch, or re-enacted the tales of Cooper and Scott or the fairy tales of the brothers Grimm and Andersen. In this fashion, boys were to learn courtly CHODOROW, "Family Structure" in Woman, Culture and Society, pp. 54-55. RLGBY, 2:135. Rigby's expression of distaste for repressive girlhood, which was the European norm at the time, indicates that she may have been familiar with the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797). Much of what was required of girls seems to have reflected an attitude, still common at the time, that girls were dangerous and that their natures and emotions had to be controlled. 41 The philanthropists, an enlightened group of eighteenth century educators (Campe, Salzmann, Basedow) were most effective in stressing children's functional clothes. See BASEDOW, pp. 251-304. Until age twelve girls wore dresses widely cut around the collar, with short sleeves that showed their shoulders. Only outside did they wear a jacket with long sleeves. Their hair was uncut and kept in braids. Boys wore short pants and loose Russian blouses until they went off to boarding school or turned twelve. 42 FERTIG, Zeitgeist, p. 51. By 1819 Robinson was in its thirteenth edition and probably the most popular children's book in Germany and the provinces. See REINHARD STACH, Robinson der Jüngere als pädagogisch-didaktisches Modell des philantropischen Erziehungsdenkens (Ratingen, 1970); LUDWIG FERTIG, Campes politische Erziehung. Eine Einführung in die Pädagogik der Aufklärung (Darmstadt, 1977). 39 40

175

Eveline von Kotzebue, b. von Staal (1824-1871) and her children (Photo Marburg)

176

Wilhelmine von Krusenstern, b. von Kotzebue (1812-1851) (Photo Marburg)

177

Adam, Wilhelmine and Paul von Krusenstern, (children of Wilhelmine) (1812-1851) (Photo Marburg)

178

manners, history, and geography. 43 Children's games were supposed to keep them occupied: among Protestants idleness was a serious sin and the rule was that children should always be busy. Boys and girls alike learned knitting and helped in the preparation of wool, keeping their hands occupied during long winter evenings while they listened to stories read by other members of the family group.44

Conclusion In the first part of the nineteenth century the childhood of Baltic German noble children up to age nine or ten was a distinct phase in a child's development, in particular for boys. Children were treasured and received much love and attention. Childplay and fantasy were encouraged and formed an integral part of the learning process. Formal instruction first started between the ages of five and seven. Children were no longer miniature adults who had to be forced into adult roles, though girls still suffered from limitations. The older set of attitudes concerned with role training in the emphasis on obedience, discipline, respect for authority, and diligence persisted, but a child's nature was no longer regarded as inherently evil. His human dignity and sense of right and wrong were respected and a child was treated with more indulgence and understanding. Ida von Wrangell wrote that "we were often scolded, as was then customary, and were regarded as irredeemable; but [the scolding] was not hard on children because it was done kindheartedly."45 Role training models were evident in a child's early introduction to adult society, where correct comportment and manners, themselves a form of dressage, was stressed. Both sets of attitudes toward child development and role training co-existed in families, but since no two families are exactly alike, an exclusive emphasis on role training, characterized by a more for43 "Aus der 'guten alten Zeit'," in Aus vergangenen, pp. 99-106. The anonymous author also mentioned the popularity of Speckter's fables (1833-1837), Till Eulenspiegel, and books of tales and legends by Schwab. By mid-century, play equipment such as seesaws and swings appeared on manor playgrounds, and later on a swing-rope carousel (Rundlauf). Girls' toys were dolls, while boys played with carriages, horses, soldiers, or figures connected with the hunt. For a description of children's outdoor games in the nineteenth century, see EVA GAETHGENS, Altlivland: Heitere Bilder aus dem Baltikum (Hamburg, 1918). 44 See, for example, GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1: 35; "Aus der 'guten alten Zeit'," in Aus vergangenen, p. 78. Bienemann's books contain many memoirs on the customs, habits, life in the provinces in the first half of the nineteenth century. That the need to avoid the sin of idleness was well impressed on children shows in Lila von Zoege-Manteuffel's letter to her fiance on 2 May 1800, where she writes "we will work and be diligent...because I believe that idleness and boredom lead most people into crime and bad deeds." KÜGELGEN, Ein Lebensbild, p. 49. 45 She was born in 1846. MARGARETE VON W R A N G E L L , Das Leben einer Frau, 1876-1932, ed. W L A D I M I R A N D R O N I K O V (Munich 1935), p. 18.

179

mal and removed relationship to parents was prevalent in some families at the same time as others had shifted to a greater emphasis on child development.46 For a girl, surrounded by women, identification with the mother meant that the childhood phase was less distinct in comparison with boys, who passed to almost exclusive male care only at age nine or ten. A boy's father was his role model for the adult male world, the man who taught him the skills of riding and the hunt, love of country and of his own heritage. Though during this period noble families continued their traditional reliance on nannies, tutors, and governesses, the overall physical and emotional well-being of the child was under the direction of the mother, whose role was central in the family. Between the ages of ten to twelve the world of children changed. Boys entered a distinct stage of youth, which entailed the removal from the mother's sphere and their socialization by males. For girls, youth was less distinct, for her socialization as wife and mother continued in an unbroken line in the home under the guidance of women.

Youth The concept of childhood as a distinct phase in life led in turn to the concept of youth as a period when young people were trained and prepared for adulthood. 47 For boys this phase opened a new set of opportunities and experiences after the initial painful separation from their mothers. Boys were sent out of the home to boarding schools, sometimes organized by teachers or clergymen, or boarded with a family in town while attending a day school like the Cathedral school in Reval or the gymnasium in Mitau. In 1838 Das Inland counted 114 public and 167 private schools of all levels functioning in the provinces. 48 Nobles' residence in the country made boarding schools a necessity. After finishing school some would go on to university as young adults. At school and at university youths formed friendships and allegiances and developed a culture and rituals that extended beyond the family home, an opportunity denied their sisters. Both at school and university a boy's individualism was curtailed to promote his ability to function in the adult world.

46

For a case of "respectful" distance from parents, see Karl von Behr's comments in 1836. ULRICH BARON BEHR, Edwahlen und die Behrsche Ecke in Kurland (Verden, 1979), p. 145. 47 ZINNECKER, pp. 68-69; JOHN R. GILLIS, Youth and History. Tradition and Change in European Age Relations 1770 to Present (New York, 1974) pp. 1-5. 48 The report discusses the number of private and public students and teachers in the Dorpat, Riga, Estland and Kurland educational districts and shows the heightened value of education in Baltic German society. N o . 8, 23 February 1838.

180

Bildung The education of noble youth at the gymnasium and at university was dominated by the culture of self-cultivation or Bildung, with its gospel of Idealism. Thomas Mann described this German tradition of personal culture as characterized by "an inwardness," and went on to say ...inwardness, the culture [Bildung] of a German implies introspectiveness; an individualistic cultural conscience; consideration for the careful tending, the shaping, deepening and perfecting of one's own personality, or, in religious terms, for the salvation and justification of one's own life; subjectivism in the things of the mind, therefore, a type of culture that might be called pietistic, given the autobiographical confession and deeply personal, one in which the world of the objective, the political world, is felt to be profane and is thrust aside with indifference, "because" as Luther says, "this external order is of no consequence."

This inwardness was regarded by the German as his "best known characteristic" and also "the most flattering to his self-esteem."49 The Greek and Roman classics constituted the core of Bildung, for they exemplified, among other noble virtues, self-control, honor, and moderation. However, Bildung received its impetus and prestige from the aesthetic and philosophical ideals propagated by the great German cultural figures of the golden age of classical and romantic writers (1770-1830), Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, W. von Humboldt, Kant, Wieland, Herder, Schlegel, and others. The ideal of Bildung put an emphasis above all on the individual, his psychology and rights, a personality which should "realize itself as the highest good in life ... in the realm of the spirit, love of high culture" and, if possible, in creativity.50 Germans and their culture represented the true humanity of man and in this Germans assumed their superiority to other peoples and cultures, a notion Baltic Germans would consciously embrace when their autonomy was threatened after the 1860's. Protestant Christianity, which supported the individualistic mission of selfdevelopment, was dominated in the Baltic provinces to the 1840's by a ratio49 As translated and cited in W. H. BRUFORD, The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation (London, 1975), VII. Mann named the "novel of personal cultivation" (Bildungsroman) as a typical German contribution to world culture. See also EDUARD SPRANGER, Kultur und Erziehung (Leipzig, 1925); FRITZ RINGER, "Higher Education in Germany in the Nineteenth Century," Education and Social Structure in Twentieth Century Germany:Journal of

Contemporary History, 1967):123—138.

ed. WALTER LAQUEUR a n d GEORGE L . MOSSE ( N e w

York,

50 P. PETSCHAUER, "Improving Educational Opportunities for Girls in Eighteenth Century Germany," Eighteenth Century Life 3, N o . 2 (1976), p. 62. Romanticism (1775-1815) was the initial phase of German Idealism, and particularly stressed the right to a uniqueness and individuality in which each person could attain his real nature (Schleiermacher). Schiller, for example, emphasized the self-fulfillment of the individual through the development of "a beautiful soul" and he portrayed art, friendship, and love as the greatest values in an individual's life.

181

nalism which, as one Baltic German commented, "had no connection with the community (Gesamtheit), but only with the individual, with the happiness that a single being could achieve for himself by the practice of virtue. There was no talk of other than private virtues." 5 1 As a result, religious instruction in Baltic schools was restricted to inculcating moral values and taught neither the Bible nor the catechism. 52 The tradition of Bildung and the full flowering of the personality came to be viewed by Germans, as Mann noted, as a kind of "salvation" and supposedly held a higher value than "power, money, and pleasure." 5 3 The educated German middle class celebrated its cultural achievements by embracing Bildung

at a

time of social and economic insecurity and political impotence. 5 4 B y the first decades of the nineteenth century the nobility in Germany proper had accommodated itself to the humanistic bourgeois values of culture that included an acknowledgment of the value of a gymnasium and university education. A similar process took place among the Baltic German nobility and the Bildungsbürgertum,

the literati. 55 The level of Baltic German university enroll-

ment at Dorpat in the early 1830's (300 per 100,000 total population) was significantly higher than that in Germany even in the 1880's (50 per 100,000) and

51 "Eine livländische Landstadt vor ca. 75 Jahren. 1834-1848," in Altlivländische, p. 274; A. WLNCKLER, "Aus Dr. A. Wincklers Erinnerungen von Dorpat 1802-1863", ibid., p. 91. 52 Dorpat University's divinity faculty was dominated until 1817 by rationalist professors who held three of the four chairs of theology and shaped generations of Baltic German clergymen. A change came with the appointment of a new curator, the pietist Carl von Lieven, who brought with him two other pietists. Pietism itself emphasized the individual and stressed particularly the importance of youth as a period of moral and spiritual regeneration. Pietism rejected infant baptism and postponed this event to post puberty. The Baltic Lutheran church tried to stem the influence of pietism in the 1840's and then got caught up in the religious controversies that characterized Protestant Christianity after mid-century. The struggle between a more orthodox strand of Christianity and the historical school was fought at the universities, Dorpat eventually siding with the orthodox school, a movement led by Professor Oettingen that then held supreme for the rest of the century. SAGARRA, An Introduction, p. 49; ENGELHARDT, Die Deutsche Universität Dorpat, pp. 62-65; REINHARD WITTRAM, "Die Universität Dorpat im 19. Jahrhundert," Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 1 (1951):201, 211; VFLKTOR] GRÜNER, Die baltischen Provinzialsynoden als Spiegel der geistigen Strömungen Deutschlands (Riga, 1931), p. 10. 53

BRUFORD, V I I .

LlAH GREENFELD, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 293-310. See, for example, ARMSTRONG, "Mobilized," p. 66; LENZ, Der baltische, passim. 56 ARMSTRONG, "Mobilized", p. 69. Armstrong does not cite the Baltic German noble share in his figures. Rauch claims that in the first twenty-five years of Dorpat's existence of about 6000 students, 1800 belonged to the corporate nobility. RAUCH, "Dorpat: Stadt und Universität," in Aus baltischer, p. 380. Kurland nobles continued to prefer German universities. During 1830-1840 when the imperial government caused trouble over fraternities, some better-off noble youth went to Germany, and in 1849 the minister of education limited the number of students at Dorpat to 300. HASSELBLATT and OTTO, Von den 14,000, p. 104; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:210; "Aus einem baltischen Erinnerungsbuch," in Altlivländische, p. 96. 54

55

182

was not surpassed by either France or Germany until after WW II.56 The literati as teachers, clergymen, and professors, either German themselves or trained at German universities or at Dorpat, were imbued with the culture of Bildung, and passed this on to their pupils and students in the classroom.57 The Baltic German nobility had always valued education and welcomed the skills gained through Bildung. The nobility entrusted their sons to literati tutelage at schools and university (though a university education did not become an achievement norm among the nobility until the second half of the nineteenth century). The literati, though they always disdained the nobles' lack of intellectualism (this was the only area where they could claim superiority), accepted the essentials of the noble life style in social graces and noble virtues, especially that of honor. Noble accommodation to bourgeois values was not difficult in the Baltic German setting. Bildung was profoundly apolitical and fit well into the conservative hierarchical order of society. Culture enhanced a noble's self-assured certainty of superiority, and encouraged the elitism and haughtiness that characterized the nobility as a whole. In the eighteenth century "power" in the form of political, social, and economic domination was the prime noble prerogative, while loyalty and Imperial patriotism were among the cardinal noble virtues. The Baltic German noble was self-assured and his special status provoked no crisis of identity. He ostensibly disdained money in the manner of a true aristocrat (in the Baltic, literati too were often characterized as careless in their attitude toward money). 58 Pleasure was an important feature of life, and noble youth in particular practiced elaborate drinking rituals in their fraternities, a practice where literati youth were well able to accommodate themselves, and even with considerable enthusiasm, to noble customs. The culture of Bildung offered youth an opportunity to lose themselves in adolescent self-absorbtion undisturbed by the claims of the wider world. At school and university Baltic German noble youth shared their education with literati youth, and at boarding school they even lived together. This shared experience may have promoted an accommodation to each other's values, but in the first half of the nineteenth century, at least, it did not translate to any lowering of social barriers: it is notable that diaries, letters, and memoirs of this period make no mention of noble-literati friendships either during youth or later in life. Common schooling and even some level of common carousing led, it seems to little more than some understanding of the other's ethos and style. 57 Half of the university's instructional staff came from Germany in the first three decades of Dorpat's existence, though at the very beginning Baltic Germans already supplied forty-six of the 131 faculty members. Later about half of the instructors came from the provinces and many were Dorpat alumni, making the university ingrown and provincial.

ARMSTRONG, "Mobilized," p. 70. 58 See, for example, THEODOR HERMANN Kurländers (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1915), p. 44.

PANTENIUS,

AUS

den Jugendjahren

eines

alten

183

Gymnasium The gymnasium placed great emphasis on the concept of honor, personal responsibility, and self-reliance. Physical punishment was abolished by ministerial decree at the end of the 1820's. The writer Theodor Pantenius noted that at the Mitau gymnasium the director treated youth as "gentlemen" and "educated them to honor." He added that "as long as we proved ourselves reliable, that is, were truthful, spared the weaker, and were prepared to take the consequences of our actions, he left us our freedom." 59 R. Wittram observed that this emphasis on honor provoked as its obverse a feeling of haughtiness and elitism among noble and literati youth.60 Order and obedience were expected and promoted "without strictness, through firmness and intelligent concession and prohibition." 61 It was in this fashion, pedagogues like Pestalozzi claimed, that youth could be educated to a "moral freedom" that would "show itself in the voluntary renunciation of selfish wilfulness, in the free subordination to what has been recognized as right and law by God and man."62 Pedagogues encouraged teachers to respect the youth and introduce him to the world of idealism, because "a youth awakened to self-consciousness lives in the world of ideals. Youth frees himself from the limits of his boyhood and directs his view into the wide and infinite world." 63 Pedagogy had ostensibly become more of a science (Wissenschaft) under the influence of the enlightenment, but it comes as no surprise that not all teachers lived up to the recommendations of the leading pedagogical thinkers.64 Ibid., P. 137. Ω WITTRAM, Drei Generationen, P. 236. 61 This quote refers in particular to principles held by the Pestalozzi and the pietist influenced school for boys of Krümmer. Letter of Juliane von Maydell to Louise von Aderkas, 29 August 1830, cited in HEINRICH SEESEMANN, "Die Anfänge von Krümmers Knabenerziehungsanstalt, Jahrbuch des Baltischen Deutschtums 26 (1979), p. 63. The two most outstanding and well known teachers of this boarding school were the pietists J. Mortimer and Heinrich Eisenschmidt. The institution educated many well known Baltic German nobles, among them the five Oettingen brothers, Professor Moritz Engelhardt, and a number of counselors of the corporations. The well known school for boys of Hollander was also inspired by Pestalozzi. Hollander was under the influence of Schleiermacher, Jahn, and the Jena fraternity life that he had experienced as a young man. TOBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:280. Georg von Oettingen discussed his stay at the school, its rules, student life in "Georg von Oettingen," Baltische Lebenserinnerungen, p. 137. 59

62

SCHWARTZ, p . 9 0 ; Die Erziehung,

63

SCHWARZ, P . 9 5 .

p. 199.

64 Many tutors and teachers were unsuited to their professions or were unable to find the teaching method that would awaken their pupils' interest. See, for example, Klee's problems as a tutor and his search for a satisfactory method. KLEE, pp. 36-37; cf. "Das Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesen in den russischen Ostseeprovinzen. Verhandlungen von Schulmännern in den pädagogischen Beilagen des Inlandes, no. 18 (Dorpat, 1850). The pedagogical supplements of Das Inland were designed to counter the isolation of tutors and governesses in the countryside, who were often inexperienced and young. Ibid., p. 17. Bad teaching re-

184

T h e standard g y m n a s i u m c u r r i c u l u m , w i t h classics at its c o r e , w a s s u p p o s e d t o f o s t e r t h e gospel o f Idealism. T h e official c u r r i c u l a r c i r c u l a r of t h e G y m n a s i u m Illustre in M i t a u p r o m i s e d languages and works of classical antiquity as the genuine basis of all learning, as the preferred means to stimulate and exercise not only the strength of youthful souls, but prepare them for all other studies and open the doors to every science. Instruction in classical languages was supposed t o be " l i v e l y ; " y o u t h should n o t just "understand and write and r e a d , " but should have their attention directed t o " t h e dignity, p o w e r , and beauty of the w o r k s of antiquity." Study

should

assure a " m o s t happy influence o n the formation of spirit and character, especially if connected with a dignified and enthusiastic instruction in Christianity." G r e e k and Latin dominated the curriculum and always involved m u c h rote learning, despite all protestations to the contrary. 6 5 After Greek and Latin, the subject of next importance was mathematics. Like G r e e k and Latin, mathematics was claimed t o contribute t o the development of logical thought. G e r m a n (with an emphasis o n G e r m a n classical literature), Russian, religion, geography, physics, natural history, and world and Russian history (only in the second part of the nineteenth c e n t u r y was m o r e attention paid t o provincial history) rounded out the curriculum. Calligraphy trained the hand as well as the eye and was important in the absence of m o dern writing instruments. D r a w i n g and music had a place, but a limited one. 6 6 mained a problem for parents throughout the century. Emmy von Campenhausen, who went through a succession of teaching disasters, commented that "if one considers how few teachers and governesses take up and conduct their profession because of God's grace, one must not be too exacting toward those whom one has found after honest endeavor. Toleration must replace a lot." HI, Baltikum 400/675, diary entry for 15 March 1885; see also EAA, fond 4372, nimistu 1, järjek. 5, letter of 28 January 1814. The founder of pedagogical science in Germany was J. H. Herbart (1776-1814) whose influence made itself felt in methodological seminars only in the second half of the century. Die Erziehung, p. 251. 65 PAUL SEEBERG, AUS alten leiten. Lebensbilder aus Kurland (Re-edition of 1885 ed. Hannover-Döhren, 1972), p. 71. Still German students both in Germany and the Baltic probably gained more from their study of the classics than did their English public school counterparts, who were deadened to the classics by excessive emphasis on grammar. LIEVEN, The Aristocracy, pp. 169-170. For quotations, see KARL DANNENBERG, Geschichte und Statistik des Gymnasiums zu Mitau (Mitau, 1875), pp. 22-23. 6 6 DANNENBERG, pp. 22-23. The curriculum lists twelve hours of Latin and eight hours of Greek weekly in the first class, then ten and seven hours respectively for the second class, eight and four for the third class, four and three for the fourth class, and four and two for the fifth class. Russian had three hours in the first class and four hours in the other grades. German had two lessons for the first three classes and then three for the two upper ones. Math ranged from two classes in the upper rank to four and five in others. Geography, history and physics had between two and three hours a week. The total number of lessons ranged from thirty-two to thirty-six hours per week. T o this could be added another ten classes in French, six in drawing, and three in singing. Ibid. The Imperial school statute of 1803 established three classes; these were raised to five classes in 1820 and seven classes in the 1870's, from Prima through Septima. For a review of the German school system and a bibliography on the subject, see GOTTHARD SCHWEDER, "Das deutsche Schulwesen in den Städten," in Baltische Bürgerkunde, pp. 255-276 and ToBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:276-307. 185

Russian and Russian history and geography were an integral part of the curriculum after the Imperial decrees of 1836 and 1837, which ordered increased instruction in those subjects. Competence in Russian then became a requirement for an academic decree at Dorpat, and by the early 1840's all matriculated students theoretically had to pass a Russian language exam. In truth, little changed. Russian was still badly taught and exams were lax. Baltic Germans resisted the new requirements and after the revolution of 1848 the government was persuaded to halt or delay their enforcement. 6 7 As concerned other instruction, each subject had a prescribed curriculum that had to be followed by all publicly supported gymnasia. Formal education concluded with the leaving or maturity certificate, the Abitur,

which by 1820 was

strictly regulated and which could be taken no earlier than age seventeen. Until 1862 matriculation at Dorpat of gymnasia and private school graduates depended on passing preliminary examinations ( T e n t a m e n ) held by Dorpat professors. Afterwards, the Abitur

certificate became decisive, a requirement that

disadvantaged private schools, which did not have the right to award the degree. 68 The school curriculum was rigorous and many youths experienced great difficulty in passing the

Abitur.

N o t all students prepared for the Abitur

or were able to master the classical

curriculum. The oldest school in the provinces, the Cathedral School in Reval, which was supported by the Estland corporation and which educated generations of noblemen, paid particular attention to preparing pupils for military service, which youths usually joined at age fifteen or sixteen. In 1837 Das

Inland

reported that a special branch of study ( R e a l s c h u l e ) was introduced to teach pu67 Das Inland, No. 1, 6 January 1837, p. 2; THADEN, Russia's, pp. 189-190. Russian instruction continued in the schools though hours of instruction were fewer than for Latin. Russian teachers, who felt isolated and unwelcome, were under pressure to assign high grades even to undeserving students, so that students could be promoted into the next grade or graduate. In 1862, the passing grade was lowered to "good". Nicholas I had approved the use of Russian as the language of the provincial bureaucracy, a move that threatened the jobs of about three-hundred Baltic German officials, many of them nobles. The measure was postponed to 1867. See, ISAKOV, Russkii iazyk, passim. 68 ToBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:324. The Imperial School District Statute applied to the Baltic provinces and the curator of the Dorpat School District supervised education. School certificates mentioned what rights the student had in entering Imperial civil service. ( L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 4, Lietas Nr. 2, p. 8). The curriculum of private schools resembled that of public ones, though pupils underwent fewer examinations. GEORG VON OETTINGEN mentioned that teachers knew their students well enough to forego this regimen, and his first real experience with examinations took place at his matriculation. "Kinderjahre," in Baltische Erinnerungen, p. 138. Public and private schools often lacked instructional materials. At the beloved private Schmidt Institution, for example, there were few textbooks as late as the 1850's. Only the classics, ancient languages, and atlases were available, together with some anthologies for new languages. There were no texts for world history, math and even Russian grammar was taught through dictation, as was history, where teachers would compose outlines which were then copied. TH. PEZOLD, "Vor 50 Jahren. Erinnerungen aus der Schmidtschen Knabenpension in Fellin," BM 58 (1905):1-16.

186

pils "everything suitable for the military profession, especially mathematical sciences and, instead of ancient languages, Russian, and French..." Twenty eight students signed up immediately.69 The private Krümmer Institution dropped Greek from the curriculum for less gifted students or "for those whose future profession does not require it" and concentrated instead on French and Russian.70 Though some attention was paid to the individual needs and abilities of students, the most prestigious course of study was the classical one that was the norm for cultured society among both the nobility and the literati. Youth were trained to be self-reliant and achievement oriented. Bildung emphasized the concepts of honor, the exercise of reason and independent thinking, moral virtues exemplified in classical texts, especially Roman texts, of virility, self-control, courage, loyalty, liberality, and a strength of character built on a code of conduct supported by the Christian morality of right and wrong. This socialization clearly reflected the characterization of the sexes legitimized by German classical culture, which destined men for an active, external life and required, among other values "bravery, boldness, steadfastness, will power, energy and rationality." 71 'It should not be surprising that despite all this emphasis in the upbringing of young nobles on the values and virtues of Bildung propagated by German Idealism and Pietism, many nobles, and perhaps most of those to whom the message was directed never quite managed to live up to the ideals of their culture. Many turned out lazy, were neglectful of their manorial or adminstrative duties, lacked self-discipline, and certainly were not always benevolent toward their fellow beings, especially those less fortunate than themselves. Another important component of education outside the home, and useful for socialization, was the opportunity given to youth to form peer relationships and other groupings with their schoolmates. Comradeship taught young noblemen first hand the meaning of honor and loyalty and was an important stage in 6 9 N o . 30, 10 April 1837, p. 285. T h e Cathedral school maintained limited boarding facilities for twenty-four b o y s in 1837. M o s t pupils b o a r d e d with families, often unmarried aunts w h o received a welcome income for this service. 70 Latin was also d r o p p e d for m o d e r n languages, but only for " u n g i f t e d " students. SEESEMANN, " D i e A n f ä n g e , " p. 61. T h e curriculum otherwise resembled that of public schools, though physical exercises were added during s u m m e r months. Pre-professional training was stressed, particularly for future military personnel. When Gotthard von B u d b e r g , for example, looked for a tutor for his s o n Alexander, w h o was destined for military service, he required that the tutor have abilities in mathematics and French. H I , Baltikum 400/437, letter of L o r e n z von C a m p e n h a u s e n to Sophie, 10 D e c e m b e r 1816. Carl von Lieven wrote to his s o n O t t o in school in Petersburg that if he really wanted a military career, then he should master "the Russian language, mathematics, history, and g e o g r a p h y " so that he " c o u l d pass an honorable e x a m . " H S A , 701, Lieven, VI, N o . 21, letter of 19 A u g u s t 1815. In 1843 the G y m n a s i u m Illustre introduced a special section for forestry. DANNENBERG, p. 69. 71 HAUSEN, p. 56. These "sex-specific character traits" were c o m m o n l y f o u n d in the dictionaries and encyclopedias of the time. Ibid.

187

preparing them for membership in their Stand. At school noble youth formed lifelong friendships and ties with the scions of other noble families that would serve them well in later public life. Brothers and cousins who attended the same school were able to deepen their personal relationships and their sense of family. The Oettingen brothers, the Ungern-Sternberg brothers and Maydell brothers and cousins formed regular contingents at the Krümmer Institution. Peer relationships with other classmates were then often carried over to Dorpat University. In the closed setting of the Baltic German world this produced on observers an impression of uniformity. The Estonia fraternity register for 1820-1860 listed the educational background of eighty-one noble students, of whom fifty-eight (72 %) attended at some time the Cathedral School, eight the Reval Gymnasium, eight the Dorpat Gymnasium, and seven the Krümmer Institution. Others listed in addition various preparatory private schools like the one at Koik, run by the Gruenewaldt family, which prepared youth for study at the Cathedral School or other gymnasia. Estland's noble youths at the Cathedral School were conscious of their ancestral ties to an institution that had been attended by their fathers and grandfathers. The Livonia register shows a similar pattern, though no school was as dominant as the Cathedral School for Estland. Of 101 noble students in residence between 1820 and 1860, twenty-three attended the well known and beloved Schmidt Institution (1844-1874), twenty-three the Gymnasium in Dorpat (especially during the 1820's and 1830's), seventeen the Krümmer Institution (1828-1867), and nine the well-known Hollander Institution at Birkenruh (1826-1882). Others listed the Provincial Gymnasium in Riga (seven) and various private schools (usually run by clergymen), like that of E. von Bergmann (1830-1833), or Adolf Albanus (1846), though many of these did not function very long and pupils often had to finish at other schools. In some years, all the students who entered the Livonia or Estonia were from the very same schools, further cementing their common bonds. 72 Of seventy-one Curonia nobles, twenty-three attended the Gymnasium Illustre in Mitau, five attended the Provincial Gymnasium in Riga, two each that of Reval and Dorpat, and the others a variety of private schools. Twenty-three had been prepared primarily at home (characteristic of the exclusive Kurland nobility), though some of these finished the higher grades in Mitau. Most youths were educated in their home province, but a limited number pursued their education in the other provinces or at the elite Imperial institutions for the upper crust of the nobility.

72 619 students attended the Schmidt Institution, which employed 117 teachers during its existence. The Krümmer Institution was passed on by Krümmer to his teacher H . H ö r schelmann in 1854, and his son-in-law F. Sintenius directed it afterwards until 1867. The school reached its high point from 1830-1845. TOBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:282.

188

Vacations School did not completely replace parental influence. During vacation times, boys returned home and participated in family life. Here they took part along with their fathers in the hunt, a noble obsession surrounded by masculine rituals, which was supposed to reinforce the manly virtues of bravery, self-control, endurance, and strength. 73 Arved von Ungern-Sternberg commented that "as boys from the countryside (Land'sche), everything soft,... every affectation - in dress also - disgusted" him and his friends in their youth. 74 T o sport a certain robustness became part of a young man's self image. Fathers made it a point to acquaint their sons with the lands they would inherit. A. von Keyserling wrote to his sister in 1854, " I lay great store on alloting to a son who is to inherit landed property an estate which he has learned to love in his youth. Then one leaves him something other than just the capital value." 75 Social graces were polished by governesses and practiced in intercourse with sisters, female cousins, and neighborhood friends, a sociability encouraged by parents as salutory for both sexes. Alexander von Igelström, (sounding almost like the new man of the 1990's), commented that: Nowhere better or more certainly does a young man gain in morality, free behavior, selfcontrol, the willingness to sacrifice, friendliness and gentleness than in intercourse with young women, and especially with his sisters, who have a strict eye for mistakes, for which they punish and belittle him to an unbearable degree. 76

Such contact also encouraged closer sibling ties. Dancing, regarded as a prerequisite for a nobleman as much as hunting and riding, was practiced under the guidance of hired instructors either at home or at a specially constituted circle at a relative's or neighbor's estate. 77 Full participation in official balls and other festivities had to wait until confirmation in the Lutheran church between the 73 See, for example, DRACHENFELS, "Jugenderinnerungen," in Altlivländische, p. 5. Drachenfels describes participation in his father's elaborate hunting rituals. ALEXANDER VON (DETTINGEN fondly remembered the "wonderful vacation pleasures with hunting and riding, sailing and bathing, bustling about the woods and fields." " H a u s , " in Heimatstimmen 2 (1906):24. 74 ZOEGE VON MANTEUFFEL, p. 156; in the first decade of the twentieth century Camilla von Stackelberg characterized her future husband as a "proper land'sche boy: riding, physical exercise, any physical sport was part of him from early on." STACKELBERG, Verwehte, p. 144. 75 KEYSERLING, 1:373. 76 IGELSTRÖM, P. 45. 77 The many Keyserling brothers were taught at a relative's home. KEYSERLING, 1:28; cf. H I , Baltikum 4 0 0 / 4 3 7 , letter of Lorenz Campenhausen to Sophie, 10 December 1816. Another popular form of home entertainment involved theater productions, particularly portraitures (tableaux) put on by family and friends. Petri criticized in 1802 the abandon with which young people of both sexes engaged in childish games or went sledding. PETRI, Ehstland, 2:256.

189

ages of fifteen and seventeen, when a youth officially entered young adulthood. Though youths had been allowed to be present at these activities earlier at home, it was only after confirmation that public participation at balls and dances was accepted. Confirmation marked a passage described by an Oettingen youth as "a serious moment in life from which should arise the salvation of one's soul for this and the future life."78 A young man was responsible not just for his soul's salvation (which not everyone took to heart), but for more mature conduct in general. Closely after confirmation or the Abitur, between ages sixteen to seventeen, the young man entered the next phase of life, either university study with its own culture and distractions, or practical work life, or military service.

University

and

Career

A student's matriculation at the Baltic German home university of Dorpat depended on his family's regard for the value of a higher education, the quality of this education available at young Dorpat University, the family's economic status, and, over time, family traditions of attendance at Dorpat. Dorpat itself had grown into a sizable university by 1837, when 607 students were in attendance (compare to the University of Vienna, with 900 students in 1850); of these 148 had noble status.79 According to Hasselblatt and Otto, the most strongly represented noble families up to 1889 were the Stackelbergs, who held first place overall with thirty-nine sons, followed by the Engelhardts in second place (thirty-seven). Third place was held by the literati Hörschelmann family with thirty-six, with Wolffs in fourth place (thirty-five). Between thirty and thirty-four noble sons of the zur Mühlen, Ungern-Sternberg, Samson-Himmelstjerna, Sivers, and Vietinghoff families were matriculated, and between twenty to twenty-eight sons of the Hahn (the first Kurland family represented), Stryk, Tiesenhausen, Dehn, Maydell, Manteuffel-Zoege, and Klot families. Between fifteen to nineteen sons of the Oettingen, Osten-Sacken, Grothuss, Gruenewaldt, Kruedener, Fircks, Heyking, and Rosen families attended Dorpat. Although over the century Dorpat gained in prestige, it took some well known noble families like the Derschau, Löwenstern, Kahlen, and Renteln

78 HSA, 702, Oettingen, Nr. 33, "Die Drei," p. 20. In the first half of the nineteenth century confirmation took place in the home parish under the guidance of the local pastor. Later in the century it became customary to gather groups of young people at a pastor's home, often outside the local parish, where they were prepared for confirmation over the course of several weeks. Boys and girls were housed in separate establishments. 79 Not all nobles were of the corporate nobility. Das Inland, "Universitätschronik", No. 6, 10 February 1837. The Inland provided annual figures that list not only student numbers and place of origin, but also subjects studied.

190

families until the 1870's before they sent their scions to the home university.80 At that time the overall prestige and importance of Dorpat increased for the corporate nobility in proportion to the threat of administrative unification with the Empire. Kurland's nobility held back from Dorpat, especially in the first decades of its foundation, because of their greater exclusivity and their dissatisfaction with the location of the university at Dorpat instead of Mitau. As a result, many of Kurland's noble sons continued to pursue their studies in Germany. Definitive figures are not available, but between 1820-1914, 214 Kurland nobles were active in German student corps, as opposed to eighty-one for Estland and Livland combined.81 Among Kurlanders in Germany, the Hahns predominated with thirty-five, followed by fourteen Ropp, thirteen Roenne and ten Heyking sons. Livland's and Estland's corporate nobility preferred Dorpat, though some nobles also expanded their horizons with study abroad in Germany or elsewhere. Of 131 Livonia members in the period from 1820-1860, a third (fifty-one) spent some time (a semester to several years) in study abroad. Berlin led with twenty students, followed by Heidelberg with twelve, Paris with seven, Vienna with five, and Würzburg, Prague, and Leipzig with three each. Of eightyfive Estonia members in the same period, only ten - a reflection of poorer economic status - listed some study, with Berlin leading again (three), followed by Göttingen, Paris, and Heidelberg (two each).82 Among Baltic German noble youth the predominance held by Rostock, Leipzig, Halle and Jena in previous centuries was broken in favor of Berlin, the capital of a rising power and the

8 0 HASSELBLATT/OTTO, Von den 14,000 , pp. 8 - 1 2 . In 1830 enrollment of corporate nobles went down because fraternities suffered official sanctions and the better off youth went abroad. Ibid. 81 HANS BARON HAHN, "Baltische Studenten in Deutschland 1 8 2 0 - 1 9 1 4 , " Nachrichtenblatt der Baltischen Ritterschaft 21 (1979), p. 49. Some of these may have been Dorpat graduates. Geography may also have played a role, as Kurlanders were closer to Königsberg than to Dorpat, which required an arduous carriage journey. See GUSTAV OTTO, Kur-, Liv-, Estländer auf der Universität Königsberg (Riga, 1896). WILHELM RÄDER, Curonen an Universitäten Deutschlands 1801-1831 (Riga, 1935); for an overview of publications on Baltic German students in Germany, see ROLAND SEEBERG-ELVERFELDT, "Die baltische Genealogie," in Geschichte der deutschhaitischen, pp. 166-167. 8 2 It should be noted that some students sampled several universities, spending sometimes not more than one semester at each. Other universities mentioned were Bonn, Munich, Erlangen, St. Petersburg and Moscow (two students of the Livonia), Rostock, Dresden, Zurich. University selection presented a change from previous centuries. In the seventeenth century, Rostock and Leyden were popular, in the eighteenth century Leipzig, Halle, Jena, Königsberg, Wittenberg and Erlangen where between 1710-1765 1126 Baltic Germans matriculated. Kurlanders had a pronounced preference for Königsberg because of its closeness. BÖTHFÜR, pp. X X - X X I I . Some students attended the agricultural academies at Eldema, Waldau or Hohenheim. O t t o and Hasselblatt estimated that for the Dorpat student body overall, every fifteenth student pursued further study abroad.

191

site of a lively university where Idealism held sway.83 At university noble sons, like their common peers, looked forward to their first freedom from supervision. Though at university the process of Bildung continued, it was expected and almost required that for at least two or three semesters study would take a back seat to the pleasures of freedom in communion with fellow students. Fraternities, which existed earlier but were officially recognized only in 1855, were organized along provincial lines, with literati accommodating themselves to the noble lifestyle.84 Some students strongly experienced the sentimentalism of romantic Germany, which glorified intense friendship of the idealized type preached by Schiller. Otto von Gruenewaldt wrote to his friend Fritz von (Dettingen in 1823 that "all I need for my happiness is only a friend, an inner trusted soul whom I want to press to my heart with all the strength of my feelings." Several weeks later, Fritz had answered his need and Gruenewaldt responded in typical sentimental style, "oh, my old boy, we have found in each other something that is for more than just today and tomorrow. The word friend says much, and not all human beings know it." 85 Such idealized friendships hardly characterized the whole student body. Peer relationships and comradeships were characterized by excessive beer drinking, carousing and card playing, expressions of a masculinity that led nobles and literati sons alike into frequent debt and some to ruin.86 Christoph von Campenhausen admonished his son to avoid "boozing" (zechen) though this advice was ignored by his son, who soon enough afterwards had to ask his father to settle his debts.87 The "ideal of equality" was fostered within each fraternity by all members using 83 As Nicholas would belatedly realize, study at Berlin, which he encouraged for the E m pire's students because of Prussia's order and discipline, did not necessarily produce, at least among Russians, docile young men. Bernhard von Uexküll (1819-1884) studied in Berlin in the 1830's, where he attended Hegel's lectures with I. S. Turgenev and M. Bakunin. He commented that "soon we countrymen came closer together," studied twice weekly and spent nights in heated discussions. Uexküll's reference to "countrymen" is indicative of Baltic German nobles' feelings at the time for the Empire. BERNHARD VON UEXKÜLL,"Erinnerungen an Iwan Turgenev," B M 31 (1884): 1—11. 84 German burgher students from Riga did not join the Livonia fraternity, but formed their own fraternity though it is unclear whether this was by choice or because they were unwelcome in the Livonia. 8 5 HSA, 702, Oeningen, N r . 33, letters of 8 May and 23 May 1823, "Herkunft," pp. 5455. Oettingen and Gruenewaldt studied abroad and their friendship was short-lived, since Oettingen died at age twenty-two. O t t o then tried to transfer his feelings to his bride, to whom he wrote "you should take Oettingen's place from now on. H e was the only being who knew me completely." GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 2: 69. Even forty years later Otto still mourned his friend. Ibid., p. 40. For other examples, see JFOHANNES] KFEUSSERL], "Ein altes livländisches Tagebuch," B M 41 (1894):129—134; cf. E. ANDERS, "AUS den Erinnerungen des Bibliothekars E. Anders 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 4 0 , " in Altlivländiscbe, p. 106. 86 OTTO and HASSELBLATT estimated that probably 3 . 5 % of the 11,500 Dorpat university students (up to 1889) were "failed existences." Von den 14,000, p. 128 87 HI, Baltikum 400/413b, letters of Christoph to Ernst of 24 September and 31 October 1833. Ernst studied law in Germany, where customs were similar except for the division

192

the familiar form of address. 88 A favorite sport was for fraternity members to go out, usually after a drinking bout, and cause public disturbances as they battled the Knoten (artisans) or members of other fraternities, the students distinguished by their caps and fraternity colors. 89 Combativeness against members of another fraternity led to frequent duels, especially in the 1830's and 40's. 9 0 Duels could only be fought with members of fraternities who had equal status, and therefore equal honor. In 1847, the frequency of duels led the fraternities to institute honor courts; these abolished obligatory duelling for those students who objected to the practice in favor of oral explanations. Fencing, a manly exercise of courage and self control, remained obligatory for all fraternity members. Students administered their own affairs as preparation for nobles' later work in their corporations. 91 Academic balls and dances at private homes or clubs rounded out the lives of a young noble's student life, especially during the carefree first semesters. 92 into dueling and nondueling fraternities. German dueling fraternities fostered the ritual duel, the Mensur. Student corps in Germany, esp. Prussia faced competition from the officer corps. Cf. UNGERN-STERNBERG, Erinnerungen, p. 104; GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 2: 205, 265,275-282; ARMSTRONG, p. 70. Debts characterized student behavior throughout the century and in earlier times. See the plaintive letter of a mother to her son in Halle in 1873; he had already incurred earlier debts at Dorpat. HSA, 702, Pilar von Pilchau, Nr. 44, letter of 28 October 1873. 88 UNGERN-STERNBERG, Erinnerungen, p. 94. Ungern-Sternberg attended Dorpat in the early 1850's. He provides details of student life, organization and rituals. The fraternity Baltica was founded in 1850 by Kurland nobles (and was joined by some Liv- and Estland nobles) because of the Kurlanders "noble pride" and dislike of the principle of equality. Ibid.; LENZ, Literaten, pp. 24-25. 89 WlNCKLER, p. 85. Winckler mentioned that this "combativeness" toward artisans could occur for no better reason than "the artisans' arrogance in dressing themselves in the same manner as was customary among students." Official permission to wear colors publicly was only granted in 1862. 90

UNGERN-STERNBERG, Erinnerungen,

pp. 9 4 - 1 0 7 ; ANDERS, " A u s den Erinnerungen," p. 171.

WlTTROCK, Vom Burschenknecht, pp. 42-70; the movement against dueling began in 1843 with the foundation of the "Association of Theologians." Ibid., p. 63. WITTRAM, "Die 91

U n i v e r s i t ä t , " , p p . 2 1 5 - 2 1 6 , TOBIEN, Ritterschaft,

1 : 3 3 1 - 3 3 6 , WlNCKLER, pp. 8 5 - 8 6 , ARM-

STRONG, p. 70. Armstrong especially stressed the "mechanisms" of dueling, drinking, and the principle of honor (also noted by Wittram) in the accommodation of literati values to noble life styles. For many literati this period remained the highlight of their lives. In the second half of the nineteenth century fraternity membership became an obsession for literati, and involved the whole family. For an overview of publications on Dorpat University b e t w e e n 1 8 7 0 - 1 9 1 8 , see GARLEFF, pp. 2 6 1 - 2 6 3 .

92 Julius Eckardt senior noted that dancing was then regarded "as an art and a passion." In the 1830's the mazurka was the favorite, replaced by the polka in the 1840's. Minuets, polonaises, anglaises, and quadrilles were also popular dances. " Altrigasche Jugenderinnerungen" Altlivländische, p. 178. Most towns had private clubs that held regular dances to which one could subscribe. For example, the Harmonie in Wenden held twenty dances and four masquerades for the price of 12 Alb. Thl. in 1809. The price also included access to a reading room with newspapers from abroad. HI, Baltikum 400/370. Baron Drachenfels fondly remembered the dances at private homes as modest affairs with little ado made over food. "Jugenderinnerungen," Altlivländische, p. 23; cf. ERNST KLWULL, "AUS dem gesellschaftlichen Leben einer livländischen Kleinstadt um 1800," BM 59 (1928):431—437.

193

University studies claimed more attention in the second year because a first set of exams took place at the end of the fourth semester, followed by another exam between the eight and tenth semester. For the first two decades of Dorpat's existence, exams were not obligatory and were usually taken only by medical students. A student who completed "excellent" written and oral exams qualified for a degree of "Candidate," which required a thesis. A less stellar performance earned one the title "graduated student."93 The fraternity registers provide some information about the degrees granted to corporate nobles; the figures indicate that more than half of the students did not pursue their studies very seriously. Of 131 Livonia students between 1820-1860, twelve finished as graduated students and twelve achieved a candidate's degree, six received a medical degree, and thirteen finished with a doctoral degree (seven in medicine, and taken mainly abroad). Only forty-three students (33 %) completed their studies at Dorpat or elsewhere. Of eighty-five nobles of the Estonia, a slightly higher number, thirty-seven (44 %), finished with a degree (seven as graduated students, twentytwo as candidates, two with medical degrees, and five with doctorates in medicine and one with a doctorate in philosophy). Among 102 Curonia students only twenty-five (25 % ) finished with a degree (thirteen as candidates, five as graduated students, two with doctoral degrees).94 Many noble students left university without degrees after two or three years of attendance. These figures support the criticism, common at the time, that the nobility neither embraced university education in sufficient numbers nor pursued their studies at university with proper diligence and attention.95 An anonymous au93 GRUENEWALDT, Lebenserinnerungen, p. 87. ECKARDT, "Altrigasche," Altlivländische, p. 173. The Russian candidate degree was the rough equivalent of an American Ph. D. or the German doctoral degree. The Russian doctoral degree was awarded only later in a professor's career upon completion of substantial scholarly work. 94 All fraternity figures in this section are based on Alb. Cur., Alb. Est., Alb. Liv. OTTO and HASSELBLATT estimated that of 12,000 Dorpat students (to 1889), 1700, that is 14 %, or every seventh student, did not finish his studies. Many of them, mainly of literati origin, none the less entered careers as teachers (458, often in the Empire), or civil servants (564); others were simply listed as "private persons." Von den 14,000, pp. 128-129. 95 See "Reminiszenzen," in Altlivländische, pp. 273, 306 and passim; cf. "Aus einem livländischen Erinnerungsbuche," BM 68 (1908):84-123; "Die Generation vor uns," BM 34 (1888):375-390. Works by contemporaries like Petersen, Hehn, Hupel, the travelers Rigby, Kohl and Buddeus stereotype the locals as proper Landjunkers uninterested in the wider world; this led to the characterization of the period as one of "tranquillity." The Baltic German world was ingrown, as the local press did not report on events outside the provinces; educated nobles usually subscribed to the "Augsburger Zeitung" to keep up with world events. Intellectually and culturally there was some activity among the literati, who founded societies for literature and arts, history, and antiquity in the period between 1815 and 1832, societies that promoted especially the study of Estonian and Latvian languages and folklore (Kurländische Gesellschaft für Literatur und Kunst, 1815; Lettisch-literärische Gesellschaft, 1824; Gelehrte Estnische Gesellschaft, Dorpat, 1838; Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Altertumskunde der Ostseeprovinzen Russlands, Riga, 1834; Estländische Literarische Gesellschaft, Reval, 1842; Naturforscherverein, Riga 1844).

194

thor (Dorpat Professor Eduard Osenbriiggen, as society soon discovered), took up this issue, particularly in regard to legal studies, in a short article in Das Inland in 1848. He sharply criticized the insufficient number of noble law students as damaging the proper functioning of justice and administration in the provinces. The author calculated that in Livland alone, of fifty-one positions related to the legal field that the corporate nobility filled through elections, fortythree could only be held by corporate nobles and eight by candidates of other estates only if no corporate nobles were available; furthermore "sixty-eight positions existed for which juridical education was desirable," and of these forty were to be held solely by corporate nobles, while twenty-eight could be offered to non-noble candidates. Osenbriiggen outlined a similar situation in the other provinces. At Dorpat's law faculty, in contrast, out of thirty-nine Livland law students in 1841, only five belonged to the corporate nobility, of eighteen Estland law students, only four, and of twenty Kurlanders, twelve. Osenbriiggen's criticism expressed not only literati irritation over noble monopoly of leading positions and dissatisfaction with unqualified nobles filling judicial and administrative posts, but also the general complaint that the nobility avoided university study. Law may have held the number one position among noble youth who did study, but a complaint raised again in 1861 showed that numbers continued to fall far short of the positions to be filled.96 Indeed, for many young nobles life at university was a carefree time frittered away in an atmosphere of frivolity. This was in sharp contrast to their literati comrades, who had to settle down after the first year or so to ensure their future livelihood. Wilhelm von Samson-Himmelstjerna wrote to his studious son at Dorpat in 1836 that "diligence and perseverance, which I know for certain you do not lack, are extraordinarily rare here..."97 Anna von Gruenewaldt tried to enlist her older sons' help in changing "the mind and action" of her youngest son Alexander, a law student at Göttingen whose course of study was "just pro forma." She criticized his "indolence, noble haughtiness," and his inclination toward "comfort." 98 Her complaint was not uncommon among parents who saw their sons indulging themselves at considerable expense to their families. 96 Das Inland, N o . 41, 11 October 1848. See OsENBRUGGEN's negative characterization of the nobility in his Nordische Bilder (Leipzig, 1853), pp. 119-135: Osenbriiggen held a professorial post from 1843 to 1851. The jurist and publicist THEODOR BöTTICHER addressed the same problem in volume three of Die Baltische Monatsschrift in April 1861 ( " D e r Domainenverkauf in den Ostseeprovinzen und das Güterbesitzrecht," B M 3 (1861):334-^t25), where he listed 200 of the most important positions for which legal training was desirable and which were reserved for the corporate nobility. N o n e the less, in the period between 1840-1860 only forty-five corporate nobles studied law at Dorpat and only twenty finished with a degree. Bötticher also blamed the Kurland nobility for avoiding Dorpat, the only university that offered a course of study in Baltic German law. See also "Reminiszenzen," in Altlivlandische, p. 316. 9 7 HI, Baltikum 400/685, letter of 8 October 1836. 98

GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne,

2:265.

195

Such negligent attitudes were of course not unusual among noble scions elsewhere, but in the provinces a noble youth was especially spoilt by the easy and comfortable life of masterdom, with little stress from any form of outside competition until later in the century." Most knew that their future position in life was assured, that landed property awaited them and, if not, that they could lease an estate with their parents' help. As a final cushion of security there were plentiful elective positions restricted to the corporate nobility or for which they were accorded preference. Thus noble youths' ostensible training toward independence and achievement often failed on the latter count. It is notable that those among them who had few future expectations applied themselves more assiduously to their studies than their fellows. One such was Ferdinand von Samson-Himmelstjerna, whose father held him up as an example to other nobles, writing "I hope that you will be a model for our young noble youth, who as a rule waste all their time on their dear country inn and the card table." 100 Samson's bete noir was the Baltic German Landjunker, whose life consisted of hunting, card playing, manor affairs, family, and socializing, with little interest in intellectual pursuits. This lack of seriousness of purpose carried into adulthood and was criticized by nobles like Ivan von Gruenewaldt. In 1821 Ivan wrote to his brother Otto, a serious student who intended to combine his interests in farming and natural science: I consider that over and beyond this interest, it is also the duty of our local nobles to be active ... in public service for their fatherland. We lack as a rule competent hands and heads. Many who are intelligent try to avoid such activity ... I wish that it would become a matter of honor.101

The Gruenewaldt family always held high expectations of service for their sons; this was not always true of their peers. Service duty as a matter of honor was part of the self-image of the nobility and had evolved under the enlightenment emphasis on merit. Yet it required the unsettling political and economic events

99 The Baltic German poet, humorist, and satirist Karl Petersen (1775-1823), nicknamed the "fat one," who was highly popular in the first decades of the century, characterized life in the provinces in his "Epistle to B.," here cited in German: "Seit ich wiederum frier' in Norden, / Ist manches an mir 'pur Fett' geworden, 'Bin doch ein Livländer comme il faut, 'Ein rechter Kuemmeltuerk und badaud. / Hab' ich im Säckel auch keinen Gulden, 'Mach ich fuer tausend Thaler Schulden.' / Was schiert mich Hume, Rousseau und Kant? / Hab ich nur einen Topf mit Schmand, / Und sitz' an meinem lieben Theetisch, / So ist der Theekessel mein Fetisch! / Kann ich bei einem guten Schinken, / Mein Gläschen Doppulkümmel trinken, / So ist das schönste Gedicht von Petrark / In meinen Augen - nur dummer Quark!" Petersen satirizes the period of Baltic Biedermeier and tranquility, also reflected in Bienemann's two volumes of reminiscences of this period. On Petersen, see VICTOR HEHN, "Karl Petersen," in Β Μ 2 (1860):383-408. 100 HI, Baltikum 400/685, letter of 5 December 1837. 101 GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne 1:65.

196

of the 1840's and later decades to stimulate more serious dedication to this duty. Even then, the expressed devotion to service duty was often self-interest dressed in the clothing of honor as a convenient cover. T o a segment of Baltic German noble youth, university study was but an episode, though a pleasant one. Those who could afford it, and this was a minority, finished off their education with a tour abroad, a fashion that became customary in the eighteenth century, when John Locke's portrait of the education of a gentleman became influential on the continent as well as Britain. For the Baltic Germans a "small" tour included only Germany; a "grand tour" encompassed Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, and even England. 102 Theophil von Campenhausen's mother supported her son's journey abroad on the grounds that "such a trip can contribute much to his education." 103 Travel and study abroad held inordinate significance in the insular and provincial Baltic German noble society. T h e Livonia fraternity register provides some information on such travel. Twenty-six Livonia students listed their trips from 1820-1860 (Estonia, in contrast lists only four), of whom only two traveled beyond Germany. Travel and study abroad was occasionally restricted by the Imperial Government, for example after the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 and after the Polish rebellion in 1831. 1 0 4 And though the tour of Europe was supposed to broaden a young noble's education and gave him a veneer of European culture, one suspects that many a horizon was promptly narrowed as the comforts of home took over. We have dealt only with the more fortunate or able segment of Baltic German noble youth. About others we have little information. Many youths went off to military service between ages fifteen and seventeen; there they experienced a life of order and discipline punctuated with the usual youthful pleasures of drinking and gambling. Reinhold Stael von Holstein, for example, lost 800 paper rubles in one game of cards, this being more than half his annual salary; when he wrote for money, he had already received regular supplements from his father. Ludwig von Uexküll-Güldenband's and Carl von Lieven's letters to their young military sons are replete with concern over their careless financial behavior. Uexküll rebuked his son Georg because he "did not understand the value of money." 1 0 5 Friedrich von

102 See GRUENEWALDT, Vier Söhne, 1:47; Aus kurländischen Reisebüchern. Ed. OTTO CLEMEN (Berlin-Steglitz, 1918); "Erinnerungen an die 50er und 60er Jahre in Livland," in Aus vergangenen Tagen, p. 224. 103 HI, Baltikum 400/419, letter undated. 104 In 1831, for example, W. von Samson-Himmelstjerna informed his son "that all youth abroad under age eighteen were recalled" and he added "obedience is our first duty." HI, Baltikum 400/685, letter of 21 May; see the comments on the negative effects on cultural and intellectual life in the provinces since the mid-thirties in "Aus einem livländischen Erinnerungsbuche," B M 68 (1909):84-123.

197

Seydlitz, who until fourteen attended the Cathedral School and then entered the military engineering school in St. Petersburg, commented that "order and discipline were produced by the masculine and military educational method" and claimed that "militarily implanted order" became his "second nature."' 06 But though many of Estland's youths underwent this training and remained in lifelong service, others spent but a few years in the military and then returned home to settle down to a life of farming or leaseholding and eventually marriage.

Marriage The earliest allowed marriage age for males was set by the Lutheran church at age eighteen. In the period from 1800-1849, the average marriage age of 169 young men was 29.5, a rise from the eighteenth century (1700-1749, age 26.2, 1750-1799 age 28.4). The change reflected not only hard economic times, but also higher expectations of comfort. Based on our data collection eighty-eight percent (as opposed to fifty-one percent in the period from 1700-1750 and seventy-four percent from 1750-1799) married after age twenty-five, and fortynine percent (as opposed to twenty-four percent and thirty-six percent in the first and second part of the previous century) married after age thirty. 107 Table 8: Marriage Age of Men (first marriage)* Date of Marriage

Total Average Marria- Age of ges Marriage

to 21

%

21-24

%

25-29

%

30-34

%

35-39

%

17001749

4

11

14

38

10

27

6

16

3

8

37

26,2

17501799

8

5

32

21

57

38

26

17

29

19

152

28,4

18001849

57

34

50

30

32

19

169

29,5

6

4

24

14

18501899

0

0

22

11

88

45

56

29

28

14

194

29,4

Totals

18

3

92

17

212

38

138

25

92

17

552

28,4

^Source: GH Estl., GH Kurl., GH Livl., GH

Oesel.

105 In order of citation, L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta N r . 14, Lietas N r . 633, p. 9; E A A , fond 854, nimistu 7, järjek. 178, letter of 20 April 1802. A year later Uexküll was upset "that you [Georg] are already again in financial straits." 25 March 1803. A b o u t Friedrich, another military son, Uexküll, a very devoted and loving father, wrote that financially "he had done more for him than any of his other children and got nothing but ingratitude." Ibid., see also letters of 28 December 1804, 7/8 March 1808. H S A , 701, Stael von Holstein, N r . 82, p. 10; ibid., 701, Lieven, VI., 3, N r . 21. 106 H S A , Estländische 702, N r . 106a. 107 Life expectancy of males at this time was an average of 61.7 years (61.3 in 1700-1749, 63.2 in 1750-1799). Figures based on genealogical registers of the corporations.

198

Men showed a preference for younger women. Of seventy men who married between 1800 and 1849, fifty-one (73 %) were at least six years older than their wives, twenty-four of the seventy (34%) were more than eleven years older. Men rarely married women of the same age (of 248 marriages in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were only nine such cases); what is perhaps surprising is that a larger number married older women - thirteen of 248. As we noted elsewhere, quite a few young men never married. Males enjoyed opportunities outside the home, an option denied to their noble sisters in the same period. Noble girls were cared for at home by women from infancy to marriage. This resulted in a much less individuated sense of selfhood among girls. A girl identified with her mother and other female figures, gradually learning not only particular "role behaviors" like nurturing, but also personally identifying with her mother's "general traits of character and values." 108 The value system underlying the ideology of the sexes with its endless demand for feminine virtues left little room for individuality. A fifteen-year old noble girl wrote in a tortured letter of the 1820's how she prayed to G o d that "he would drive out the devil of haughtiness from me, because he leaves no room for humility and Christian love in the heart." In 1825, the eighteen-year old Lilly von Stackelberg, recently married and already dying from childbirth, requested that her baby daughter "be preserved from the snake of vanity because it... poisons virtue." 109 A girl was overall more dependent and interconnected in her relationships with other female figures, especially her mother, often leaving her sense of selfhood underdeveloped. This showed itself most distinctly upon marriage, which demanded a break of dependency on the mother and official entry into society. Anticipating this difficulty, Ernst von Campenhausen wrote in 1841 to his bride Marie von Smitten, that "we do not want to complicate your farewell from your mother in any way." Elizabeth Rigby noted that at noble social affairs "young matrons" have "no self-confidence" in their "own powers and resources." 110 A young noble girl's educational program was molded by the ideology of the characterization of the sexes that was to foster her "nature" and fit her for her destiny as wife and mother. In Baltic German noble society, this education had to be complemented with her education to ladyhood (Salondame), requiring knowledge of French, the piano, and embroidery, the acquisition of social graces and manners to enhance femininity, and cultural refinement of tastes in

108 109 110

CHODOROW, p. 51; cf. ZLNNECKER, p p . 6 3 - 7 5 . H I , B a l t i k u m 400/683, p. 2. H I , B a l t i k u m 400/643, letter of 18 September 1842; RIGBY, 1:237.

199

literary and aesthetic achievements. 111 This education was supposed to be pursued at home under the guidance of mothers. Carl von Lieven wrote to his oldest son upon the death of his second wife that " I have the pain of seeing your sister again without a guide...." 1 1 2 In practice, governesses of literati and burgher origin from the provinces or from Germany and French Switzerland were in charge of young girls' instruction. Quality varied widely. Educational requirements for girls were raised for all segments of Baltic German society in the first decades of the nineteenth century, partly in reaction to higher expectations for boys and partly as result of burgher aspirations for higher status and social mobility for their daughters. Noble girls, however, were in general excluded from attending the new schools. In the first part of the century these schools were expanded to upper schools and subsidized by parental fees and municipalities. 113 111 The latter part of the eighteenth century produced quite a few tracts on women's education, aside from JOACHIM HEINRICH CAMPE'S Väterlicher Rath für meine Tochter

(Braunschweig, 1789), see JOHANN DANIEL HENSEL, System der weiblichen

Erziehung,

be-

sonders für den mittleren und höheren Stand; ein Versuch, 2 parts (Halle, 1787-1788); CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED KLOSE, Handbuch für junge Frauenzimmer vom Stande hei ihrem Eintritt in die Welt (Breslau, 1787); CHARLOTTE LUTHER, Briefe über die Erziehung junger Töchter aus den gebildeten Ständen (Rostock and Leipzig, 1809). In the first decades of the nineteenth century there was a debate in the provinces centered on the education of women as future housewives and mothers or as ladies, a controversy that arose in connection with the developing schools for daughters of burgher parents. Some parents demanded emphasis on household skills, with minimal learned knowledge, whereas others preferred a stress on the humanities and arts. See KLEE, and Das Inland, no. 47, 20 November 1840. At the opening of the girls school in Dorpat, G. F. Parrot, rector of Dorpat university, said in his speech that the school should "educate girls to gentleness, charity, and tolerance, but also develop their reason for correct thinking and discerning judgment, and also promote their skill in needlework." Cited by GEORG VON RAUCH who edited MARIE STEINWAND, Meine Schulerinnerungen aus Dorpat (Hamburg, 1968), p. 101. 112 HSA, 701, VI, No. 21, letter of 20 November 1821. The absence of motherly guidance was one of the reasons that prompted widowers to remarry. For example, in the period 1800-1849 thirty-one widowers of fifty-one (61 %) remarried, on average 3.8 years after their wives' death. Remarriage was higher and quicker for men under fifty. For a complete breakdown for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Tables 5 and 6. 113 The state did not support female education. Many private day and boarding schools for girls were also founded in this period. Das Inland regularly announced ministerial permissions for the creation of such schools. See, for example, no. 22, 1 June 1838. By 1825 twenty official Töchterschulen existed in the provinces, a school system expanded to six classes in the early 1850's. This capped a girl's education with an optional certificate of graduation qualifying her to teach or become a governess. The pedagogical supplements of Das Inland for 1850 reported that thirty-two teaching diplomas were granted to seventeen daughters of civil servants and literati, fourteen to burgher and merchant daughters, and one to a daughter of the nobility. Poor noble girls took up this profession after attendance of public schools and so did some literati daughters, though these also were mostly educated at home. Vierte pädagogische Beilage 1850 (Dorpat, 1850), p. 52. Russian and Prussian girl's education paralleled Baltic German developments. In Prussia, for example, twenty upper schools existed for girls in 1820, raised to thirty-four by 1840, and to 103 by 1860. GEORGE BERNSTEIN, and LOTTELORE BERNSTEIN, "The Curriculum for German Girl's Schools, 200

A young girl's curriculum included religion, reading, writing, arithmetic, German, French, geography, history, nature study, drawing, music, and needlework. When the Kurland Countess von Rautenberg looked for a governess for her four daughters (the youngest was eleven), she stressed music, French "not just instruction in grammar, but also speaking," and the "usual school knowledge." The governess was expected not "just to be a teacher in the needed sciences (Wissenschaften) and arts", but was supposed "to exert a beneficial influence on their inner education (Bildung),"114 When the Countess E. Stackelberg, born a Manteuffel, established a foundation in 1826 for the education of poor noble daughters of her own families and others of Estland and Livland, she specified that they should be provided with a suitable feminine education and cultivation of the required subjects, to w h i c h belong, aside f r o m the c o r r e c t oral and written use of the m o t h e r t o n g u e and c o m m o n school knowledge, especially F r e n c h and Russian and music. These should be emphasized until completion of age seventeen. W i t h the exception of the last year, w h i c h is dedicated to a higher cultivation o f m o d e r n languages, music, and needlework, the education must take place preferentially in the countryside, either at a boarding school o r in a private h o m e . . . " 5

The inclusion of Russian was unusual for noble girls (though it was taught at public girls' schools), as was her acknowledgement of private boarding schools for noble girls, because she realized that many of these poor girls were destined to a life of work as teachers and governesses.116 Religion and music held a prominent place because they were supposed to develop a woman's emotionality, appropriate to her nature; classical languages and math were considered too demanding of a woman's limited facilities of logic and reasoning. A girl spent much time with her governess, who was also expected to instruct her in the social graces, especially after puberty, the ages twelve or thirteen when a girl entered the so-called Backfisch period, the teenager of today. At this time she also changed her childhood dress to so-called "high dresses" more similar to her mother's, though without the ubiquitous cap that was a sign of matronhood. Girls were generally instructed together with

1 8 7 0 - 1 9 1 4 , " Paedagogica Historien X V I I I ( G e n t , 1 9 7 8 ) : 2 7 9 . T h e history o f girl's education in F[RANZ] WALDMANN, "Schulgeschichte Fellins "Jahresbericht der Felliner litterarischen Gesellschaft für das Jahr 1888 (Fellin, 1889):35—37 is representative of the development of female education. See also, A . SCHÖNFELDT, "Geistiges L e b e n der D e u t s c h e n , " Handwörterbuch des Grenz- und Auslandsdeutschtums, ed. CARL PETERSEN et al. (Breslau, 1 9 3 3 - 1 9 3 8 ) , 2 : 2 1 1 - 2 1 4 ; and " D a s Schulwesen in den russischen O s t s e e p r o v i n z e n , " in Encyklopädie des gesammten Erziehungsund Unterrichtswesens, ed. Κ . A . SCHMIDT, vol. 7, part I (Leipzig, 1886):715-754. 114 115

SEESEMANN, Dorothea, letter of 9 M a r c h 1 8 2 6 , p. 2 9 3 . Archiv der Familie Stackelberg, e d . AXEL VON GERNET, 2 v o l s . (SPb., 1 8 9 8 - 1 9 0 0 ) ,

2:221. 116

Ibid., p. 222; see the girl's curriculum of the Fellin system in WALDMANN, pp. 37,42.

201

their sisters, with whom they spent much time and developed close relationships, for outside peer opportunities were shut off to them. Lila Zoege von Manteuffel wrote about her sister that "she thinks like me and I like her and she is my best girl friend, the only one whom I have on earth and the only one whom I want to define as such." Sophie von PI essen, born a Campenhausen, on hearing about the death of her sister Dorothea, confided to her brother Hermann that "she was the first and only girl friend of my childhood." 117 Mothers also encouraged friendships with returning brothers. Dorothea von UngernSternberg felt that "intercourse with an older brother [of eighteen] has in these years of half-maturity a special value" for her daughter.118 Association with brothers, who sometimes brought along welcome friends, and otherwise with male cousins, with neighborhood noble or clergy sons, and with male tutors were the only contacts daughters enjoyed with the other sex. A girl's father remained removed from involvement in her affairs. Along with their brothers, girls learned dancing and participated in picnics, theater productions, and other games. None the less, a girl's contact with the outside world remained highly restricted, and though she might be taken along on trips or stays in town, she could rarely form peer relationships or pursue a higher education outside the home as did her brothers. This limitation was felt by at least some girls, as we can tell from the newly wed Alexandra von Gruenewaldt's letter to her brother-in-law, a student of natural sciences. She praised him for his accomplishments, adding that "I was often so sad not to be a young man in order to begin and complete with enormous strength a difficult piece of work." 119 A girl's cultural refinement depended not only on the governess, but also on her mother's cultural and intellectual interests. These varied from household to household. The improved education of a segment of Baltic German noblewomen since the latter eighteenth century and the expansion and growth in the importance of education for women in the first decades of the nineteenth benefitted growing daughters.120 Though women had significant duties of management of home, family, and the manor economy, quite a few of them enjoyed 117 KÜGELGEN, Ein Lebensbild, letter of 26 June 1800, p. 61; HI, Baltikum 400/380, letter of 5 July 1831. 118 SEESEMANN, Dorothea, letter of 8 September 1825, p. 282. 119 GRUENEWALDT, VierSöhne, 1:63; SALLY VON KÜGELGEN of the non-corporate nobility (though her mother was a Zoege von Manteuffel) suffered great distress because she could not pursue an artistic career, a talent of the family. Sally loved the freedom of men, noting, for example, how she rode a horse for the first time "and I roamed through the woods as free as a man." Stilles Tagebuch, p. 76. 120 In the 1840's Alexander von Keyserling was still satisfied with his wife's education, noting to his parents that "she is good in languages, though weak in German [she was Russian], her written language is French and she knows English." She also "draws and paints and plays the harp, but is weak on the piano." He himself provided his two daughters with a much superior education. KEYSERLING, 1:224.

202

enough leisure time, given the large number of servants and assistants, that they could devote themselves to wide reading, often surpassing their husbands. Sophie von Hahn noted in a letter to her girl friend in 1848 that: Humboldt's letters interest us greatly,... they contain much on the life of the soul of this excellent man. I also greatly enjoy the correspondence of Goethe with Schiller, and Schiller with Körner. And it is useful and interesting to see what noble pleasure these high spirits had in each other. 121

A girl's cultivation was enriched by sharing her mother's interests. If able, a mother taught her daughter the piano, an essential prerequisite of a lady's education, as was white needlework and sewing. All these skills gained in importance as a girl approached confirmation sometime around age sixteen or seventeen, when her official education concluded and she entered young womanhood, the age of hope, when marriage loomed on the horizon.

C o n f i r m a t i o n and Y o u n g W o m a n h o o d Confirmation was a more crucial event in a young girl's life than that of young men, and had little to do with saving one's soul. It was then that a girl entered young womanhood. This stage was marked by an increased emphasis on domestic skills as she completed her formal education and prepared for marriage. Most crucially, her mother now became the dominant figure in a girl's life. As Christoph von Campenhausen wrote to his brother, his daughter "will accompany us on our trip. At her age she cannot be separated from her mother."122 A mother's self-esteem and regard in society depended on the successful presentation of an accomplished daughter to society. Until this period, a girl was mostly under the supervision of governesses, though a mother was always conscious of her role as a model of behavior to her daughter. One noblewoman noted that "I have taken my work life up again with strict division of time, and do not darn a piece of clothing and knit without awareness of being a silent model to my growing daughter."123 For a young woman this new phase in her life 121

H A H N , In

Gutshäusern,

p . 3 4 6 ; cf. SEESEMANN, Dorothea,

p a s s i m ; SEESEMANN,

"Theologische," pp. 577-587. The availability of reading materials improved after 1800 when most homes contained few books. By the 1830's and 40's, book sellers in the provinces had made an impact and books circulated through reading circles. French literature came through St. Petersburg, German (and later Russian) from Germany, esp. Leipzig. Of course, only a segment of educated nobles enjoyed the interests of a Sophie von Hahn. 122 HI, Baltikum 400/406, letter of 12 April 1824. Eugenie Pilar von Pilchau noted in her reminiscences that she was not yet conscious at age sixteen that a "great change had entered my life, as I noticed that I became on my own closer to my mother..." HSA, 702, Nr. 42. "Aufzeichnungen," p. 48. 123 HI, Baltikum 400/675, diary entry of 14 February 1883. 203

meant more freedom as she participated in social events at the same time as the restricting force of convention pushed her to conform to adult norms and standards. As her mother moved closer to her, tensions could arise, especially with a strong willed daughter, since a mother thought she could not afford to be as indulgent to her daughters as to her visiting sons, who were only seldom at home.124 Young women were kept busy with what Clementine von Wolff described as boring needlework, practice on the piano, and singing, as Charlotte von Knorring did daily, and were introduced to the management of a manor household, though without the inclusion of physical labor. Dorothea von Keyserling reported that "the domestic economy and its cares have been assigned to me." Other special tasks were the responsibility to supervise the "tea table," involvement in her mother's manor charity projects, and assistance in the education of younger siblings. Many girls also continued their reading and practiced foreign languages and dancing. Social graces and manners were strictly observed.125 At this time a mother's greatest ambition and most important task was the preparation of her daughter's outfits and then her presentation at balls, dances, and other festivities. If she was unable to do so herself, a mother selected a substitute, an older married daughter, a female relative, or friend. The ailing Dorothea von Ungern-Sternberg turned on her stepdaughter's behalf to a family friend who promised "to invest all my ambition to present my entrusted foster daughter as advantageously as possible." Sophie Auguste von Smitten informed a friend that she turned to her oldest daughter to "introduce her younger sister to society ... in their beautiful dresses and little caps, they are childishly looking forward to it." 126 A daughter's presentation involved considerable expense for parents in clothing, accommodations in town, and such displays of status as the proper carriage. As one mother commented, "participation in parties in Riga is a very expensive business."127 A girl's age of hope was at its highest in the years between sixteen and twenty. As a popular take off on Lutheran chorals expressed it at the time, a girl's earthly career in this stage of her life was characterized by a first phase between 124 This tension is characteristic of many a mother-daughter relationship. The most detailed case of such a relationship can be found in the diaries of Emmy Campenhausen of the 1880's, who hoped that the "Pains and drops of blood which cost me the education of my daughter ... would give us both a place in the ladder to heaven, which is very hard to climb." HI, Baltikum 400/675, entry of 7 September 1889. 125 In order of citation, HI, Baltikum 400/405, letter of 10 January 1806; ibid., Nr. 929, letter of 27 September 1817; ibid., Nr. 331, letter of 22 January 1807; HSA, Transehe'sche, Nr. 484, Memoiren, p. 37. 126 SEESEMANN, Dorothea, letter of 13 January 1827, p. 320; HI, Baltikum/651, letter of October 1842. 127 HI, Baltikum 400/652, Marie von Campenhausen to sister Minna von Smitten, letter of 2 February 1843.

204

ages sixteen to twenty of " F r o m heaven up high I come," afterwards to age twenty-nine "Dearly beloved Jesus I am here," to be replaced at age thirty with " O f deepest need I cry to you," and finally at age forty with " N o w all the woods are quiet." 128 Nonetheless, the median age of marriage for 291 girls in the period from 1800-1849 was 23.4, a rise of one year over the previous century. Of these girls, 136 (47%) were married by age twenty-one, a lower percentage than in the previous century (over 1700-1749 sixty-four percent, over 1750-1799 fifty-six percent). Seventy percent of our sample were married by age twenty-four; those above this age, especially those in their thirties, often married widowers. Many girls, then, spent long years after confirmation as house daughters. As we noted elsewhere, of 310 girls, only 193 (62 % ) married. Unmarried daughters spent their lives in service to aging parents, as family aunts, or made themselves useful taking on young noble boarders in town.

Sex For daughters, the state of young womanhood was a period of anxiety and trepidation as well as joy. One aspect of anxiety, aside from finding a partner, was sex. 129 Mothers did not talk about any aspect of sexual development with their daughters, and in all the sources examined there is only one example of a mother who later in the century explained to her then twelve-year old daughter the facts of menstruation. 130 Professor of Theology Alexander von Oettingen was rebuked by one mother in the 1870's for explaining to her unenlightened daughters during religious instruction the meaning of the term pregnant, which he had used in relationship to the virgin Mary. 131 A mother's childbirth was exSee, for example, K ü G E L G E N , Stilles Tagebuch, p. 161; GRUENEWALDT, Lebenserpp. 2 9 2 - 2 9 3 . Many a father agonized as did F . von Berg, whose two daughters were unmarried and undowered, since he lacked any financial means. In 1829 he wrote to his friend that "the situation of my two ... daughters ... makes thought of death difficult and bitter so long as I do not know that they are secured." In 1841, a year before his death and after fifty years of state service without the promised reward of a pension for his daughters, he was still worried about their fate and begged his friend to care for his daughers in a "fatherly and brotherly way." EAA, fond 854, nimistu 7, järjek. 6, letters of 15 August 1829 and 10 September 1841. 129 CAMPE'S popular work on daughters' education, Väterlicher Rath ( 1 7 8 9 ) contained a chapter dealing with sexual matters, including masturbation. In Germany, at least, this chapter was censored for daughters throughout the nineteenth century. See BEUYS, Familienleben, pp. 354-356. 130 Emmy von Campenhausen regularly noted her own menstruations as "unseen days" and called them "back days" since she rested and used this time for relaxation from her duties. On 5 January 1888 she wrote in her diary that "I have my back days and lie in bed ... I have informed our daughter of the secret of my back days, the wise order of nature ... so that she does not hear about it in an unsuitable way...." HI, Baltikum 400/675. 131 HI, Baltikum 400/588, p. 5. The daughters were Mary and Alice von Wulf. 128

innerungen,

205

plained to the children as sickness. Daughters were aware of the high mortality rate of both mothers and children in their own and other families where, when older, they were sometimes sent to help out after the lying-in or death of a mother. Dorothea von Ungern-Sternberg, herself soon to be a victim of death in childbirth, wrote to her sister-in-law in 1826 that "this is a bad year for the poor women lying in. As a rule almost all mothers and children have had to pay with their lives, or at least have been made to suffer." 132 Table 9: Composite: Life Expectancy of Married Women (born between the years indicated) Age Reached 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90-99 Total: 566 Life Average

1700-1749

1750-1799

No.

%

No.

6 13 5 14 10 15 10

8.2 17.8 6.9 19.1 13.7 20.6 13.7

22 18 16 31 35 35 18 3

100.0

57.5

73 57.3

% 12.4 10.1 8.9 17.4 19.67 19.67 10.1 1.7

1800-1849 No.

%

No.

%

22 27 11 25 46 63 40 7

9.1 11.2 4.6 10.4 19.1 26.1 16.6 2.9

10 9 12 15 12 10 6

13.5 12.2 16.2 20.3 16.2 13.5 8.1

100.0

53.1

241

178 100.0

1850-1899

62.3

74 100.0

Table 10: Composite: Life Expectancy of Married Men (born between the years indicated) Age Reached

1700-1749 No.

1750-1799 No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

9,3 11.6 15.1 33.7 25.6 4.7

3 9 10 38 36 41 15 2

1.9 5.8 6.5 24.7 23.5 26.6 9.7 1.3

2 14 23 36 57 41 19

10 7.3 12.0 18.8 29.7 21.3 9.9

3 6 8 13 14 7 4

5.5 10.9 14.5 23.6 25.4 12.8 7.3

8 10 13 29 22 4

Total: 566

86

154

61.3

63.2

132

206

1850-1899

%

20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90-99 Life Average

1800-1849

192 100

61,7

SEESEMANN, Dorothea, letter of 29 March 1826, p. 320.

55 109

56.5

100

O u r data collection of life expectancy shows that twenty percent of women died by age thirty-nine in the period from 1800 to 1849 (this rose to twenty-six percent in the second half of the century). 1 3 3 Marriage, then, was an act of courage, as much because of fear of the unknown and fear of death as because of separation from parents. The newly wed and expecting Marie von Campenhausen wrote to her mother, " h o w I fear this m o m e n t ! " A n expecting mother often arranged her affairs before childbirth, assigning daughters in particular to the care of her female relatives in case of death. 1 3 4 As children and young women, daughters were aware of their mothers' dispositions, and if death did not occur in their own family, there were many examples among relatives and acquaintances. O n c e a young woman took the step into marriage, her youth was forever behind her and new responsibilities took over. F o r males, youth spent outside the home prepared them for independent adulthood and the creation of their own households. F o r girls, socialization at home prepared them from childhood through womanhood for a life of dependence. The processes we have just analyzed bolstered a family status and sense of identity that were further safeguarded by legal, economic, and social institutions to ensure that familial interest remained dominant. The family thus served as pillar and support to the interests of the corporation. T o all appearances the status of the Baltic German nobility had been strengthened beyond anything they had enjoyed previously. As in earlier years, they controlled the organs of administration and justice, the schools and the church. German was the language of business. These privileges had been granted and re-confirmed since the 133 Given the fact that only sixty-two percent of women married, these figures are even more horrendous than they initially appear. In the first part of the eighteenth century it was twenty-six percent, then lowered to twenty-two percent in the second half. Mortality was not lowered in the nineteenth century. Average life expectancy figures in our sample indicate how heavily women paid for childbirth, as did men in times of war. In the period from 1700 to 1749, life expectancy was 61.3 for men and 57.3 for women; in 1750-1799 it was 63.2 for men and 57.5 for women, in 1800-1849 it was 61.7 for men and 62.3 for women; it then was lowered in the period of 1850-1899 to 56.5 for men and 53.1 for women. Based on GH EstL, GH Livl., GH Kurl., GH Oesel. 134 HI, Baltikum 400/652, letter of 15 November 1842; for other examples, see HAHN, In Gutshäusem, p. 251; HSA, 702, Transehe'sche, Nr. 484, "Memoiren," p. 92; that the danger of childbirth dominated a woman's life is evident from the sources. The first weeks after birth were ruled by a fear of infection and childbed fever; noble women were expected to be very careful. Christoph von Campenhausen rebuked his wife, "how is it possible for a lyingin woman to write three letters on the second day, that is too much of a dare. I am afraid of bad consequences." HI, Baltikum 400/407, letter of 12 June 1826. Wilhelm von SamsonHimmelstjerna not only recommended to his daughter to put a pause in her childbearing, but severely rebuked her for her lack of caution "even assuming that you felt yourself completely well, you should not, please allow me to say so, behave so irresponsibly as to go to another room, to sit down at table, yes even at the sixth day enjoy the raw spring air. Where was here thoughtfulness, especially as you were not free of fever in the days in between..."; ibid., Nr. 685, letter of 22 April 1835 to Eugenie; cf. also EAA, fond 854, nimistu 7, järjek. 6, letters of 8 January 1834, 8 April 1834.

207

beginning of the eighteenth century. Then over the course of the first part of the nineteenth century the nobility had secured still greater control over the countryside by effecting an emancipation that granted it complete control over the land, and with the exclusion of all except corporate nobility from the rights to own land (in Livland nobility alone), they further consolidated their landholdings and control. Finally, after a hundred year struggle, the corporate nobility had succeeded in their drive to secure codification of their corporate rights and privileges and to have these officially confirmed by the Emperor. These achievements were not, however, without their risks. They had been achieved only with the support of the Imperial Government, and what the Empire could give with one hand, it could take away with the other. The Baltic German nobility could well have seen the course of events over the first half of the nineteenth century as consolidating their power and assuring their status and privilege for the foreseeable future; they can be forgiven, certainly, for not seeing the challenges that would change their way of life forever in a little more than another half century. It is these challenges that we shall examine in the third part of this book.

208

PART III: THE RESPONSE TO THE MODERN WORLD To standfast - that will be our action against you and your kind, Mr. Samarin; to hold out - that must be the sum of our policy. If in doing this we lose the lawful inheritance

our fathers have left us, at least we will not

have betrayed it in cowardly fashion. And if honor is saved, then everything

is saved.1

Chapter IX: In the Bonds of the Past 2 Professor Carl Schirren's defiant remarks in his polemical tract,

Livonian

Answer to Mr. Juri Samarin, was published in 1869 as a response to the Slavophile Iurii Samarin's work The Borderlands

of Russia. The Russian Baltic Coast.

Samarin's attack and Schirren's response came in the 1860's at the height of an ongoing journalistic battle over the introduction of Russian reforms and institutions meant to end the separate status of the Baltic provinces. Schirren based his arguments against Russification on the contractual nature of the capitulation agreements with Peter I in 1710 and the Nystad Treaty of 1721, portraying the Baltic German nobility as the "representatives and guardians of the whole [Baltic] land." 3 Schirren denied the relevance of the qualifying clauses of the capitulations, claiming instead that it was Russian rule in the provinces that was provisional, not Baltic German privileges. 4 As usual in periods of decline and 1 CARL SCHIRREN, Livländische Antwort an Herrn Juri Samarin (Leipzig, 1869), p. 174, cited in HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," pp. 132-133. On Schirren and Samarin, see EDWARD THADEN, "Samarin's 'Okrainy Rossii' and Official Policy in the Baltic Provinces," Russian Review, 33, pp. 405-415; see also WLTTRAM, "Carl Schirren's 'Livländische Antwort'," in Das Nationale, pp. 161-182; RAUCH, "Der russische," pp. 490-491; SERGEI ISAKOV, Ostzeiskii vopros ν russkoi pechati 1860-kh godov," Tartu Riikliku Ulikooli Toimetised, Nr. 107, 1961; BORIS E. NOL'DE, Iurii Samarin i ego vremia (Paris, 1926), pp. 469^89. 2 The title of a novel by PANTENIUS. (See Im Gottesländchen, [Mitau, 1885]). The novel aroused much controversy and the author was repeatedly attacked in the Baltic German press. In Pantenius' novel, Baltic German noblemen and burghers, who despised the natives, and Latvians, who resented the wrongs done to them, all are held in the bonds of the past. Pantenius divided the Baltic Germans into colonialists, who do not want to share power, and patriots, who were willing to share with the natives in order to make good the great injustice of failing to assimilate the natives. If the patriots did not grant equal rights to all, then the Baltic Germans would rightfully lose everything. 3 HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," p. 132.

209

doubt, historical justification and reliance on old documents became particularly important, for they served then to defend privilege, not function.5 Schirren's defense of the old aristocratic order came at a time when industrialization and modernization in the provinces had sharply unsettled and undermined the pre-industrial aristocratic elite. In the ensuing decades the new forces led to a progressive dissolution of the old familiar world based on privilege and status. Political, economic, and social tensions put the corporate nobility whose demographic position was also declining - on the defensive. The defense of the old order put forth by Schirren and his allies and his sole prescription for the future, "stand fast... hold out," put a brake on initiative and ossified Baltic German resistance to administrative centralization and cultural Russification. With little effect: Russification waned to some extent in the 1870's, but resumed with a more determined effort in the 1880's and 1890's. Schirren's motto reinforced among most of the Baltic German nobility (though of course there was disagreement among them, with defectors increasingly shunned) a state of mind called by Fritz Stern in his work on late Imperial Germany "illiberal," a "commitment in mind and policy against any further concession ... even at the price of one's political independence. Any concession might undermine the authority, prestige, and status of the entire system." 6 Many corporate nobles, who much like members of the Polish Sejm, represented only themselves at the corporations' diets, regarded holding out as a matter of honor, a stance that explains the sometimes furious personal attacks made when individuals found themselves on opposing sides of an issue in debate; those inclined to reasoned compromise were increasingly ostracized.7

Standing Fast After the 1860's the defining and dominant idea in the political self-consciousness of the Baltic German nobility remained the preservation of its status as a ruling caste (Herrschaftsstand). This privileged status was undercut by Imperial policies in the 1880's and 1890's. Ever afterwards, as Pistohlkors has 4 O n the legal issues and controversy over the capitulations and the privileges they promised, see the temperate exposition of BORIS E. NOL'DE, Ocherki russkogo gosudarstvennogoprava (SPb., 1911), pp. 3 3 1 - 4 1 1 . 5 Schirren's work was foreshadowed by OTTO MÜLLER'S Die Livländischen Landesprivilegien und deren Confirmation, which appeared anonymously in Leipzig in 1841, at the time of agrarian unrest. Müller criticized the "bureaucratic assimilationist policies" of the center, was defensive in tone and used "historic rights" to justify Baltic autonomy. H e served as Riga mayor from 1856-1867. PISTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, p. 118. 6 FRITZ STERN, The Failure of Illiheralism (London, 1972), introduction, xvii, cited in PISTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, P. 257. 7 HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," p. 136.

210

shown in his examination of the political attitudes, tactics, and goals of the Baltic German noble leadership during the revolutionary crisis of 1904/5, the recovery of the nobility's privileged status remained its single dominating interest, and its leadership pursued this goal at the expense of a political arrangement with the Estonians and Latvians that could have led to a united front against Russification.8 The nobility was so ignorant of several decades of "national awakening" among the native populations that in 1906 the leadership of the Livland corporation was unable to compose a concise background history of the native national movement.9

B a i t s and G e r m a n s The impetus to the development of an ethnic consciousness among Latvians and Estonians had been provided earlier in the century by emancipation. The Baltic German Lutheran clergy, ironically, played a role in developing national consciousness among the native Baits, as the Lutheran religion required literacy, and after 1803 the clergy studied Latvian and Estonian at the University of Dorpat. Under the influence of romanticism, particularly Herder's philosophy of history, pastors also founded societies that explored native folklore and customs. As a result, by the 1840's some educated natives began to call themselves "Estonians" and "Latvians," even though their working language remained German until later in the century. The two decades after the Great Reforms saw the birth of a Latvian and Estonian culture promoted by a growing intelligentsia that argued the merits of the native cultures in journals, music, the theater, and song festivals. These values grew to be accepted by a Latvian and Estonian middle class that began consciously to embrace an ethnic identity. In this period a basis was laid for a native role in political life. Many factors promoted this development, including the reformist atmosphere of the Great Reforms, an accelerated pace of basic education that led to almost universal literacy by the end of the century, greater participation in higher education, and above all the urbanization and economic modernization of the provinces. Industrialization offered greatly increased economic opportunities, and by the end of the century the provinces were ranked among the most highly developed in the Empire. With social mobility an increasing number of the Estonian and Latvian middle classes acknowledged ethnic identity with pride. This momentum was not stopped by Russification. Neither the Baltic Germans nor the Russians considered the natives capable of independent development. Some Baltic Germans 8 See PlSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, passim; also PlSTOHLKORS "Geschichtsschreibung," in Geschichte, p. 277. 9 PlSTOHLKORS, "Das Urteil," pp. 2 3 3 - 2 3 4 .

211

r e c o m m e n d e d G e r m a n i z a t i o n , while the R u s s i a n s in t u r n p u s h e d f o r R u s s i f i c a tion; in the m e a n t i m e the native B a i t s w e n t their o w n w a y . 1 0 A m o n g the c o r p o rate n o b i l i t y there w e r e f e w w h o u n d e r s t o o d the challenge p o s e d b y national a w a k e n i n g t o the aristocratic hierarchical o r d e r of the p r o v i n c e s . W h e n the B a l t i c G e r m a n n o b i l i t y d e f e n d e d its o w n special rights a n d privileges it d i d s o in a l a n g u a g e that w a s national, that is, it identified its o w n privileges w i t h t h o s e of the nation f o r w h o s e c o m m o n w e a l it claimed t o be fighting. B u t this d e f e n s e d i d n o t entail c o n s i d e r a t i o n of, let alone alliance with, the p o litical, e c o n o m i c , a n d social interests of the native E s t o n i a n s a n d L a t v i a n s . 1 1 S o m e Baltic G e r m a n historians at this time a n d later c o n g r a t u l a t e d their c o m p a t r i o t s o n their d e f e n s e of the natives against cultural R u s s i f i c a t i o n in e d u c a tion and religion, b u t these s a m e historians u s u a l l y i g n o r e d the plight of the p e o ple o v e r w h o m the n o b l e s h a d r u l e d f o r centuries. 1 2 H a d an alliance b e t w e e n the t w o g r o u p s b e e n f o r m e d , o r at least s o m e political c o - o p e r a t i o n been established, it is d o u b t f u l that this a l o n e w o u l d have s t e m m e d R u s s i f i c a t i o n , b u t the failure even t o t r y left the n o b i l i t y w i t h n o political allies at all d u r i n g a n d after the R e v o l u t i o n o f 1905 and l e s s e n e d a n y chances of s u c c e s s f o r r e f o r m a n d re-

10 One of the more extreme exponents of Russification in language, culture, and religion was Iu. Samarin, who took a position rejected by Alexander II. The development of the Estonian and Latvian nations is traced in RAUN'S Estonia, and his "The Estonians," in Russification, pp. 287-356; A. PLAKANS, "The Latvians," in Russification, pp. 207-284. As Raun noted, by the 1890's the "seemingly contradictory effect of Russification was not to denationalize Estonian intellectuals, but rather to liberate them from the Baltic German cultural world." Estonian became their preferred means of communication. Industrialization and modernization not only promoted a national movement, but the new class system with a socio-economic stratification similar to other capitalist societies contributed to the emergence of a labor movement among the Latvians and Estonians. The close linkage between the development of national consciousness and a national culture was traced by HANS ROGGER for eighteenth century Russia (National Consciousness in Eighteenth Century Russia, Cambridge, 1960). 11 Baltic German historiography employed as one of the more important "abstractions" of Baltic history in the second part of the nineteenth century the theme of the transition, starting with the conversion movement of the 1840's from the "ständisch" to the "national" order. As Pistohlkors notes, such an interpretation ignores the underlying social problems and conflicts that characterized both periods. See PISTOHLKORS, "Führende," pp. 601-618 and "Die Ostseeprovinzen," pp. 363—416. On the issue of primacy of class/estate or nationality in defense of Baltic German autonomy, see also KROEGER, "Zur Situation," pp. 601632; WLTTRAM, "Methodologische," pp. 623-631; WITTRAM, "Das ständische," in Das Nationale-, DUKHANOV, pp. 31-32, 327, 348-354; LENZ, Literatenstand, p. 38. 12 HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," p. 180; the political conflicts of the latter part of the nineteenth century stimulated Baltic German historical writing; themes are discussed in M. GARLEFF's review of Baltic German historiography 1870-1918 in "Geschichtsschreibung," in Geschichte, pp. 233-271; also ibid., PISTOHLKORS, "Geschichtsschreibung," pp. 274-335; TEODORS ZEIDS, Kharakteristika izdanii pis'mennykh istochnikovedcheskikhproblem istorii narodov Pribaltiki (Riga, 1970), pp. 345-361; JANIS ZUTIS, Ocherkipo istoriografii Latvii Part 1: Pribaltiiskaia nemetskaia istoriografiia (Riga, 1949).

212

newal of a separate identity within the confines of the Empire.13 It was then too late for the corporate nobility to attempt a successful transition from its role as ruling caste (Herrschaftsstand) to that of leadership (Führerschaft). 14 Such a claim had outlived its time and could not be accepted by the native population. At the same time, the diminishing proportion of Germans to natives further undermined claims to leadership. According to the Imperial census of 1897, only 6.94% of the total population of the three provinces consisted of Germans (165,627) out of a total population of 2,386,115 (mainly Latvians and Estonians, with minorities of Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, and Jews). Of the total, 7.57 % (98,573) of Livland's population was German, 7.57% of Kurland's (51,017), and only 3.9% (16,037) of Estland's. Of these, 0.98% of Livland's population, 1.15% of Kurland's and 0.91 % of Estland's belonged to the hereditary nobility, including a still smaller number of corporate nobility. These figures represented a sharp decline from 1881, when there had been 180,423 Germans in the provinces. This change is partly explained by a change in self-designation by Germanized Estonians and Latvians to their own nationality, by outmigration of Germans (particularly literati) to the interior of the Empire and to Germany after Russification, and by a lowering of the Baltic German birthrate which will be discussed later. All population groups, Estonians and Latvians and Germans, were moving to urban areas during this period. While in 1881 there were still 38,450 Germans in the countryside, in 1897 this figure was only 23,379, mainly consisting of corporate nobility, burgher manor owners, clergy, foresters, and doctors - a small school of German fish in an overwhelmingly non-German sea. In the urban population Baltic Germans registered only a slight numerical decline, but their percentage went down noticeably as more and more Estonians and Latvians

13 It is indicative of the Baltic G e r m a n noble state of mind that the revolutionary unrest of 1905 in the provinces was b l a m e d on the Imperial government and its bureaucracy, on Russification, and o n outside revolutionary social democratic forces, while no a c k n o w l e d g ment was m a d e of internal causes, such as the desperate e c o n o m i c and social position of the majority landless p o p u l a t i o n in the countryside. See the m e m o r a n d u m of the Livland corp o r a t i o n to the government in PlSTOHLKORS, " R u s s i f i z i e r u n g , " p. 618. T h e marshal of the Livland c o r p o r a t i o n F. von M e y e n d o r f f managed in his dealings with the R u s s i a n bureaucracy to obscure the social and economic causes of the unrest. 14 T h i s is m o s t convincingly s h o w n b y PlSTOHLKORS in his b o o k Ritterschaftliche. Pistohlkors is sympathetic to the nobility's p r o b l e m with changing roles given the humiliations of Russification. T h e r e were s o m e Baltic nobles p r e p a r e d f o r concessions and c o m p r o m i s e , but they experienced discrimination and personal hostility.

213

moved into cities and towns. 15 Given these numbers it is doubtful that there is any way the Baltic German nobility could have maintained a dominant political role in the long run, even though a political alliance with non-noble Baltic Germans might have strengthened its position. In fact, though, the interests of the nobility diverged sharply from those of the Baltic German bourgeoisie in the cities, which was profiting from the provinces' industrialization. These burghers found far less difficulty than the nobles in accommodating to administrative integration. After the 1870's they first fought electoral battles against both natives and Russians, but they then allied with Russian inhabitants in a common struggle to preserve their social and economic predominance. 16 In contrast to the burghers, the literati moved from social conflict and confrontation with the nobility in the early 1860's to accommodation by the 1880's.

R e f o r m and R u s s i f i c a t i o n In the early 1860's the literati advocated a commonality of Baltic German interests and proposed a reform program for the provinces that covered political, constitutional, judicial, agrarian, and social issues. In their view, thorough reform of the feudal system would stabilize the ruling position of the upper segments of German society (including themselves) and pre-empt Imperial plans for reform. The literati program had support among some of Livland's corporate nobles, members of the so-called liberal party (which was less a party than an association 15 Riga's German population sank from 42.8 % in 1867 to 39.4 % in 1881 to 23.7 % in 1897 to its lowest point, 13.5 % in 1913. Haltzel, "The Baltic Germans," p. 151; for a detailed statistical analysis with many tables of the last Imperial census of 1897, see ERNST BARON CAMPENHAUSEN, "Bevölkerungsstatistik", in Baltische Bürgerkunde, vol. 1 (Riga, 1908), pp. 359-364. For more details on nineteenth century demographic developments, see CARL VON BORNHAUPT, Entwurf einer geographisch-statistisch-historischen Beschreibung Liv-, Ehst-

und Kurlands

( R i g a , 1855); FRIEDRICH VON JUNG-STILLING, WILHELM ANDERS,

Ergebnisse

der livländischen Volkszählung (Riga, 1883, 1884, 1885); PAUL JORDAN, Die Resultate derestländischen Volkszählung vom 29. Dez. 1881 in textlicher Beleuchtung (Reval, 1886); MAX VON REIBNIZ, Ergebnisse der kurländischen Volkszählung, vol. 1: Die Zählung auf dem flachen Land und in den Flecken (Mitau, 1884), vol. 2: Die Zählung in den Städten (Mitau), 1886. N o te also the materials collected for the Imperial general staff, Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii, sobrannye ofitserami general'nogo shtaba, vol. 13: Kurlandskaia Gubemiia, ed. A. ORANOVSKII (SPb., 1862) and vol. 14: Lifliandskaia gubemiia, ed. F. WEYMARN (SPb., 1864). 16 The government extended the Imperial municipal statute of 1870 to Baltic towns in 1877. The statute replaced the old city council and two guilds with a municipal assembly elected by males over twenty-five w h o were property or trade tax payers. The electoral system was based on three classes according to wealth and favored the Germans, another example of the limits of Russification. The literati were enfranchised (until 1892, when plectoral rules were changed) by paying an annual tax. HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," pp. 138-139. See HENRIKSSON, The Tsar's Loyal Germans. The term "crown patriot" was used to characterize those Baltic Germans w h o exploited the opportunities offered by industrialization and accommodated themselves with Russians. KROEGER, "Zur Situation," p. 627.

214

of like minded partisans), which followed the spirit of the agrarian reformer of the 1840's, Hamilkar von Fölkersahm, in promoting agrarian reform and supporting an accommodation with the educated layers of Baltic German society. 17 The modernization program brought the "liberals" and literati into conflict with the majority of the nobility, but the conflict diminished as soon as attacks by the Russian nationalist press on the separate status of the provinces began in the mid-sixties. The conflict between literati and nobility then turned into an ethnic conflict between Baltic Germans and Russian nationalists. The literati, the main representatives of a common Baltic German political consciousness, closed ranks with the nobility and accepted noble leadership in the defense of the status quo, which by the 1890's had come to mean "steadfastness and perseverance." 1 8 The conservative majority of the nobility condemned the few remaining "liberal" compatriots in their midst as traitors. 19 That the four Baltic corporations of Estland, Kurland, Livland, and Ösel rarely acted in co-ordination with each other also weakened the Baltic German cause. In addition, according to M. Haltzel, Baltic German tactlessness and lack of flexibility in dealing with Russians antagonized the "more extreme Russifiers" in the capital. 20 Subjectively one can understand Baltic German fear of Russification, the anxiety over losing the German language, and with it spiritual identity. It was little comfort that such a policy of forced assimilation had been adopted by the German Empire itself and also by Hungary in this age of nationalism that left no room for the supra-national ecumenical Empires of the Habsburg or Ro17 The "liberals" also supported political commonality between town and countryside, abolition of the manor monopoly, and promotion of native education. Political rights were to be granted to the natives only gradually and over the long term starting with the local parish level and always under nobiliar guidance. See PlSTOHLKORS's introduction in ANREP, Briefe, vi. 18 The accommodation between nobles and literati was not wholly one-sided. By the late 1890's nobles, among them Baron Hans von Hahn and Arved von Strandmann, were, for example, close to an important nationalist literati circle led by Ernst Seraphim and Bernhard Hollander. They co-operated in maintaining home school circles and ultimately laid the foundations for the creation of the German Union after 1905. Thus at least some nobles accepted literati leadership in the emerging politics of nationality. See HOLLANDER'S memoir, "Erinnerungen an die Jahre 1902-1905," Baltische Blatter für allgemein-kulturelle Fragen 2 (1924):111-125. Political rapprochement was also accompanied by more social recognition as the nobility now adopted the address of "gracious lady" {gnädige Frau) or "gracious miss" (gnädiges Fräulein) in intercourse with literati wives and daughters. 19 See, for example, WlTTRAM, Meinungskämpfe, pp. 127-134; PlSTOHLKORS, "Die historischen," pp. 16-17; PlSTOHLKORS, "Führende," pp. 601-618 on the publicistic quarrels of 1878 to 1879, which show deep disagreements between the nobility and the few remaining "liberals," among whom quite a few had by now converted to defense of noble privilege. It should be noted that there was little support for political participation of natives among the liberals either. R. Stael von Holstein's memoirs give insights into the quarrels, passions, and intrigues among the nobility from the 1860's to 1881. LVVA, fond 1100, Apraksta 14, Lietas Nr. 634, pp. 58-61 and passim. 20 HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," p. 181.

215

manov varieties. Haltzel argues that Baltic Germans should have shown more flexibility and accommodation to engage in reforms that might have taken the steam out of governmental policies in the 1880's. But after furious battles over reform within upper Baltic German society, matched by strident attacks from the Russian nationalist press, Russophobia became the rule.21 As Pistohlkors has shown, Russophobia arose primarily from Baltic German inability to deal with the social and economic unrest of the 1840's. Hatred of things Russian led to a transference and ideologization in which the Imperial government and its bureaucracy were blamed for all internal provincial problems, including even the revolutionary unrest of 1905. Even in the 1860's, long before the Imperial government had begun administrative integration and cultural Russification, Baltic German publicists accused the government of wanting to make Russians out of non-Russians. By the end of the century this is what Russification meant not only to publicists and politicians, but even to Baltic German historians. They viewed all of the nineteenth century through the prism of Russification, using the term "national" to characterize the Baltic German-Russian conflict over the status of the provinces. 22 Non-Baltic German historians have consistently used the traditional concept of Russification to characterize the policies of the Imperial government in justice, administration, and culture. Such use tends to simplify governmental intentions and policies, for they were never as coherent, consistent, or resolute as the concept implies. This was also true of the policies of the government of Alexander III, during whose rule the provinces lost their autonomous status. The term Russification leaves little room for differentiation, since it neglects the question of what was not Russified and, as we shall see, there were definite limitations in the extent of Russification policies.23 Keeping in mind these limitations of the term, we will review the policies of the Imperial government and examine Baltic German reaction and the impact of these policies on the political and legal status of the Baltic German nobility.24 21 Pistohlkors criticized Haltzel for not clarifying the reasons w h y even after such quarrels over reform, literati and nobility could still pull together. GERT VON PISTOHLKORS, "'Russifizierung' in den baltischen Provinzen und in Finnland im 19. und beginnenden 20. Jhdt.," Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 33 (1984):601. 22 See THADEN's explanation of the term and meaning of Russification in Russia's, pp. 7-10; see sources on Baltic German historiography cited earlier. In Thaden's b o o k on Russification the authors examine, within the context of socio-economic modernization, Russification f r o m three perspectives, unplanned, administrative, and cultural Russification. p. 6. 23 See PISTOHLKORS' discussion of the usefulness of this concept and his review of more recent w o r k on the Baltic provinces (especially the works of Thaden and Haltzel) and Finland in the 1970's and 1980's. "Russifizierung," pp. 592-606. 24 A more in-depth examination of these policies can be found in THADEN'S volume Russification as well as MICHAEL HALTZEL'S Der Abbau der deutschen ständischen Selbstverwaltung in den Ostseeprovinzen Russlands, Marburger Ostforschungen, 37 (Marburg/Lahn, 1977); a shortened English version appears in THADEN'S Russification. M y o w n s u m m a r y relies o n these studies.

216

W h e n A l e x a n d e r II ascended the t h r o n e , t h e Baltic G e r m a n nobility still c o n trolled t h e c o u n t r y s i d e . F r o m t h e m i d - f o r t i e s t h e I m p e r i a l G o v e r n m e n t had relaxed and partially suspended measures intended t o integrate t h e area w i t h the E m p i r e . T h e n e w era w a s t h e r e f o r e g r e e t e d w i t h c o n s i d e r a b l e o p t i m i s m . R e l a x a t i o n o f Imperial censorship b r o u g h t f o r t h a r e f o r m m i n d e d press, led m a i n ly b y literati journalists w h o o p e n e d u p t h e B a l t i c G e r m a n w o r l d t o events in R u s s i a and E u r o p e , and u r g e d a p r o g r a m o f r e f o r m o n their c o m p a t r i o t s s o as t o p r e - e m p t t h e possibility o f i n t e g r a t i o n o f t h e p r o v i n c e s w i t h t h e E m p i r e as p a r t of t h e G r e a t R e f o r m s in t h e E m p i r e . T h e s e journalists a d v o c a t e d t h e c o m m o n a l i t y o f B a l t i c G e r m a n interests and o p p o s e d the provincialism, particularism, and inflexible status o r d e r o f t h e p r o v i n c e s . A s A . B u l m e r i n c q w r o t e in t h e Baltische

Monatsschrift

in 1 8 6 2 ,

Liv-, Est-, and Kurland have been united together as little within their own territories as in their relations with each other, and none the less such a unification must come forth. Yes, as a rule the differences in estate within one and the same province are carefully preserved and are not seldom used for hateful criticism of other estates and of the neighboring province, or are used to bring into prominence self-complacency and a better material position for one's own estate or that of one's province ... For more than sixty years all three provinces, and the estates ... of each province have belonged to an empire; it would at least be in their interests, as well as that of each single estate, and of each province, and of all three provinces, if they would acknowledge themselves as a whole ... and if they would be conscious of such commonality as a lasting condition ... The whole province and the whole Baltic land must be kept in view in all our efforts. 25 It w a s in this p e r i o d that t h e n a m e " B a i t " b e g a n t o be applied t o the Baltic G e r m a n s and that the t e r m " B a l t i c P r o v i n c e s " gained c u r r e n c y . T h o u g h these t e r m s

2 5 "Baltische Presse," Β Μ 5 (1862):49-50. This article is a good introduction to the aims of the "liberal program" of the press. Some nobles shared this sentiment. Theodor von Fircks wrote a letter from Brussels to his brother in Kurland urging him and his compatriots not to rely on "old rights" or Imperial favors. Instead "you should see to it that all three provinces stand united and not singly and should strive to achieve a special constitution" on the model of Finland. "Believe me, the way of favors through our Pahlens, Korffs, Lievens and Hahns and whatever are the names of these respectable men, this way is no protection from the surging flood from the Interior; you must seek other arguments than just this single one: the Emperor favors us." ( L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 4, Lietas Nr. 103, pp. 199-200, undated letter.) The Grand Duchy of Finland had become part of the Empire in 1815. Finland had her own legislation, military, postage and coinage and in her Diet sat four equal groups, noblemen, clergy, burghers, and peasants.

217

indicated a commonality among Germans, consciousness of that commonality developed slowly. 26 The liberal journalist and Livland nobleman Woldemar von Bock introduced his colleagues' reform program to Livland's diet, but it was defeated when his compatriots refused to discuss sharing their privileges with any other group (though the nobility did cede its exclusive right to own manor land). Discussions of judicial reform to create a unified judicial system for all three provinces also foundered on noble resistance. That there was some movement in agrarian reform came not because of pressure from the Baltic Germans or their press, but because of the prodding by the Imperial government. Renewed unrest in the countryside, the petitions of the natives to have the Russian emancipation statutes applied to the provinces, and the clamoring of the Russian nationalist press all required decisive action. 2 7 Still, the Imperial 26 See GEORG BERKHOLZ, "Geschichte des Wortes 'baltisch'," BM 29 (1882):519-530. This article appeared later in Aus baltischer Geistesarbeit, (Riga, 1909), 2:86-98. After WW I Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians became known as Baits. For details of the reform program and debates in the diets, see WITTRAM, Meinungskämpfe and Liberalismus; PLSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, pp. 110-114; "Lifländische Korrespondenz," BM 6 (1862): 372-586; THADEN, Russia's, pp. 191-193; HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," pp. 134-149; R[EINHOLD] BARON STAEL VON HOLSTEIN, "Reformbewegungen in den 60ger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts," BM 62 (1906), 1:257-278, 321-341, 63 (1907):66-76, 111-130. See HFERMANN] VON SAMSON-HIMMELSTJERNA, "Ad Deliberandum 42 des Livländischen Landtags von 1864," BM 11 (1865):285-345, 351-389 for positions on reform in the diet. The press criticized feudal privileges in town and countryside. For a review of articles in the Baltic German press, see BULMERINCQ, "Baltische," BM 5 (1862):48-99; for bibliography, see RENATE WITTRAM-HOFFMANN, Baltische Monatsschrift (Baltische Monatshefte). Register 1859-1939, Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ostmitteleuropas, Nr. 92 (Marburg, 1973). Pistohlkors discussed the question of "regionalism as a concept in Baltic historiography" in a recent article. There is no general agreement on what the term region means. Generally, a region refers to an area which is distinguished by homogeneous geographical or cultural factors, which is marked by similar populations or economic activities, and which borders on a larger whole. The Baltic provinces shared similar economic, social, and political characteristics, and the ethnic composition of the population and the area was different from the remainder of the Empire. If, as Ralph Matthews holds, a territory can only be regarded as a region if "its residents have a sense of regionalism," then this kind of consciousness was developed at different levels and degree among and between the various groups of Germans and natives. (RALPH MATTHEWS, The Creation of Regional Dependency [Toronto, 1983], p. 16). PISTOHLKORS, "Regionalism as a Concept of Baltic Historiography. Some Introductory Remarks," Journal of Baltic Studies 18 (1987): 125-132; cf. PISTOHLKORS, "Regionalismus als Konzept in der baltischen Geschichte: Überlegungen zum Stand der Geschichtsschreibung über die Baltischen Provinzen in Russland im 19. Jahrhundert," Journal of Baltic Studies 15 (1984): 100, 114. 27 The most serious incident of peasant unrest occured in 1858 in Estland, the so-called "Mahtra" (Machters) war on a manor. This led to military action and eventually involved about twenty percent of Estland's manors. RAUN, Estonia, pp. 44-45. H[ANS] KRUUS, "Petitsionnaia kampaniia estonskhikh krest'ian ν 60-kh godakh X I X v.," in Iz istorii obshchestvennykh otnoshenii: Sbomik statei akademika Evgeniia Viktorovicha Tarle (Moscow, 1957), pp. 494-514. Pistohlkors notes that the unrest of the 60's and 70's showed the failure of the nobility's political goal in peasant legislation, the securing of a firm social

218

government left changes in the Baltic peasant laws of 1856-1863 to the discretion of the Baltic corporations and to the Baltic Committee in St. Petersburg. Two new laws emerged as a result of discussion. The rural community law of 1866 terminated the manor lord's jurisdiction and police authority over the peasant community. 28 This was followed in 1870 in Livland with a reform in rural selfgovernment that split the parish assembly into near-equal church and peasant assemblies. But peasant participation in political life remained confined to the local parish and was not extended to the level of district or provincial diet. The nobility missed the opportunity for political cooperation with the emerging new class of peasant freeholders. The conservatives rejected the recommendation of the politically astute. Balthasar Baron Campenhausen wrote in 1879 that the nobility "save from the hitherto prevailing rule (Herrschaft) [at least] leadership" by coming to an understanding with property owning peasants. 29 As a result the nobles were left without political allies in a countryside where they faced an increasingly confrontational mass of landless and resentful native Baits. The events of 1905 would show how volatile were these forces. As the nobility and literati locked in conflict, the position of all Baltic Germans deteriorated. The second Polish insurrection of 1863 sharply affected the way Russian statesmen viewed their relationship with the western borderlands of the Empire. From their perspective, the very existence of the Empire was threatened by Polish insubordination, a view reinforced by the rise of domestic political dissidence. This fear was further accentuated by the emergence of a unified Germany and led in stages, hesitantly and gradually in the 1870's, decisively in the 1880's, to the adoption of a policy of administrative centralization and cultural Russification with the aim of creating a modern nation state. 30 Alexander II began the process reluctantly and never wholeheartedly embraced the nationalist option in the manner of his son and successor. Alexander III disorder among the separate estates based on a new economic foundation. PlSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche,

pp. 112-113; THADEN, Russia's, pp. 192-193. The Imperial government al-

so disapproved of a unified Baltic judicial system because, in the words of P. A. Valuev, it would join the provinces together "in a special administrative group isolated from the empire." Ibid., p. 192. 28 O n manor land, the lord still retained police power, though physical punishment was banned. Arrested persons were to be handed over to communal, parish courts or district police. In peasant communities elders exercised similar powers. HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," pp. 136-137. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:273-279. Money rents instead of labor services became mandatory in 1865 in Livland, 1868 in Kurland and Estland. The diets moved on this issue after prodding from the government. As THADEN remarked, the separate Baltic peasant legislation and pattern of landholding marked a principal difference between the provinces and the Empire to the very end. Russia's, pp. 185-186. 29 Cited in PlSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, p. 188. 30 The best summary of the government's policy toward the provinces can be found in VALUEV, who participated in the preparation of a governmental report on the Baltic question. Dnevrtik, 2:421-434; see also [ALEXANDER BUCHHOLTZ], Fünfzig Jahre russischer Verwaltung in den baltischen Provinzen Russlands (Leipzig, 1883), pp. 288-297.

219

carded the ecumenical character of Romanov rule in favor of a Russian national identity and, as an observer noted, surrounded himself at his coronation in 1883 "almost exclusively with members of the ancient Russian families like Gagarin, Iusupov, Golitsyn... The Germans were noticeable only as remnants of a past rule..." 31 Polish events also helped stimulate the emerging Russian nationalist conservative and Slavophile press, pressuring the Imperial government to attack also the separate status of the Baltic provinces and particularly of the Baltic German nobility, who were accused of separatist leanings. A potential German irredentism always remained their particular bete noir.32 In answering, the Baltic German press was diverted from focusing on internal concerns with provincial modernization to a defense of status. The lines remained sharply drawn over the next decades. As Russophobia gained the upper hand, Baltic German internal reform came to a halt. After the pacification of the Poles and the completion of the Great Reforms, Russian officials moved to introduce Russian Imperial reforms into the provinces. From then on, as Thaden shows, it was the Imperial government that governed the shape of reform, even though it still consulted with the corporate leadership and was still willing to consider local conditions.33 In 1867 Alexander II agreed, perhaps under pressure, to carry out the 1850 law on the introduction of Russian as the language of business for all provincial governmental authorities.34 The Emperor reminded representatives of the corporations several months later in Riga (this time in Russian) that they belonged to "the Russian family" and that he hoped for their cooperation in carrying out "the measures and reforms that I consider necessary."35 Alexander II assured the corporate leadership that existing institutions would not be touched, but also reiterated that he would not accept petitions to modify 31

A[LEKSANDR] A[LEKSANDR0V1CH] POLOVTSOV, Dnevnik gosudarstvennogo

A. A. Polovtsova

sekretariia

ed. PETR ANDREEVICH Z a i o n c h k o v s k i i ( M o s c o w , 1 9 6 6 ) , 2 v o l s . 1 : 9 5 , e n t -

ry in diary of 15 May 1883. In fact, the Iusupov family was not Russian in origin, but Tatar. 32 SCHWEINITZ, Denkwürdigkeiten, 2:136. For a representative sample of attacks on the provinces see the editorial in Moskovskie Vedomosti, No. 318, 16 November 1885. Alexander II was not comfortable with this press and he told the Baltic nobles that he rejected any attacks on their loyalty and the press's tendency to equate them with Poles. HALTZEL, "Baltic Germans," p. 126. Evgenii Mikhailovich Feoktistov reported third hand in his diary a conversation between P. A. Shuvalov, soon to be Governor-General of the provinces, and Alexander II in which the Emperor said that "between Poles and Baltic Germans there is nothing in common; those I punish, while the others were always my true servants." EVGENII MIKHAILOVICH FEOKTISTOV, Za kulisami politiki i literatury 1848-1896 (Leningrad, 1 9 2 9 ) , p . 3 4 8 . See TOBIEN, Ritterschaft,

1: 8 2 - 8 3 ; R . BARON STAEL VON HOLSTEIN, " L i v l ä n -

dische Erinnerungen aus den Jahren 1855-1862," B M 62 (1906):l-24, 65-91. 33

THADEN, Russia's,

P. 194.

This decree was applicable to all offices under the Ministry of Interior in the provinces, financial and treasury offices, crown estate administration, military, excise, customs offices, the Riga branch of the State Bank, post office etc. See THADEN, Russification, p. 47. 35 HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," p. 139. 34

220

the language decree. None the less, the Livland corporation broke ranks with its fellow corporations and in a tactless way petitioned anyway. In November 1869, when the government decided to impose the law the following year, the corporation did so again, reciting all its complaints against the government. This so-called "Great Action" alienated many governmental officials, and also caused tension with other corporations, even though Estland's later also handed in a more succinct and shorter supplication. Imperial officials and other influential figures in St. Petersburg were also irritated by the reaction of the corporations to the governmental request that all Baltic German officials and Lutheran teachers be present in Orthodox churches at prayers for the Emperor on state holidays. Sharp disagreements arose, particularly within the Livland corporation, whose marshal had to resign in the face of fierce opponents who accused him of excessive accommodation. In the end the Livland and Estland corporations rejected the request, offering instead substitute attendance at prayers in the Lutheran church at the same time as Orthodox services were held. The Livland corporation stuck to this decision; the Estland and Kurland corporations finally consented. A few years later the government dropped the issue, but distaste over the so-called "Cathedral Question" lingered.36 Neither disunity nor tactlessness aided the Baltic German cause. Half a decade later, in 1876, the vice-royalty that had united the three provinces administratively and set them apart from the Empire was abolished.37 Still the government did not pursue policies of administrative centralization resolutely or consistently. Alexander II and his officials held back from the introduction of Russian courts, zemstvos (institutions of local self-government), Russification of schools, and were conciliatory on other issues such as the religious controversies, the requirement that children of mixed marriages be raised Orthodox, and the legal prosecution of Lutheran pastors when they welcomed converted Orthodox natives back to the church in violation of Russian law. Suits against the clergy were suspended and in a secret order (because of fear of public opinion) Alexander absolved parents of the religious pledge.38

36 HALTZEL interpreted this action in terms of Baltic German tactlessness and underrates the divisions within the corporations. "The Baltic Germans," pp. 138-145; THADEN'S

Russia's,

pp. 1 9 5 - 1 9 7 .

With this abolition, the Baltic Committee, which since 1846 represented the separateness of the Baltic provinces, lost its function. PLSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, p. 20. 38 For details see HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," pp. 147-149. These religious problems had repercussions for the Empire's foreign relations, since the issue was discussed in both the English and Prussian parliaments. Bismarck had several meetings with Russian ambassador Oubril, who passed on the contents of their talk to Foreign Minister, Prince Gorchakov, who in turn passed copies to the Minister of Justice, the Baltic noble Konstantin von der Pahlen. Bismarck talked of the "embarrassing situation in which I find myself." L W A , fond 766, Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 8, pp. 97-100, letters of 1/13 March and 2 / 1 4 March 37

1865.

221

There were a number of reasons for these concessions. For one, the government still lacked the means and personnel for decisive action. This was clear, for example, with regard to the proposed takeover of elementary schools. Political disturbances in the Empire made the traditional reliance on local elites to preserve order and stability again necessary. Moreover, European public opinion rallied against religious persecution. Finally, Alexander II was still only a very reluctant nationalist and highly esteemed the loyalty of the Baltic German nobility. Their skilled corporate leaders were also able to utilize their connections in the capital with statesmen like A. S. Suvorov, P. A. Valuev, and P. A. Shuvalov, with whom they shared similar backgrounds and who made their views heard at court and at governmental councils.39 Alexander II listened to the more moderate advice of these men and did not share the statist viewpoint of his Minister of War D. A. Miliutin, a former member of Grand Duke Constantine's circle in the era of the Great Reforms, an otherwise reformist group influenced by the extreme nationalism of Iu. Samarin. In a conversation with the German Crown Prince Frederick, Miliutin commented, apropos of the Baltic provinces, "I stand openly and unbendingly for the unification of the state and am therefore an opponent of any pretensions of the Baltic barons to the preservation of their medieval feudal privileges."40 Miliutin's position was more in line with that of the new Emperor Alexander III (1881-1894), whose anti-German sympathies and nationalist inclinations were well-known. Alexander Ill's Minister of Finance, N. C. Bunge, himself a Russified German, summarized the guiding principles of Alexander's nationalist policy: In the Russian state there must reign Russian statehood, that is, Russian state power and Russian institutions (adapted, of course, to the particular circumstances of foreign tribes and outlying regions); Russian national principles, that is, the liberation of Russians from foreign dominance; the Russian language as the state language; and finally, respect and honor for the faith professed by the Russian people and its sovereign.

As P. A. Valuev, a man unsympathetic to this position, put it more simply, the order of the day (1882) was "Russian principles, Russian strength, Russian peo-

39

T H A D E N , Russia's,

p p . 2 3 1 - 2 4 2 ; TOBIEN, Ritterschaft,

1:144-151.

40

Miliutin's comment occurred in the context of the prince's question whether he was a Germanophobe, a reputation the minister blamed on the Baltic German press. Frederick, according to Miliutin, misunderstood his answer and began to deny that Germany had any interest in the provinces. DMITRII ALEKSEEVICH MILIUTIN, Dnevnik D. A. Miliutina, ed. PETR ANDREEVICH ZAIONCHKOVSKII, 3 v o l s . ( M o s c o w , 1 9 5 0 ) , 3 : 2 5 4 - 2 5 5 , e n t r y f o r 2 7 M a y 1 8 8 0 .

Frederick made the same denial to the then heir of the Russian throne, and Bismarck would repeatedly do the same. TOBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:81. See HELMUT MUSKAT, Bismarck und die Balten (Berlin, 1934), pp. 90-96. Some of the "konstantinovtsy" were more aggressive on the abolition of Baltic autonomy, but like other enlightened bureaucrats they were generally statists, that is committed to a strong autocracy and to a centralist government.

222

pie." 41 Alexander III did not confirm Baltic German privileges as had his predecessors, though as we shall see, even his policies had limitations, despite claims to the contrary by the contemporary Baltic German literature. The first movement of Alexander Ill's government in the provinces was still only a request in 1881 to the corporations to consider how zemstvo institutions might be fitted into the Baltic constitutional framework. The corporations, whose diets had off and on been involved since the 1870's in heated discussions about provincial governmental reform above the parish level, reacted fearfully. After much disunity and opposition within and between the diets, especially that of Estland, the corporations managed to come up with a counter proposal in 1886. The proposal was to grant the natives participation in economic affairs at the parish and district level, though ensuring that manor owners had as many deputies as the far more numerous Latvians and Estonians. On the highest level, the diets remained the exclusive preserve of the corporations. Nothing came of this plan, ostensibly because at this point the zemstvos themselves were under review in the Empire.42 The government followed up this request in 1882 with a senatorial inspection conducted by N . A. Manasein, not an unusual activity, but one that the Livland marshal of the nobility, H. von Bock, may have provoked by protesting governmental passivity in the face of anti-German violence in the Baltic countryside. At the same time, a delegation of Baltic German nobles met with the new Minister of Interior Ignat'ev and intimated Latvian involvement in Alexander II's assassination. The delegation's proposed solution to native unrest consisted of a request for governmental endorsement of greater noble powers

41

mam,

In order, Istoricheskii ohzor deiatel'nosti Komiteta ministrov i dopolnenie k I ill 4 v o l s . , e d . SERGEI MIKHAILOVICH S E R E D O N I N ( S P b . , 1 9 0 2 ) , 4 : 2 3 ; V A L U E V ,

to-

Dnevnik,

p. 18. 42 Officials also concluded that the nobility would dominate the zemstvos. Under Alexander III the Great Reforms underwent review and modification in an era of counterreform. See HEIDE W. WHELAN, Alexander III and the State Council. Bureaucracy and CounterReform in late Imperial Russia (New Brunswick, 1982). Baltic German historians like Alexander von Tobien blamed this failure on the Russian government. According to Haltzel, other factors account for the outcome. For one, disunity plagued the corporations, especially strong opposition from reactionary nobles; it had taken the corporations five years to come up with this proposal, too late to have satisfied either the government or Estonians and Latvians. Such a move would have had more promise in the 1870's. HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," p. 142. It should be noted that the Kurland corporation went its own way and asked for the introduction of the zemstvo organizations in 1878. PLSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, p. 57.

223

over the natives. Ignat'ev reported this meeting to the Emperor and recommended an inspection to get at the truth of the situation.43 Manasein's inspection tour coincided with a native petition movement for reform. Native demands included an administrative reorganization of the provinces into two units according to nationality, introduction of zemstvos, equal taxation of peasant and noble land, regulation and state prices for peasant land sales and contracts, the introduction of Russian police and judicial institutions, state control over elementary education, and the abolition of noble patronage of parish clergy.44 Manasein's report raised native expectations for reform, since he incorporated some of their demands. In the end, the government would only enact about half the measures recommended. Manasein recommended to Alexander III a complete reform of the police and judicial institutions, new administrative boundaries, Russian zemstvos, centralization of control over secondary education, and Russification of Dorpat university.45

A d m i n i s t r a t i v e I n t e g r a t i o n : T h e L o s s of P o w e r and Status Administrative integration and cultural Russification in education (including a religious campaign against Lutheranism amidst increased Orthodox activity), became the hallmark of the decades of the 1880's and 1890's. The Baltic German police system was replaced with the Russian model and the antiquated Baltic judicial system was replaced with the far superior Russian judicial system of 1864. Russian became the official language. Both reforms ended Baltic German lordship over the natives.46 The rural system of self-government still remained in place, partly because the Ministry of War strongly urged its retention because of its well organized 4 3 T h i s section relies o n the c o n t r i b u t i o n s by THADEN, HALTZEL, RAUN, PLAKANS in Russification·, see also N . FERE, Ukazatel' khronologicheskii i sistematicheskii zakonov dlia Pribaltiiskikh gubernii s 1885 po 1894 g. (Reval, 1894); MIKHAIL NLKOLAEVICH KHARUZIN, Ukazatel' khronologicheskii i sistematicheskii zakonov dlia Pribaltiiskikh gubernii s 1710 g. po 1885 (Reval, 1888). B o c k shared the Baltic G e r m a n arrogance of regarding Baltic institutions as far superior to Russian ones. H e felt that an inspection w o u l d result in admiration over Baltic G e r m a n noble efficiency in running the countryside. Estland was exempted f r o m inspection because its marshal, W . v o n Wrangell, had been w a r n e d by the f o r m e r Minister of Justice and Baltic noble, Konstantin v o n Pahlen, o f negative consequences. In a flattering m e m o r a n d u m to Alexander, w h o knew Estland f r o m his rest cures there, Wrangell was successful, t h o u g h his success had no long t e r m effect. HALTZEL, " T h e Baltic G e r m a n s , " p. 153.

See RAUN, Estonia, pp. 6 5 - 6 6 for details. See THADEN, " T h e Russian G o v e r n m e n t , " pp. 5 8 - 6 4 . 4 6 N o b l e s lost police p o w e r o v e r peasant t o w n s h i p s (but kept it o n their estates). T h e g o v e r n o r and M i n i s t r y o f Interior c o n t r o l l e d the police s y s t e m at the district and ( t o w n ) levels. T h e system w a s run b y higher police officials appointed by the Imperial government. In the provinces, justices of the peace w e r e not elected, as they w e r e elsewhere, but w e r e appointed. RAUN, " T h e E s t o n i a n s , " pp. 3 0 8 - 3 0 9 . 44

45

224

systems of support and mobilization, a capacity highly appreciated in an area as strategic as the provinces. The government's new policies of interior stabilization also enhanced the importance of social stability in the Baltic countryside. None the less, Russian officials launched an activist Orthodox religious policy among the Latvian and Estonians, though this was unsuccessful in undermining the essential Lutheran character of the provinces. The operation of the Lutheran church was made more difficult and the corporations' rights to appoint lay presidents to the three Lutheran consistories was abolished. Legal proceedings against Lutheran pastors were again instituted and parents of children of mixed marriages were held to the Orthodox pledge. On the religious issue, the corporations for a change presented a united front in their protests to the government. In 1894, in the face of international protests the religious policy was changed and all proceedings against the pastors were dropped, followed by general amnesty in 1895. It should be noted that Alexander III concurred, since he himself did not care for aggressive proselytizing by the Orthodox church. 47 During this period the Baltic German network in the capital became ever less effective. The nationalistic climate in the capital gave lobbying the potential to undermine the very Baltic German cause it was meant to serve. This was recognized by the Baltic noble, Otto von Richter, who headed the Emperor's chancery on petitions. Unofficially, Richter continued to pass on information about the content of Baltic provincial governors' reports to the corporate leadership, but he cautioned that intensive lobbying on behalf of their compatriots would bring on suspicion. He also feared that it would undermine the positions of Baltic German nobles who had dedicated their lives to the advancement of Imperi-

47

Major state institutions (the Senate, State Council, and Committee of Ministers) also had serious reservations about the religious policy. The sentences received by the pastors included prison and exile to Siberia. See HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," for detail, pp. 161-167. As PLAKANS pointed out the Russians overestimated the attraction of the natives to Orthodoxy. "The Latvians", p. 262. Obzor deiatel'nosti vedomovstva Pravoslavnogo ispovedaniia za vremia tsarstvovanie imperatora Aleksandra III (SPb., 1901); AFNATOLIL] [FEDOROVICH] KONI, "Triumvyry," in Sobranie sochinenii ν vos'mikh tomakh, 8 vols. (Moscow, 1966-1969), 2:290. Russisch-Baltische Blätter. Beiträge zur Kenntnis Russlands und seiner Grenzmarken, 4 (Leipzig, 1886):77—81 (contributions by anti-Russian Baltic German polemicists).

225

al interests abroad. 48 Baltic German noble civil and military servants still participated in governmental institutions like the State Council, where they made known their objections to Baltic provincial legislation. 49 Baltic German noble representation at the highest administrative levels, however, was lower in this era, since fewer nobles had entered Imperial service after the 1860's. In this period the Baltic German nobility was also dealing with a more modern bureaucracy, whose own interests diverged from those of the old landed elites. Over the years the bureaucratic apparatus had become more professional, with increasing functional specialization and expertise, and though its composition in the upper ranks was still mainly the hereditary nobility, the majority came largely from the landless nobility whose connections to the countryside, and therefore concerns for the situation of the old landowning aristocracy and gentry, were largely broken. 5 0

Education In education at all levels, including publicly supported and private educational institutions, cultural Russification proceeded apace. These measures were again steadily but futilely protested. 5 1 The corporations of Livland, Kurland and finally Estland closed down their partially state supported provincial gymnasia at Birkenruh and Fellin (1888), Goldingen (1892) and the Cathedral school in Reval (1892). Between 1889 and 1893 Dorpat University, renamed Iur'ev, as 48 See HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," p. 163; Tobien blamed Richter's attitude for lack of success. K. von der Pahlen, former Minister of Justice under Alexander II, shared Richter's fears. They both were counted as members of the so-called German party in the capital. Pahlen informed A. A. Polovtsov in 1885 that in a meeting with the tsar, Alexander III had told him that there was a party among the Baltic German nobility which wanted to join the provinces with the German Empire and that he intended to destroy all Baltic noble privileges. This was, of course, a period when the German Empire was busy germanizing annexed regions like Alsace-Lorraine; in contrast to the Russian government in the provinces, the Germans also pursued a policy of German settlement in areas like West Prussia and Posen. POLOVTSOV, 2:365. Both Richter and Pahlen realized that discretion on the Baltic German issue was crucial to their own effectiveness. ALEXANDER VON KEYSERLING felt that the major reason for loss of Baltic autonomy was the Russian fear of annexation of the provinces by Germany. Lebensbild, 2:544. On the German party, see WlTTRAM, "Die Entdeutschung der russischen Staatsführung seit Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, "Jahrbuch der Akademie der Wissenschaften, 4,1942/43 (Göttingen, 1943):57-58. 49 The diaries of A. A. POLOVTSOV, secretary of the State Council provide insights into Baltic German noble views and reactions. See, for example, Dnevnik, 2:55-56, 59, 60-61, 73, 83, 90 and passim. 50

WHELAN, Alexander

III,

pp. 1 3 8 - 1 5 8 .

When rural elementary native schools were russified, the nobility attempted to withdraw its responsibilities toward the system and closed teacher training seminaries. The government insisted, and the corporations countered by reducing their financial contributions. In 1898 the corporations made another futile attempt at withdrawal. 51

226

was the town itself, was also Russified with the exception of the Lutheran theological faculty, which alone continued teaching in German. Iur'ev students were required to wear Russian student uniforms in 1894. The student fraternities barely escaped dissolution and the public wearing of fraternity colors after conclusion of the academic year was forbidden. 5 2 Much has been written about the consequent decline of education in the provinces as qualified teachers were replaced by less capable ones, but Russification of native schools did not stem rising nationalist consciousness and identity. The new Estonian and Latvian intelligentsia realized that an alliance with the Russian bureaucracy and Russifying elements in the capital did not bring unqualified benefits. Though control of the nobility over the natives' education had been removed, instruction in their schools was now in Russian, not in Latvian or Estonian. As for the Baltic Germans, they chose, and the corporations eventually supported financially and administratively, private home educational circles. This did not violate the law, as there was no mandated compulsory school attendance in the Empire. Then, under the impact of the revolution of 1905, the government, conscious of the need for conservative noble support, granted the corporations the right to reopen their gymnasia with German in all subjects except those related to the Russian language and to Russian history, literature, and geography. 5 3 Political privilege and with it power, the hallmark of the ruling caste, had been severely undercut with the introduction of Imperial police and judicial institutions. These reforms constituted a signficant shift of power from the nobility to the imperial state. Police and judicial functions had been exercised by Baltic German nobles for centuries to the detriment of the native population. Though the corporation diets continued to operate, no important subjects were debated there until the revolutionary crisis of 1904/5. 54 With the loss of these functions and powers, the nobility, as O . Brunner noted, also lost its form {Gestalt)?5 The nobility still retained a role in rural self-government along with 52 The private Riga Institute of Technology managed to accommodate itself to the new language requirement. This led to withdrawal of corporate financial support and resignation from its board. In 1895 it was reorganized as the Polytechnical Institute of Riga with state support. Its staff was distinguished and many exceptions were granted for instruction in German. The Livland corporation in 1908 reversed its decision. HALTZEL, "The Baltic Ger-

mans," pp. 177-178.

53 The Riga educational district was granted the right to instruct in the native languages at the elementary level in 1905. HALTZEL, "The Baltic Germans," p. 173. The Reval Cathedral school was reopened in 1906 as were the Birkenruh and Goldingen (Kurland) gymnasia. The Kurland corporation opened a new humanistic gymnasium (with a modern branch Realabteilung) in 1907. Private schools with German language were allowed since April 19,

1906. SCHWEDER, p. 273.

54 There was one exception, the debate on native local schooling from whose administration the nobility tried to withdraw more than once. PLSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, p. 33. 55

BRUNNER, P. 237.

227

the natives on the parish level, and here their influence remained dominant, but this service duty now seemed less attractive to the nobles. The lack of commitment was noted with concern by the corporate leadership. 56 Service at the parish level had always been regarded as a necessary stepping stone to higher and more prestigious positions. Duty of service as a matter of honor had been stimulated by events of the 1840's and the quarrels and turmoil of the succeeding decades, but now many nobles responded to their loss of privilege with a withdrawal to private concerns, home, and family. In his memoirs of that time, the literat Paul Sokolowski wrote that the confinement to private interests changed its [the nobility's] character. It s t o p p e d being what it always had been, a firmly r o o t e d aristocracy on the land, tightly b o u n d to the p o p u lation. It became m o r e and m o r e an exclusive estate according to the model of the Imperial G e r m a n nobility. 5 7

The nobility was still deeply rooted in the land, but the nobility's status and position were irrevocably changing.

R e t r e a t to H o m e and F a m i l y The psychological withdrawal of the nobility to home and family was accompanied by a subtle shift in self-awareness among Baltic Germans about their position in the Russian Empire. This shift was especially noticeable among the literati, whose material existence was directly threatened by Russification and the consequent loss of many jobs in administration and education. The Empire now appeared less as Vaterland. At the same time, the new German Empire, which was conducting its own Germanization policies, showed no interest in the fate of Baltic Germans; in fact, as Baltic Germans were to discover again and again, the Germans regarded them as Russians. The Livlander, Fanny von Anrep, who was visiting in Heidelberg in 1891, commented bitterly in a letter to a friend about a dinner party she had attended where guests displayed a complete lack of interest in the provinces' fate. She reported that she was asked "what language do you actually speak there" and continued "this attitude is so discouraging. It is more important that the street tram's route will be changed than whether German culture and a few hundred thousand Germans perish somewhere in Russia." 5 8 Experiences of this kind contributed to the Baltic Germans' sense of distance from the German Reich, which they referred to as AusSCHLINGENSIEPEN, p p . 4 9 - 5 8 . C i t e d in KROEGER, " Z u r Situation," p. 627 5 8 ANREP, p. 80. See also E . v o n M e n s e n k a m p f f c o m m e n t s o n h o w he w a s " a g i t a t e d " w h e n as a nine year old sent to s c h o o l to G e r m a n y after the revolution of 1905, he was called a Russian, p. 280. 56 57

228

land (a foreign country, the abroad). They sought to overcome the lack of belonging by an affirmation of the provinces as the Baltic German native land, the Heimat, and by a more conscious acknowledgment of their membership in a great people, the German people, for whom Baltic Germans had served for centuries as a bulwark in the East. 59 We will examine both these aspects in more detail in a later chapter in the context of their impact on the family. Baltic Germans took comfort not from the economic and political prowess of the new German Reich, but from the cultural Germany of the past, the Germany of the great classical and romantic period. Germany became above all the land of Goethe and Schiller, and this culture was celebrated in the Baltic as nowhere else, for the Germans of the Empire had moved on to more material interests and pursuits. 60 This identity with a transfigured Germany also led, again foremost among the literati, to a loosening of the old traditional bonds of loyalty to the Imperial house. By the 1890's a debate was also in full swing in the provinces of how to react to centralization and Russification: to emigrate to Germany in protest? to accommodate to the policies (as had the German bourgeoisie)? to resist and persevere? Most answered in the spirit expressed by Fanny von Anrep, who wrote to a friend in 1882, "it is our duty to persevere ... it is our mission." But this mission had become more difficult for Fanny by 1889. Fanny communicated her feelings in a letter to a German friend, writing: I don't believe we can do anything here and therefore do not have the obligation to stay, though earlier I held this to be a duty of the propertied nobility. But how can one live when all property is tied up in land and one does not have a possibility to make it liquid, and then where should one go? You know yourself how overpopulated Germany is, how serious also is the struggle for existence there, and you know yourself that the broad, comfortable coziness of our life in our land has not been the correct pre-school for a life of work. 61

Alexander von Keyserling, whose son-in-law contemplated emigration in 1889, concurred, writing in his diary, "but how difficult life is in Germany. So great is the competition there for all positions." Keyserling commented on his family's debate on emigration: The inherited position of the family can never be obtained by money, here or elsewhere. All one can do is to obtain other goods in exchange for it: national patriotism, freedom, good government, good schools, religious toleration, and these can only be obtained in Germany. 62

See later chapter on the family for more on the concept of Heimat and German culture. See, for example, the acclaim accorded to Professor of Theology Alexander von Oettingen's series of lectures on Goethe's Faust in Dorpat. KROEGER, "Zur Situation," pp. 609612; PETERSEN, Goethe, pp. 181-185; VIKTOR GRÜNER, AUS meinem Leben - Erinnerungen - Aufsätze - Predigten, ed. RALPH RuHTENBERG (Hannover, 1961), p. 134. 59 60

ANREP, p p . 2 7 a n d 69. KEYSERLING, 2 : 5 4 9 ; HERMANN ONCKEN, Historisch-Politische ( M u n i c h , 1914), p. 112; cf. ARMSTRONG, p. 93. 61

62

Aufsätze

und

Reden

229

The family departed after the son-in-law gained his son's and heir's agreement to the sale of the family manor.63 Notions of perseverance and a dose of reality - an awareness of difficulties in building an existence abroad - kept most Baltic Germans in the provinces. Psychologically, then, the Baltic German nobility and their compatriots reacted to the loss of privilege and status with a turn to the private sphere and the creation of an inwardly transfigured Germany. The steady alienation from the Russian Empire, evident in the discussions of the nineties on emigration, went farthest among the literati, whose very material survival was at stake. The nobles' position was much superior to that of the literati, but alienation was also evident among them, though they were much better off in a material sense, since their property assets had not been touched by the Imperial Government and, besides, there were limits to administrative integration and Russification. The nobility retained manor police rights and church patronage at the local level (these were given up by the Livland corporation in 1906).64 The parish assembly (in Livland the Kirchspielkonvent), which functioned as a unit between the township and district levels with supposed equal peasant and lord representation, remained under noble control, since its head was always a manor owner. The legal foundation of corporate rule, the first volume of the provincial code on administrative law, lost all meaning, though the volume on corporate rights (Ständerecht) remained in force with some adjustments, as did Baltic German civil law. Russification did not touch the organization of the corporations nor their diets, which continued their operation and continued to use German as their business language.65 As before, corporations had the right to taxation of the land.66 Tax monies raised solely from the corporate nobility were used for 63 TAUBE, Im alten Estland, pp. 223-229. Otto von Taube's father owned three manors, among them the entailed family manor Jerwakant. H e wrote that his father was anyway an unwilling farmer, since his ambition had been a diplomatic career, for which he had renounced his birthright as first born son in favor of his younger brother. Upon his brother's death, he was re-called to his "duty." Ibid., p. 70. 64 The Lutheran church, regarded as the master church by many locals, encountered internal difficulties after the 1880's. See, VIKTOR WLTTROCK, In Sturm und Stille: Ein baltisches Pfarrerleben in bewegter Zeit (Schwerin, 1940), pp. 129-138; ADO GRENZSTEIN, Herrenkirche oder Volkskirche f Eine estnische Stimme im baltischen Chor (Iur'ev, 1899),

p p . 9 5 - 9 9 , 1 3 9 - 1 4 8 a n d p a s s i m . T O B I E N , Ritterschaft,

1:211-214.

The same applied to institutions run by the corporations, like the credit associations, and peasant communal administration was conducted in Latvian and Estonian. 66 In Estland, for example, the unit of taxation was the Haken , which had an income estimated at 300 rubles annually. Tax monies were raised for three different accounts (Landschaftskasse paid into by small and large proprietors, Grossgrundbesitzerkasse for only large proprietors irrespective of Stand, Ritterkasse, paid into only by corporate nobles and used specifically for corporate needs). HARALD BARON TOLL, Estlands Landbücher und Landrollen (Reval, 1902), pp. 8-11; GRUENEWALDT, Lebenserinnerungen, p. 100. In 1890, for example, the manor Popen in Kurland, with an assessed value of over half a million rubles, paid a total of 3,638.18 rubles in taxes. BEHR, Edwahlen, p. 376. 65

230

different purposes, for example, stipends and scholarships for needy noble widows and their offspring, support of charitable institutions, education, building and maintenance of corporate property and economic enterprises. Taxes raised from all landed proprietors-and until 1910 peasant land was taxed at a higher rate than noble land - went to recruitment, to administration and the maintenance of the means of communications and the post (though not of railroads), to social welfare, and to support of the medical and prison systems.67 During this period of Russification the Baltic provinces fared better than other western borderlands. Administrative integration did not include the abolition of the corporations or their diets and the substitution of the Russian Charter of the Nobility, a move much feared by the nobility, nor the introduction of zemstvos and a proposed administrative reorganization of the provinces along ethnic lines into new Latvian Riga and Estonian Reval provinces, as had been publicly demanded by the native political movement. Culturally, Russification did not destroy the national identities of either the Germans or of the Estonians and Latvians. At worst, they now commanded Russian with more ease and fluency as a result of educational Russification, since language requirements was the policy the government pursued most rigorously. Until the eve of WW I the government never considered, as did its Soviet successor, a policy of settling of Russians in the provinces. Nor did the government move against the economic position of the nobility by easing the landless condition of the majority rural population with a landed settlement at the expense of the nobility.

67 A dessiatin of noble land was taxed at 10.87 kopecks, peasant land per dessiatin at 63.33 kopecks. PLSTOHLKORS, "Inversion," p. 174. For details, see SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 71-74; RUDOLF VON HOERNER cites figures on educational expenses of the Kurland corporation in Die baltischen Ritterschaften. Ursprung, Wesen und Bedeutung, Baltenland in der Gegenwart und Vergangenheit, Nr. 15 (Berlin and Würzburg, 1918), pp. 100-101. Subsidies for needy corporation members were alloted by the deliberating assemblies or the diets every three years, but there usually was not enough money to go around. This motivated Hermann von Schilling to suggest in 1901 the creation of a special fund for this purpose for the Estland corporation. The fund was to be supported by fines levied according to the law on corporation members who failed to attend the diets without medical excuse. By 1917 no monies had been distributed, though the idea of such a fund interested noble assemblies in other Russian provinces, for example, Samara and Tver, whose marshals requested a copy of the (non-existing) official statute. Estland, in turn, requested a copy of the statute of the "noble mutual assistance fund" from Poltava in 1913. EAA, fond 854, nimistu 2, järjek. 2873. Medical care in rural parishes was organized on the private initiative of the corporate nobles who founded associations, usually along parish lines, with each noble contributing a fixed sum according to the size of his manor, with a special stipend for treatment of his own family. The associations built housing for a doctor and hired him at a set salary. Doctors could treat the peasantry of their own volition, though they were not obliged, as in Russia, to support this service. A[LEXANDER] LAURENTY, "Die landärztlichen Verhältnisse, insbesondere in Kurland," BM 2 (1860): 199. GRUENEWALDT, Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 100-101.

231

Neither the remaining feudal manor privileges nor corporate control over agrarian and credit associations was abolished. 68 Overall, the Ständestaat and with it the politico-legal position of the nobility had been severely undercut. The nobility still played an important role in rural self-government. But it now confronted a majority population of Estonians and Latvians who were freed from noble administrative and judicial control and were no longer amenable to Baltic German overlordship. The nobility's feelings of insecurity were reinforced when it had to rely on Russian bayonets during revolutionary disturbances in 1905/06. The nobility and, one might add, the Imperial government were equally shocked by this event, the latter because it had mistakenly regarded the situation in the provinces as stable. Their dependence on the Imperial government always limited Baltic German ability to resist Russification and the consequent noble insecurity underlined and enhanced the importance of maintaining their social and economic status in a period of change. 69 Economic prosperity could at least assure social exclusiveness and serve as a compensation for loss of political privilege. In this area, the Baltic German nobility faced challenges as never before. In response to these challenges the Baltic Germans sought strength and refuge in the family; they found both of these in a family system that, for all apparent claims of immobility, was changing as rapidly as the world about it.

68 N o r in the following decades would the government interfere in the reform of taxation which was discussed by the corporate nobility from 1901-1910. Remaining manor privileges consisted of the right to hold fairs on the manor, the building of inns and taverns, the sale of beer and victuals, and brewing of beer and liquor. TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung,

2:311. 69

THADEN, "Epilogue," in Russification,

pp. 155-156.

232

p. 462; PlSTOHLKORS,

Ritterschaftlicbe,

Our Baltic idyll fights on in a difficult, perhaps the last battle for its existence. From all sides storm bells are ringing against it, and we... are regarded by a mighty party as the long-term representatives of a criminal egoism... Now anxious cares have awakened, not only over the cultivation of our dearest interests and the good things, the preservation of custom and the morality of the land, but also about the security of our own hearth, our own existence and that of our children... In what then did our specific Baltic life consist.... In t h e f a m i l y ! The family and familial life (familienhafte) has been the hallmark until now of our common Baltic life. Until now we have formed one great family. This could only happen because the composition of our population and the political situation of our land tightly limited the number of participants... Everybody knew everybody else, if not by name, at least by family. But now it seems that the time has come when our land too - even if with a heavy heart - has to pay the tribute which the wild bustle of the world pays almost everywhere, and must enter the busy treadmill of modern business, where unknown and few trustworthy elements are supposed to take the place of acquaintances and relatives. The familial character of our life is in danger of disappearing. B u t n e v e r t h e f a m i l y itself. On the contrary, however, our future will be shaped, it only promises a deepening of the family.... The more unfriendly the outside world, the warmer and cozier the inner one. The native land (Heimat) may be lost, but the home remains.1

Chapter X: The Family D r a w s in u p o n Itself The quoted comments in the epigraph on the family as a sanctuary from the heartless competitive outside world were published in the Baltische Monatsschrift in 1891. They reflect Baltic German reaction to the impact of change: social change, economic challenge, the national awakening of the Latvians and Estonians, administrative centralization, and cultural Russification. These had struck at the very foundation of the well ordered Baltic German medieval so1

"Die Familie," BM 38 (1891):697-699.

233

Our Baltic idyll fights on in a difficult, perhaps the last battle for its existence. From all sides storm bells are ringing against it, and we... are regarded by a mighty party as the long-term representatives of a criminal egoism... Now anxious cares have awakened, not only over the cultivation of our dearest interests and the good things, the preservation of custom and the morality of the land, but also about the security of our own hearth, our own existence and that of our children... In what then did our specific Baltic life consist.... In t h e f a m i l y ! The family and familial life (familienhafte) has been the hallmark until now of our common Baltic life. Until now we have formed one great family. This could only happen because the composition of our population and the political situation of our land tightly limited the number of participants... Everybody knew everybody else, if not by name, at least by family. But now it seems that the time has come when our land too - even if with a heavy heart - has to pay the tribute which the wild bustle of the world pays almost everywhere, and must enter the busy treadmill of modern business, where unknown and few trustworthy elements are supposed to take the place of acquaintances and relatives. The familial character of our life is in danger of disappearing. B u t n e v e r t h e f a m i l y itself. On the contrary, however, our future will be shaped, it only promises a deepening of the family.... The more unfriendly the outside world, the warmer and cozier the inner one. The native land (Heimat) may be lost, but the home remains.1

Chapter X: The Family D r a w s in u p o n Itself The quoted comments in the epigraph on the family as a sanctuary from the heartless competitive outside world were published in the Baltische Monatsschrift in 1891. They reflect Baltic German reaction to the impact of change: social change, economic challenge, the national awakening of the Latvians and Estonians, administrative centralization, and cultural Russification. These had struck at the very foundation of the well ordered Baltic German medieval so1

"Die Familie," BM 38 (1891):697-699.

233

cial order. Political and economic change and social challenges led Baltic Germans to withdraw to the haven of the family and to a conscious cultivation of family and home as bulwarks of German nationality, culture, and historical tradition. Anxiety over status and prestige was countered by strategies that emphasized the wider family in its vertical genealogical and historical lines, the family's past and tradition, and the creation of family foundations. Beginning with the 1860's, when the literat Theodor Bötticher wrote to a friend that "with our political conditions, we doubly need the security of the domestic hearth," the concept that the Baltic German family existed in full harmony with the public world, a view quite different from that of the German lands, shifted to a view of the family as refuge and bulwark, a place to withdraw in a period of political and social and economic change.2 By the 1890's this sentiment cut across all educated segments of Baltic German society and explains the public acclaim accorded to a series of lectures in the late 1880's by Professor Carl Erdmann at Dorpat entitled, "What is left to us?" Erdmann's discussion listed "native land (Heimat), family, honor - and finally, happiness in a corner (Winkel)."* As discussed in an earlier chapter, the cult of the family, the ideology of the characterization of the sexes, and associated cults of "domestic womanhood" and motherhood were well established in the Baltic provinces by mid-century. This cult rose to new heights and became endowed with an aura of sanctity vigorously defended by socially conservative pastors, pedagogues, and nobles. The cult was further buttressed by the ideological influence in the Baltic of W. H. Riehl, one of the founders of a conservative sociology of the family. Riehl's book on the family (1855) was intended as a housebook or reader for the German family, especially women. The author defended the patriarchal family as a " G o d given law of nature," as "self-evident natural law." Riehl stressed the emotional, sentimental, and authority relationships in the family in its pursuit of family goals and family solidarity. Riehl's view of the family as a refuge in times of political and socio-economic turbulence made his Baltic German readership particularly receptive to his views.4 SERAPHIM, Baltische Schicksale, pp. 89-90. See chapter on Cult of the Family for details. KROEGER, "Zur Situation," p. 623. Karl Erdmann (1841-1898) was professor of Baltic civil law at Dorpat from 1872-1893, when he lost his position due to Russification. Cf. J. ENGELMANN, "Professor Dr. jur. Karl Erdmann," B M 55 (1903):27. 4 T o Riehl, the family formed the link between state and society, the family was based on morality, the state on law. The authority structure of the patriarchal family arose not from economic, social or political circumstances, but because of a " G o d given law of nature." Riehl romanticized the "whole house" with its harmonious community whose ties were cut by the increasingly materialistic urban capitalistic society of the nineteenth century. WILHELM HEINRICH RIEHL, Die Naturgeschichte des Volkes als Grundlage einer deutschen Sozial-Politik, vol. 3: Die Familie (Stuttgart, 1855). In the preface to the first edition, Riehl expressed his desire that "this book will be experienced as a small work of art - you may call it an idyll of the Germany house - and be so adopted as a housebook in this or that family, 2

3

234

Family Ο. Robert von Campenhausen (Campenhausen Archiv, Herder-Institut) In t h e Baltic G e r m a n context, the cult of t h e family had yet a n o t h e r c o m p o n e n t directly connected t o the b r e a k d o w n of the old o r d e r and t o Russification. T h e family and h o m e became t h e guarantors of G e r m a n nationality, G e r m a n spirit, and G e r m a n customs. Baltic G e r m a n s n o w became n e w l y self-conscious and aware of their G e r m a n n e s s a n d of their G e r m a n culture. T h i s was a change f r o m the well o r d e r e d w o r l d earlier in t h e c e n t u r y w h e n it had been status, n o t nationality t h a t c o u n t e d . O f course o n l y t h o s e of G e r m a n nationality, and a m o n g t h e m o n l y those of the u p p e r ranks, had e n j o y e d such status. B u t in that

especially by German women." The book went through seventeen editions by 1935. It was widely read in the Baltic and articles on the family, the position of women and their education were imbued with Riehl's views, often with direct reference to him. See, for example, F. SLNTENLUS, "Über Frauenlitteratur. Warum dichten Frauen," Β Μ 43 (1896):463; CONRADI, " Zur Erziehungsfrage," p. 336; FRANZ HOLLMANN, "Bedeutung und Begrenzung der häuslichen Erziehung in der Gegenwart," Mittbeilungen und Nachrichten für die evangelische Kirche in Russland 35 (Riga, 1879):201-220. The pastor and pedagogue Hollmann read Riehl with pleasure on his wedding trip in 1862. In a letter to his siblings, Hollmann reported how "pleased I was that I found myself in many things in agreement with Riehl. There were, however, also ...enough new things which I had to absorb and work through." WLTTRAM, Drei Generationen, p. 192; "Bericht über ein altes Tagebuch," BM 34 (1888):783; L. P., "Briefe an eine Livländerin," BM (1877):18-37; HI, Baltikum 400/675, "Tagebücher," entry for 24 March 1868; ECKARDT, Zur Charakteristik, p. 14; this literature is discussed in WHELAN, "The Debate." 235

earlier time no self-conscious cultivation of Germanness was needed, since the German character of the provinces was not under attack. German culture had been highly valued, but as a "local badge of caste and privilege." Now Germanness became "a mystic birthright to which every member of the German national community was entitled."5 The central agent in this struggle to preserve Baltic Deutschtum now became woman as wife and mother, because "the spirit of the people is that of the home; the spirit of the home, however, is the spirit of the woman, the mother." Alexander von Oettingen publicly praised Baltic German women, "without whom we would long be lost," in a speech celebrating the foundation day of the Livonia Fraternity in 1900. He added a variant of a poem by Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) that included these final lines: And you — you German women In the native land of the Baits Help us guard our home.6

With the claim that the very fate of Germanness depended on woman's service to the family, the ideology of the characterization of the sexes continued to play a major role. The 1880's and 1890's saw a constant reiteration of woman's destiny as wife and mother as her only fit occupation, for now Germanness itself was at stake. The note of urgency underlying the articles affirming the family and woman's role and destiny reflects how crucial the social conservatives judged their mission as they confronted the increased complexity of life in the provinces. Capitalism with its economic and social opportunities and the new demands it made on all segments of society threatened to undermine old values and more. Social and economic change and the political and national challenges to the old order led in the Baltic provinces to a spirited defense of the German family.7 As the links of corporate society were increasingly broken down, identity, social status, and security were found more and more in the family alone. 5 C. LEONARD LUNDIN, "The Road from Tsar to Kaiser: Changing Loyalties of the Baltic Germans, 1905-1914," Journal of Central European Affairs 10, Nr. 3 (1950):228. The Baltic nobility's traditional pride of Stand over pride of nation was one of the distinguishing features of the European aristocracy, a feature that increasingly gave way in the age of nationalism. 6 In order of citation, "Psychologische Betrachtungen zur Frauenfrage," BM 37 (1890):609; "Haus und Heimat," Heimatstimmen 2 (1906):8. After the revolution of 1905 the emphasis on woman's role as savior of the Baltic German land continued with renewed vigor. Ibid., passim; see also KARL ARNOLD, who in 1906 wrote that "more than in Imperial Germany our Baltic life is concentrated in the family...The foundation of our families are the women, in them, the mothers of the next generation, lies the future of any country." "Theodor Hermann Pantenius," in Heimatstimmen 2 (1906):187. In 1913 B[RUNO] ERDMANN wrote that "we especially need a strong stock of German families as the mark of the wholeness of our Deutschtum." "Einige Glossen," BM 75 (1913):1:410. 7 See WHELAN, "The Debate" for greater detail.

236

W i t h d r a w a l to H e a r t h and H e i m a t The linkage between family and Germanness was associated with another transformation in the way Baltic Germans viewed their historical role in the Baltic lands. The Baltic Germans, especially the nobility, had traditionally seen themselves as intermediaries, providing a "natural bridge between East and West, called... to lead to the East the civilization of the West." 8 This role of intermediary now became transformed to the role of bulwark in the defense of German culture over the course of a "seven hundred year struggle". 9 In the role of outpost for German culture Baltic Germans found a new purpose and historical justification. Earlier, German culture had been a sign of caste and privilege. Arrogance and haughtiness still characterized the Baltic Germans in the latter part of the century, but now the newly sanctified role of cultural bulwark lent to Germanness a new apostledom, a reason for existence. 10 The task of the family was to defend this position and to impress upon its members the achievements of the past and thus strengthen love for the native land, the Heimat. The emotion-laden term Heimat, hardly used before Russification, when the term "Land," was more common, became in the words of a Baltic German, "the most commonly used w o r d " thereafter. 11 In Erdmann's 1888 lecture on "the nature of Heimat," he emphasized that: We cannot allow ourselves to forget what we owe the soil that nourished us and our fathers and to which we owe a great deal of gratitude spiritually, the connection with the past, historical consciousness... We owe loyalty to the soil... 12

Historical consciousness grew among Baltic Germans, expressed in a quantitative growth of Baltic German historical writing and an extension of interest from the medieval to modern and contemporary topics. Much of this work was

8

O S E N B R Ü G G E N , P. 106.

9

A R N O L D , p. 177.

KROEGER, " Z u r Situation," pp. 623-633. Cited in KROEGER, p. 630. According to the Grosse Brockbaus, the concept of Heimat as a value of its own arose in the German lands after the breakdown of status-ordered society; as Kroeger notes, this applies equally to the Baltic during this period. The Baltic German annual publication Heimatstimmen (1904-1912) was designed to cultivate love of "native land." The editors set themselves the task to "guard and preserve the national specialness" and to "awaken the sense for spiritual and cultural life" in the provinces. Their readership was to be "the educated Baltic German family, since it was among their honor duties to see to a good private library." Preface, vol. 2. T o w a r d the end of the century, two Baltic German poets, Ch. Mickwitz and J. Grotthuss composed ornate, emotion-laden songs on the native land that became enormously popular. For Mickwitz's, see ibid., 2:4. 10 11

12

B M 34 (1888):198.

237

driven by the ideological perspectives of Russification. 1 3 " K n o w l e d g e of hist o r y " would awaken "love of Heimat," as the Livland counselor Arthur von Richter told the assembled members of " T h e Society for History and Antiqu i t y " at its fiftieth anniversary celebration in 1884. 14 Baltic noble families embraced as one of their tasks the cultivation of historical consciousness and love of native land. N o b l e fathers demonstrated their commitment by example, joining " T h e Society for History and Antiquity," whose membership, consisting mainly of nobles and literati, tripled between 1884 to 1894. " T h e Association for the Knowledge of Ösel," founded in 1865, almost doubled its membership in the three years 1887-1890 from thirty-seven to sixty-three members. 1 5 Many towns founded their own historical associations with noble support. Historical consciousness also manifested itself in a more immediate way, a cultivation by nobles of their own family history, looking to the past and tradition with a view to the present and future. The "narrower" intimate family became more purposefully connected than earlier in the century to the wider or extended patrilineal family in the vertical genealogical line. Fathers had traditionally emphasized to their sons the importance of family ancestral pride and honor. But the past and traditions of the wider family were now used more consciously as a tool for educating the new generation. E m m y von Campenhausen noted in her diary that "in the education of one's sons, one has to know above all one's family history - in order to educate them in the feeling of respect and duty which they owe former times..." A family chronicle ... is the dearest treasure, one that not only opens up the most interesting models, but also gives the most instructive and most urgent admonitions for the necessary self-education and fostering of the youth entrusted to one. I am becoming more and more conscious of the valuable foundation on which this family grew and achieved its abilities (Tüchtigkeit). With doubled vigor and that loyalty to duty which does not restrict itself to the demands of the moment - we have to watch over the present generation and have to engage in keeping the current history of the house.16

Consciousness of family history was useful in awakening children's interest and pride in their family's past and its connection to the native land. It also inculca13 Eighteen Baltic Germans were trained in the "historical-philological method" by the Göttingen professor S. Waitz. PLSTOHLKORS, "Geschichtsschreibung," p. 275. For a review of Baltic historical writing in this period, and an examination of its pitfalls, see GARLEFF, pp. 233-271. The Baltic German historian and noble, Hermann von Bruiningk, set as the new goal for Baltic German history the "appreciation of prior cultural work and the preservation of German culture." Ibid., p. 271. 14 Cited in KROEGER, "Zur Situation," p. 617. The society was founded in 1834 in Riga with the goal of exploring provincial history. It published a journal, Archiv für die Geschichte Liv-, Est- und Kurlands. Most other societies of the time had a literary orientation and were founded under the influence of romanticism and the experience of the Napoleonic

w a r s . WEISS, p p . 1 2 1 - 1 4 0 . 15 16

238

KROEGER, "Zur Situation," p. 617. Two new Osel members were merchants. HI, Baltikum 400/675, diary entries for 17 March 1887, 1 July 1882.

ted values of duty, honor, and respect and provided role models. Honored first names of distinguished ancestors were given more frequently upon the birth of children. More noble families began to work on their family's history, collected documents, or at least worked on genealogical registers, an effort supported after 1893 by the genealogical section of the Kurland "Society for Literature and the Arts", which published annually the Jahrbuch

für Genealogie,

Heraldik

und Sphragistik. Three Baltic German nobles became well known genealogists and were instrumental in promoting the journal's genealogical and historical work. 1 7 According to Welding, about eighty-seven Baltic German noble families had family histories, most of them prepared after the 1850's (fourteen of these were only completed after W W I), twenty-four families composed their genealogical tables, and twenty-four had documentary collections. Much of this remained unpublished, and Welding noted with regret that only one-tenth of Baltic German noble families possessed printed family histories. 18

Family Foundations Noble families adopted other strategies to preserve the status and prestige of the wider family. Among these none was more important than the creation of family foundations (Familienlegate) to stress the connection with the living wider family. Few existed before the 1860's; after that their numbers grew significantly. 19 Their purpose was to promote family consciousness, prestige, honor, and 17 A. von Rahden, Α. von Transehe-Roseneck, E. von Fircks distinguished themselves by their efforts. In 1908 the genealogical section was transformed into the "Genealogical Society of the Baltic provinces." WEISS, p. 123. Still, the Baltic nobility never quite reached the excessive and obsessive family pride or mania for genealogy characteristic of much of the European aristocracy. 18 OLAF WELDING, "Das baltische genealogische Schrifttum 1700-1939," in Ostdeutsche Familienkunde 6 (1958):54. Welding included some non-matriculated noble families in his account of family histories. He particularly praised the family history done by the historian H. von Bruiningk, who was highly respected as the president of the Society of History and Antiquity (1890-1902). WEISS, p. 125. For a review of Baltic German genealogy, see WEL-

DING,"Das baltische," Ostdeutsche

Familienkunde

6 (1958):49-54, 90-94, 7 (1959):109-113,

137-139; SEEBERG-ELVERFELDT, "Die baltische Genealogie," pp. 141-171. Many families had a family historian who was in charge of its history. Fond 1100 in the Latvian State Archive ( L W A ) contains numerous examples of noble families working on their genealogy in this period. See Apraksta Nr. 4, Lietas Nr. 3, Apraksta Nr. 9, Lietas Nr. 16. The "Genealogical Commission" of the Kurland corporation was also quite active in this matter. See L W A , Aprakstaa Nr. 13, Lietas Nr. 999, pp. 311-318; Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 122, pp. 19-20. Three "genealogical periods" can be observed: in the first family papers were gathered for registration into the corporation in the eighteenth century, the second period concerned the application of families for confirmation of the baron title, the third period occurred after Russification. 19 According to E. VON SAMSON-HIMMELSTJERNA, the first such foundation was founded in 1806 by the Livland marshal of the nobility, C. G. von Samson-Himmelstjerna. "Güterfideikomisse," p. 191.

239

status and to give moral and material support. The latter included financial aid in the purchase of manors, stipends for poor widows and unmarried women, and educational stipends for needy male youths. Foundations were also charged with keeping genealogical registers and creating or preserving a family cemetery, thereby raising the manor where the cemetery was located to the status of family manor (or locating it at the original hereditary manor (Stammgut) of the family if it was still owned). The foundation also organized and held annual family gatherings. The preamble of the Stackelberg family foundation states: In consideration of the common descent and imbued (beseelt) with the wish that the numerous far-flung living members of the Stackelberg family will be tied through a common bond of brotherly love and unity, the members of the family, named below, have decided to found a family foundation to promote and preserve the consciousness of their belonging together and for the benefit of those members who are in need of assistance.20

The Engelhardt foundation's preamble stressed family consciousness, "moral and material support in order to uphold status, duty, and honor...."21 The Stryk family foundation was created "to rouse the family's descendants to emulate the loyalty to duty and work of their ancestors by securing the blessings of a solid education and Bildung."11 The creation of such foundations for the benefit of the wider family was regulated by Baltic German civil law, article 2348. Legally, such foundations could only be created upon the death of a founder who laid down his stipulations in his last will for confirmation by the court. Under the impact of the perceived threat to the nobility after the mid-nineteenth century, more families pushed for the establishment of foundations during their lifetime, and the custom arose to have such foundations confirmed by the Imperial Committee of Ministers.23 Founders usually contributed initial capital, which was to be supplemented by later gifts and an annual membership fee, ad20

Die Stackelberg

im Wandel der Jahrhunderte,

ed. CONSTANTIN AND ANDRE VON

STACKELBERG a n d HELMUT MUSKAT ( L i m b u r g , 1968), preface.

21 HSA, 702, Transehe'sche Bibliothek. "Statut der Stiftung zur gegenseitigen Unterstützung der freiherrlichen Familie von Engelhardt." Reval, 1903; for other examples which provide insight into each family's purpose, and legacies differed in their emphasis, see HSA, 702, Kotzebue, Nr. 5, 1882; MÜHLEN, Die Familie von zur Mühlen, pp. 161-163; MAYDELL, Das freiherrliche Geschlecht Maydell, pp. 18-39; WOLFF, Die Reichsfreiherren von Wolff, pp. 148-152; HSA, 701. XIV. 8. Karton 4, "Brieflade Steinensee." Meersheidt-Hüllensche Familienstiftung 1891. Die Freiherren und Grafen Schmysing v. Korff, ed. ALEXANDER VON GERNET, 2 vols. (SPb., 1894-1913), 2:874-875; L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 9, Lietas Nr. 7. Some foundations, like that of the Princes Lieven, set a firm date for the annual family day, at which time financial awards would be announced to needy family members and decisions would be made on exclusion from the foundation of members whose "actions are contrary to the honor and dignity of the family." The entry fee to the foundation was set at 100 rubles and the annual contribution at 25 rubles. (LVVA, fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 8, Lietas Nr. 9). 22 EAA, fond 2489, nimistu 1, järjek. 1, "Statuten des von Strykschen Familienlegats." 23 SAMSON-HLMMELSTJERNA, "Güterfideikomisse," pp. 189-191.

240

ministered by a committee of three or more family members. One of the best endowed foundations was that of the Wolff family, which in 1899 reached a capital of 367,100 rubles and was used to aid younger members in the purchase of manors, for their education at school or at institutions of higher learning, with travel grants to widen horizons abroad, and for pensions for needy widows and unmarried women in order to establish a safety net and preserve the honor of the family. 24 Educational stipends from their family foundation enabled several needy young Maydells to complete university studies. P. Johannes Maydell pursued a six year course of medical study at Dorpat, finishing with a doctoral degree in 1894. Hugo R. von Maydell became a chemist, and yet another Maydell was able to begin his military career in the guards with a one-time stipend for equipment. 25 As E. von Samson-Himmelstjerna noted, family foundations "increased family consciousness and the feeling of belongingness" and "in the future will make it easier for many families to fulfill their traditional cultural tasks because their material basis was secured and their prestige raised." 26 Family "consciousness and belongingness" was further cemented at annual family gatherings. When Emmy von Campenhausen, born Samson-Himmelstjerna, attended her family's annual gathering in 1880, she was filled with family pride and pleased with the full blossoming of that family stock and that noble modesty,... which never could do enough for genuine Bildung... Total competence in their profession was always the mark and the main virtue of the Samson family. 27

Emmy indeed came from one of the more capable Baltic German noble families, but even as she praised the Samsons, she also expressed pride in the history of her new family, the Campenhausens, on whose history she worked because it was "a significant history for Livland." 28 Connection with the wider family also came through a family cemetery located at the special family manor. Only upon permission from the consistory of the Lutheran church was the creation of a family cemetery allowed. When the newly married Elly von Campenhausen, born von Stryk, visited the Campenhausen family manor, Orellen, she remembered that we wandered under big ancient oaks to the Capellenberg [the location of cemetery], where it was quiet and peaceful, lovingly cared for and the thought that one would also rest there sometime after the conclusion of one's life was even then not a terrible one. One is not aban-

24 25

26 27

28

WOLFF, Die Reichsfreiherren, MAYDELL, Das freiherrliche,

pp. 148-152. p p . 1 8 , 1 9 , 23, 3 6 , 39.

SAMSON-HIMMELSTJERNA, "Güterfideikomisse," p. 190. HI, Baltikum 400/675, "Tagebücher," entry for 24 August 1880 Ibid.

241

doned and forgotten in a family cemetery that belongs to a lived-in manor, but continues to remain a family member.29

The new sense of insecurity where the status and prestige of a family was no longer a given also directed the attention of Baltic German nobles to the upbringing and education of the next generation. Not all of them were certain about the proper methods in preparing their offspring for the changed world. Fanny von Anrep, the mother of four sons between the ages of eight and sixteen, wrote in a troubled letter to a friend in 1880: I believe our sons are going to face a difficult time, because the nationality hatred among Russians and Estonians will become worse, and even if it is only a small fraction of country folk which confronts us with such hostility now, one knows only too well how luxuriantly a malevolent seed germinates, and it is easy to foresee that the hatred will grow mightily. Our serious men look gloomily into the future and prophesy troubled times for our children. Moreover, we understand so little about how to bring them up to steel their character and make them capable of resistance.30

Fanny, a thoughtful and cultured woman, was critical of the Baltic German emphasis on comfort and leisure that made it difficult to impress on children from early on that "times are changing" and "that they have to create their own livelihood." "Our amiable Baits have too little backbone" and "lack zealousness for work," she wrote in 1886, and conceded ten years later in a letter to a German friend that she had failed with her own sons since "our young men are much too spoilt, too much aristocrats to work as is necessary..."31 In his speech on the occasion of the 550th anniversary celebration of the Cathedral school in Reval, Konstantin von Ungern-Sternberg told the assembled students "that the much desired and customary patronage for getting on in life must stop and will stop, [for] only goal-directed work and achievement count." Ungern's recommendation of hard work and achievement reflected accommodation to the demands of a capitalistic society, where Ungern himself was confident that the students would again occupy the "first place, as had their predecessors."32 Fanny's assessment of her compatriots' abilities was more negative, though not unusual. Her judgment was perhaps too severe, since as we 29 HI, Baltikum 400/627, "Erinnerungen," p. 68. The Oeningen family, for example, founded its family cemetery at the manor Jensei. HSA, 702, Oeningen, Nr. 33, "Die drei," p. 270. Alexander von Oeningen wrote in 1906 about Jensel and its "quiet and peaceful cemetery, which already shelters now in its bosom so many members of the family and became in that way in a special sense the homestead." OETTINGEN, "Haus," Heimatstimmen 2:22. For other examples, see the WOLFF'S cemetery at the estate Laitzen, Die Reichsfreiherren, p. 421 or the Blanckenhagen cemetery, HSA, 702, Nr. 39. 30

ANREP, p . 2 4 .

Ibid., in order of citation, pp. 39, 45, 27, 152. 32 As recorded by Gustav von Stryk in the reminiscences of his youth. EAA, fond 2489, Nimistu 1, järjek. 53, p. 11. 31

242

shall see the generations after mid-century did, after all, manage to adapt to capitalist agriculture with growing success at the same time as they also expanded their professional vistas. Herbert von Blankenhagen^ comments, however, are indicative of a change that occurred over the next decades in the position of the corporate nobility. [In 1867] one was well to do without being especially rich. One was conscientious and dutiful without becoming the rushed and fearful slave of one's work. One found time for broad sociability, for deepened Bildung, and for a contemplative cultivated life. One stood above work, not under its compulsion. One did not know anxiety. 33

Fanny von Anrep's observations reflect the fears and anxieties that plagued the upper levels of Baltic German society about their uncertain future in general and their children's fate in particular. She had attempted to establish at least one son in Germany, but he returned home after seven years to resume life as manor lord, a return which she greeted with mixed feelings and a sense of failure. Upbringing and education to "steel" children and prepare them for a life of hard work could not be changed quickly in a society used to aristocratic ways. But changes in both upbringing and education came none the less.

33

H S A , 702, N r . 39, p. 5; cf. SERAPHIM, Im neuen Jahrhundert,

p. 15.

243

C h a p t e r X I : T h e F a m i l y P r e p a r e s its C h i l d r e n : 1855-1905 In the new age, parents did not lack advice on their obligations and responsibilities regarding their children's proper upbringing and education. In this mission, the German home was again irreplaceable. The well known pastor and pedagogue Friedrich Hollmann stressed in his speech on the "Significance and Limits of H o m e Education" to the Livland synod in 1879 that the "decisive initiative" in children's upbringing belonged to the home, not the state, the school, or the church. Parents played the central role in home life and must "through their mutual relationship fill the house ... with 'good spirit,' as Jean Paul calls it." H e continued that this spirit "is rooted in truthfulness and reverence {Pietät)... based on a self-denying love that encourages all virtues." H e noted that children's nature requires "authoritative guidance" and encouragement of the "ideal trait of the human spirit." Recalling Jean Paul, Hollmann stressed that "love makes everything possible" and that love for children and "dedication to their lives" were the necessary components in any upbringing designed to shape children's character. Upbringing in the home should, first of all, accustom the children to the "customs of the house." Given the position of Baltic Germans as a "colony surrounded by associates of other nationalities," it should also familiarize them with the "customs of the land" and of the "nation." According to Hollmann, these values were still the ones most cultivated among the corporate nobility. A second goal consisted in educating children to "moral freedom," so that the child "can decide of his own will and independently the pursuit of his heavenly calling." A third component of upbringing consisted in "intellectual Bildung," for demands had risen in this "educational era," and here home teaching, followed by instruction outside the home, was limited by the capabilities of the individual home. 1 Hollmann stressed the importance of child development over role training, as there was no "dressage for heaven." In this context, Hollmann and other pedagogues, in the words of A. Löffler, the director of the Birkenruh gymnasium 1 HOLLMANN thought that among all European states only England still was conscious of the value of the home as the guardian of its " Kulturmacht." "Bedeutungpp. 210-217. See WlTTRAM's section on Hollmann in his Drei Generationen, pp. 174-217, on Hollmann's article, pp. 205-206. Hollmann had served as pastor, as general superintendant of the Livland consistory (1889), as director of the pedagogical seminary for native teachers supported by the Estland corporation (1873-1887) and, at the beginning of his career, as a private tutor and a teacher at a private gymnasium.

245

in 1875, criticized an exaggerated parental emphasis on the development of the "outward" or "worldly sense" of their offspring; this they blamed on the corrosive influence on hearth and home of the materialistic culture of capitalism. Imbued with the ideal of Bildung with its gospel of Idealism, Löffler demanded that children bring from their homes "reverence for the great and sublime."2 Though the German classical age had long passed, a half century later the educational ideals of pastor-pedagogues were still inspired by Jean Paul, the promoter of child development, and by the ideals of the major figures of that age, from Kant and Lessing to Schleiermacher, W. Humboldt, Goethe, and Schiller. Pietist recommendations on upbringing also remained strong, as in the works of J. H. Herbart (1776-1841), who remained the most influential pedagogical author in the Baltic in the second half of the century, long after pietism had waned. In Herbart's major work, Allgemeine Pädagogik (1806), the goal of education was to foster the "character strength of morality" and "inner freedom." 3

Childhood Mother

and

Child

Parents had the central role in their children's upbringing, but between the parents often the sole and certainly the most important figure was the mother. Even forty years after Hollman's speech, the mother was still the central axis around which revolved the life of the child. As a teacher, Carl Russwurm, wrote, "God has tied her to the child with the strongest bonds of nature ... [in which] are mirrored the nature of parents and the true love, sacrificial patience, untiring care devoted to the child." The profession of parenthood was a "high profession, a holy obligation." 4 Mothers like Ida von Wrangell took their responsibility seriously, writing that "the upbringing of my children was my most important and dearest work of my life." 5 2 ALBERT LÖFFLER, "Zwei Reden gehalten zur 50jährigen Jubelfeier der Erziehungsanstalt von Birkenruh," BM 24 (1875):125—127; Löffler demanded also "a religious sense" which alone "will produce a sense of duty, good behavior, and industry." Cf. SCHWARTZ, p. 90. 3 See FERTIG, Zeitgeist for a concise summary of educational ideas of German classical figures and on Herbart, pp. 371-375. On Herbart, see PAULSEN, 1:240-242. The pastor August Bielenstein put special emphasis on following such of Herbart's precepts as "the awakening in youth of many-sided interests" in his own educational enterprise at home. Herbart was often wrongly accused of putting too much emphasis on the acquisition of "knowledge." 4

CARL RUSSWURM, " Ü b e r Kleinkinderschulen," BM 6 6 ( 1 9 0 9 ) : 1 3 2 .

WRANGELL, Das Leben, p. 55. Her life was marked by tragedy since she lost three children and, as she wrote "nothing is more painful, more difficult than the death of one's own children, which put its stamp on the remainder of my life." Ibid., p. 40. 5

246

Elisabeth von Campenhausen with son Leopold (1903) (Campenhausen Archiv, HerderInstitut)

247

Ernestine Baroness Schoultz-Ascheraden, b. Campenhausen with Foster-Children Ernst and Leonie von Campenhausen (Campenhausen Archiv, Herder Institut)

248

Children may have benefitted from this attention, but this did not mean that role training had been displaced. It persisted as before, practiced less severely, perhaps, but still involved physical punishment when children were recalcitrant.6 In some families role training still predominated and at least a few women feared and doubted the merits of the excessive role training they observed about them. Emmy von Campenhausen, then a mother of young children, noted in 1875 that she had great fear "of mere dressage and training and [I] call it actually a promotion to spiritual death." Another Campenhausen, Elly, in connection with the methods practiced by a friend of hers, said that while "we wanted to foster a natural upbringing, she always stresses obedience only, and forcing the self into narrow bands and forms, which to us appears damaging." 7 Mothers such as these Campenhausen women tended to combine role training with warmth. Fathers, as heads of the family, expected the respect prescribed them by G o d (so said pastors and pedagogues) and were wont to be stricter. Marga von Stryk, born in 1860, noted that "of Father we were afraid and held him in great respect. To our mother we were attached." Freda von Gersdorff, born in 1889, observed that her "father's principle in upbringing was strictness, obedience, fulfillment of duty, all practiced in the Prussian manner." Eduard von Dellingshausen remembered " a feeling of reverence" toward his father. 8 Role training, then, was still prevalent to a certain degree in most noble families and children were expected to show "obedience, industry, order, fulfillment of duty, punctuality, and self control," in the words of Esther von Campenhausen in a letter to her young grandson, Roderich von Freytag-Loringhoven of 1872.9 Children were also to be physically hardened. Alice von Sivers noted that "we wore throughout the whole year low-necked dresses and never got to eat cheese or butter, which then was considered unhealthy, but only skim milk." 1 0 Children were kept busy (though boys were now excused from the knitting that had earlier been required of them). They were allowed their play, but some, at least, complained that they no longer had the rich fantasy life of earlier times. 11 Girls, in contrast, were now regarded and treated less as "little 6 See, for example, FOELKERSAHM, " E i n Livländer," p. 29; ROSEN, Familiengeschichte von Rosen, p. b251; TAUBE, Im alten, p. 20. 7 In order of citation, H I , Baltikum 400/675, entry for 24 September 1875; ibid.., N r . 627, p. 98. 8 In order, H I , Baltikum 400/632, Marga von Campenhausen, "Erinnerungen." P R A / S o l m s . Freda von Solms, b. Gersdorff, "Meine Lebenserinnerungen," p. 13. DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste, p. 21; FOELKERSAHM, " E i n Livländer," p. 20. 9 H I , Baltikum 400/565; ibid., N r . 683, p. 29. For examples, see the works by DELLINGSHAUSEN, MENSENKAMPFF, ROSEN, O . VON TAUBE, H . VON FOELKERSAHM cited in this study. 10 H I , Baltikum 400/588, "Erinnerungen," p. 35. 11 " A u s der guten alten Zeit," Aus vergangenen Tagen, p. 105. GAETHGENS, in her AltLivland describes children's games and entertainments conducted with a good deal of noise that was generally tolerated by the adult world, pp. 48-52.

249

women," and were allowed more physical freedom with "abandoned outdoor play," "climbing trees," "skating," "sledding," and later in the century even bicycling, tennis, and riding. 12 O t t o von Taube fondly remembered the "joyful children's books of Doktor Bertram, composed by a Bait [the physician Georg von Schultz] for Baltic conditions which often replaced ... the

Struwwelpeter

and was learned by heart by children, parents, and pedagogues." 13 (If these books were anything like their popular German model, which while unsophisticated in the extreme conveys an atmosphere so naive and colorful that even children do not take it seriously, then one can understand the popularity of Bertram's creation). Children's manners were still polished by social intercourse, but in departure from earlier custom, balls were introduced for children after age nine, a custom of the second part of the century among upper level Baltic German society much criticized by contemporaries. 14

Nannies In childrearing the corporate nobility continued the aristocratic practice of assigning children, albeit under the general supervision of their mother, to a sequence of wetnurses, nurse-maids, nannies, and then, after the age of nine or ten, to governesses and tutors. 15 Families were still large, though the number of children per family fell in the second part of the nineteenth century, a demo12 These activities were specially noted by girls in their letters, diaries and reminiscences. Lili von Löwis of Menar noted in 1888 that "she rode like a boy." Elly von Stryk stressed in letters to her girl friend Louise that she rode, ice skated, and that on August 30, 1877 "dad has presented us with riding horses." She was then fifteen years old. Alice von Sivers reminisced how "we could romp around in the woods, climb trees..." In order, HI, Baltikum 400/729; ibid., Nr. 627; ibid., Nr. 588, "Erinnerungen," p. 35. By this time, women had begun participating in the hunt on horseback. See L W A , Fond Nr. 1100, apraksta nr. 14, lietas nr. 633, pp. 45^6. 13 TAUBE, Im alten Estland, p. 76. For an analysis of the Struwwelpeter, see MARIELUISE KOENNECKER, Dr. Heinrich Hoffmans 'Struwwelpeter'. Untersuchungen zur Entstehungs- und Funktionsgeschichte eines bürgerlichen Bilderbuchs (Stuttgart, 1977). 14 G. SLEGERT, "Über Kinderbälle," in Rigasche Frauenzeitschrift, Nr. 45, 11 November 1887; CONRADI, Lebensbilder, p. 50; CONRADI, "Zur Erziehungsfrage," p. 341; HI, Baltikum 400/727, diary entry for 21 April 1888. 15 More noble women than earlier established contact with their children by breastfeeding. Upon the birth of a new child Emmy von Campenhausen noted in her diary that "as with all the other children, I breastfed this child in the beginning." Nursing did not mean taking daily physical care of babies, a task which exhausted Emmy, who tried it once, but desisted when it left her no strength to cope with other responsibilities. Jenny von Vegesack in 1875 noted with regret in her reminiscences "that I had the grief that I could not breastfeed my children." (HI, Baltikum 400/675, entry for 9 april 1875; ibid., Nr. 591, "Bilder aus der Vergangenheit," p. 95; cf. ANREP, p. 4). By the turn of the century, the pendulum seems to have swung back again. Fanny von Anrep expressed her pleasure in 1901 that her "daughter-in-law is breastfeeding. It is the normal thing for mother and child, but our humanity (Menschheit) has also in this degenerated that it is so seldom possible." Ibid., p. 190.

250

graphic decline worrisome to contemporaries. As the tables below show, the average number of children dropped consistently, from 7.9 in the first part of the eigtheenth century, to only 4.5 by the second part of the nineteenth century; of these only 3.7 children on the average reached the age of twenty. The mortality rate was still high. Table 11: Composite Number of Children per Marriage Marriage Date

0

1

17001749

3

4

1

17501799 18001849

2

1

18501899

5

6

7

8

9

10

Over 10

Mar- Average riages N o . of Children

4

3

1

1

4

2

4

5

25

7.9

7

9

14

8

10

9

10

7

8

4

11

97

5.9

8

13

13

20

12

22

20

13

12

6

11

151

5.9

17

27

12

20

19

15

6

9

5

4

3

137

4.5

Table 12: Composite Number of Children who Reached Age 20 Marriage Date

0

17001749 17501799 18001849 18501899

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Over 10

Mar- Average riages N o . of Children

1

2

1

4

1

3

4

3

3

1

2

25

6.4

4

6

15

17

15

14

12

4

3

2

3

2

97

4.2

5

14

17

18

29

24

20

7

5

7

5

151

4.3

2

19

30

17

27

17

11

6

5

1

2

137

3.7

»Source: GH Estl., GH Kurl., GH Livl., GH Oesel.

Of 606 children born between 1850 to 1899, only 460 managed to survive to age twenty, while 146, almost one out of four, died.16 Despite advances in medical knowledge, child mortality improved only much later. Fewer families had a large number of children. In the period from 1850-1899 only forty-five percent of families, as opposed to sixty-four percent in the period from 1800-1849, had five or more children. (There is no evidence to support or contraindicate the use 16 Statistics in this section are based on GH Estl., GH Kurl., GH Livl., GH Oesel. The genealogical registers recorded the number of children w h o died " y o u n g " without providing specific dates.

251

of birth control to restrict fertility; though birth control was not approved by the Lutheran church, it was practiced by other nobilities.) Birth intervals between children remained fairly constant over the course of two centuries, ranging from 2.15 years in the period 1700-1749 to 2.34 years in 1850-1899. Table 13: Age of Women at Birth of Last Child (of those who reached age 45) Marriage 1700-1749 1750-1799 1800-1849 1850-1899

20-29 0 8 10 14

30-34 5 12 29 28

35-39 6 23 26 25

40-44 11 10 33 19

45-49

Total Marriages

0 6 4 2

22 59 102 88

Total

271

Among other nobilities there was a rise in birth intervals in the nineteenth century, with noblewomen using breastfeeding as a contraceptive. 17 There is some indication that more women finished their childbearing years before the age of thirty-five. In the period from 1850-1899 this applied to forty-eight percent of women, a ten percent rise over the nineteenth century and a twenty-five percent rise over the eighteenth century. 18 In this the provinces were no exception, since by the latter nineteenth century a sustained decline in family size was widespread in Europe. Among Baltic Germans the decline was probably the result both of economic change, and consequently a more competitive environment, and of anxiety over an unknown future in which parents hoped to offer better opportunities to fewer offspring. The pattern of a child's life had not changed much from earlier in the century. Native nurse-maids had charge of young children and taught them the native language in the nursery. 19 After the age of four or five nannies {Bonne) continued to take over. Here there was a change, especially for boys, as Russian speaking nannies were increasingly employed after the 1870's. Command of Russian had become important with the introduction of universal military service in 1874. The need for a Russian graduation certificate from the gymnasium also promoted the employment of Russian speaking nannies. Some families hired Russian youths, such as students of Riga's polytechnical institute, to spend summers with the male children and older boys. 20 Mothers still instructed 17 REIF, Westfälischer Adel, pp. 244,247; GREGORY W. PEDLOW, "Marriage, Family Size, and Inheritance among Hessian Nobles, 1650-1900, "Journal of Family History (Winter, 1982):341. 18 Based on GH Estl., GH Kurl., GH Livl., GH Oesel. 19 Some mothers were jealous of their nurse-maids. Emmy von Campenhausen noted in her diary "I must let go of jealousy [for the nurse-maid] since I will never get out of it." HI, Baltikum 400/675, entry for 21 April 1871. 20 See, for example, TAUBE, Im alten Estland, pp. 23, 270; HSA, 702, Nr. 39, pp. 6, 43; ibid., Nr. 35, p. 6; HI, Baltikum 400/675, Emmy von Campenhausen, "Tagebücher," entry

252

children between the ages of five to seven or nine in the basics. As recommended by pedagogues, the sexes were separated at age nine. Boys passed to male authority. Fanny von Anrep wrote to a friend that "it appears to me that manly supervision and authority are very necessary for boys to learn to work independently." 2 1 For boys this first separation was still painful and they still looked forward to summer vacations when, as Otto von Taube remembered fondly, "the beautiful thing happened that I again became my mother's boy." 2 2 Mothers, who continued to treat their sons with more indulgence in anticipation of this separation, also felt pain, since they "saw their sons little" and were afraid, as Emmy von Campenhausen noted repeatedly in her diary, "that they could become unaccustomed to me." She bitterly resented the tutor's demand to have "exclusive influence" over her sons. 23 Girls remained under exclusive female supervision, but also experienced separation anxiety from their mothers when governesses of Baltic German or Swiss French origin took over their care. Emmy von Campenhausen was rebuked by her Swiss governess, who complained to her "that during the church service I had put my daughter next to m e " instead of the governess. Emmy experienced pangs of guilt because she repeatedly had to "shake off my daughter and put her under the yoke of a foreign language." 24 French was still an essential requirement of a young noblewoman's upbringing. Governesses continued to look after girls' proper comportment and manners and to polish boys' manners and social skills. Fathers continued to be more active in their sons' lives.25 They hired male tutors from the provinces or Germany, but, as before, themselves taught their

for 24 March 1879. GEORG VON K.RUSENSTJERN, "Ein Sommer am estländischen Strand," Zwischen Reval, p. 119. FANNY VON ANREP looked for a Russian nanny in 1875 so that "the boys will have it easier with this terrible language." Briefe, p. 11. 21

ANREP, p. 6 TAUBE, Im alten

Estland, p. 13. See also, in Zwischen Reval, pp. 83-115. 22

CLAS VON RAMM, "Eine estländische Jugend,"

23 In order, HI, Baltikum 400/675, entries for 30 December 1881, 27 April 1881 and passim. FANNY VON ANREP hired a tutor from Germany who was expected to teach his charges five hours a day, with two additional hours of supervision. He also slept with the boys, though he was assigned a private room. For this service he was paid 600 silver rubles in 1875.

Briefe, pp. 6-7.

In order, HI, Baltikum 400/675, entries for 3 December 1884. Finding a qualified tutor was still an important assignment for fathers, and if parents were not satisfied with Dorpat candidates, who were more plentiful than earlier in the century, trips to Germany were still the rule before Russification. Balthasar von Campenhausen made several such trips, hiring tutors for his sons and for his wider family and friends. Fanny von Anrep's tutor was also from Germany. HI, Baltikum 400/675, entries for 22 January 1880,29 June 1884; ANREP, p. 4. Parents also moved to town during the school year, so that boys could attend private or public schools, usually at lower cost. For an example of a father's supervisory role in sons' education, see the extensive diaries of Emmy von Campenhausen. 24 25

253

sons riding, hunting, love of the land, and loyalty to the dynasty.26 The Campenhausen boys, for example, were told after the assassination of emperor Alexander II in 1881 that "Livland subjects now have to preserve their loyalty and bravery for the hard-pressed imperial house." 27 Fathers increasingly emphasized honorable service duty to the provinces, for as attacks on the autonomous status of the provinces increased, service duty at home gained in importance. Children sensed the changed atmosphere of their homes. E. von Stackelberg remembered that much talk took place in our homes about politics and the law ... of the preservation of the autonomous position of the land ... everything turned around service to the land! In this it plainly mattered not to fail.28

Children noted that family pride and prestige rose when fathers were elected to a service position, and their consciousness of the events in their native land was shaped by the new tone which predominated in their homes.29 O f course, after the loss of provincial autonomy and political privilege in the 1890's, the enthusiasm for service, now restricted to the local level, was dampened and replaced by pessimism. Children who grew up after the 1860's were aware that the outside world had become more hostile. Childhood was a distinct phase for boys until age nine or latest ten, when boys were passed on to male supervision. Most boys were then prepared at home or in circles at a relative's or friend's home until they were ready at age twelve or thirteen for boarding school or public gymnasia with private boarding in town. For mothers this more complete break with their sons was again a "painful process" and as Ida von Wrangell remarked "the understanding of its inevitability and necessity becomes a consolation only slowly." For Fanny von Anrep it was "difficult and bitter to give away my sons so early." 30 But outside schooling was, as it had been earlier, an integral part of a youth's socialization by male figures for their adult role. Girls, who remained under exclusive female supervision, at least gained more physical freedom during their childhood. 26 Otto von Taube noted how his father took him along to a hunt and also on rounds around the manor. His father read to him about animals, "his sphere and assignment," and played with him at Christmas time when he got a game of the hunt with trees, animals, and dogs. His father taught him "all the hunt signals and calls..." TAUBE, Im alten, pp. 15,17,20 and passim. Fanny von Anrep's sons were also taught by their father, a passionate hunter. 17 HI, Baltikum 400/675, entry for 3 April 1881. 28

STACKELBERG, Ein Leben,

p . 22; cf. DELLINGSHAUSEN, p . 1 0 3 ; H S A , 7 0 2 , N r . 4 2 , p . 6 .

HSA, 702, Nr. 39, p. 95; HI, Baltikum 400/675, diary entry for 9 February 1881. 30 In order, WRANGELL, Das Leben, p. 43; ANREP, p. 13; elsewhere Fanny wrote of "her deep pain." p. 41. Emmy von Campenhausen commiserated with her friend Gabriele von Tiesenhausen, who "bled" when her son went off to Birkenruh; Emmy's sons were at the same institution and she found it "difficult" and "longed for her distant children." HI, Baltikum 400/675, entries for 28 October 1880,18 January 1885,10 August 1887,10 December 1887 and passim. 29

254

Though their socialization in youth was still mainly directed to their future roles as wives and mothers, we shall see that they began to enjoy more opportunities for a life outside the home, partly because of higher educational demands brought on by changing social and economic conditions.

Young Men Education

and

Schooling

Education at public or private gymnasia and university brought together sons of the corporate nobility with those of upper segments of wider Baltic German society, especially literati. The corporate nobility had already accepted earlier in the century gymnasium and .university education as "formal criteria for admission to public service and polite society."31 Among the nobility a gymnasium education became even more an expected norm in the second half of the nineteenth century, when Baltic German schooling entered, in the words of Hollmann, an "educational era." There was a significant expansion of both public and private education. Between 1880 and 1890 Baltic German enrollment at gymnasia grew from 1,400 pupils to 2,000.32 This expansion was generally promoted by the demands for more skills by the modernizing state and a growing agrarian and industrial capitalism that offered opportunities to all segments o^ Baltic German and native society alike. Some contemporaries noted with disapproval that the gymnasia were "overburdened with alien elements," who in their view should attend technical schools.33 "Alien elements" at the elite classical gymnasia that prepared for university were particularly offensive to upper level Baltic German society as another symptom of changed status. It was for this reason that literati and corporate nobility for the most part avoided the new type of gymnasium (Realgymnasium) introduced in the 1850's, which emphasized the natural sciences and modern languages over classical studies, a curriculum more suitable to the demands of a modernizing state administration and

ARMSTRONG, p. 66. Ibid., p. 67. In 1866 there already existed in the t o w n s 238 educational institutions of all types, with the state contributing almost half of the upkeep, municipal authorities a fifth, and the public a l m o s t a third t h r o u g h school fees. L . STRÜMPELL, " Z u r Finanzstatistik des Schulwesens in den Städten der O s t s e e p r o v i n z e n , " BM 13 (1866):422. 33 Ibid., p. 429; see also H . SEESEMANN, " D i e P r o g r a m m e der baltischen G y m n a s i e n im Jahre 1880," B M 28 (1881): 320. 31

32

255

modern economy. 3 4 A classical education, however, retained its prestige into the next century as a sign of distinction and mark of status among nobility and literati. Another important reason for high gymnasium enrollment was the introduction of universal military service, since a secondary education reduced the required period of service from six years to two (single sons were wholly exempted from service). Enrollment at Dorpat also rose for the same reason, as university education reduced military service to just six months. 3 5 At the gymnasium educational philosophy became more than ever dominated by the ideals of Bildung,

which harked back to the golden age of the Ger-

man classical and romantic age and was celebrated by Baltic educated society as an affirmation of their own identity as part of a great cultural nation. Fanny von Anrep was not the only Baltic German noblewoman who could write to a friend in 1897 about "our German specialness ( E i g e n a r t ) with all its ideal values." 3 6 The pedagogue A. Schwartz glorified this cultural heritage because, characteristically, it introduced Baltic Germans to that world of "idealism which opened to us Germans, above all other peoples in the world... that world for which we treasure Schiller, because it constitutes the basis of his fiction..." where "he portrays so poignantly our innermost national soul" so that his "people in Germany or wherever they live ... on the globe have never forgotten this noble shaper of youth." 3 7 This education encouraged "the leisured, vaguely aristocratic ethos of self-development." 3 8 The curriculum had changed little 34 Latin was also part of the curriculum. Some gymnasia like the Cathedral school in Reval had earlier established branches which stressed a modern education (on the model of the Realgymnasium), useful in preparing poor sons of the nobility for military service. As in Germany, the sometimes heated debate among pedagogues and parents over the merits of a classical or modern education lasted into the sixties and beyond. In the Baltic some literati pedagogues attempted to attract corporate support for these institutions, arguing for the superiority of these schools in preparing also "the sons of the nobility" for later study at agricultural and polytechnical institutes. Part of the debate reflected the publicistic controversy between literati and nobility of the early sixties over Baltic German commonality. For details, see A. BULMERINCQ, "Die Bildung der Nichtgelehrten," BM 5 (1862):387-437; J. F. WLTTRAM, "Über den Conservatismus auf dem Felde der Pädagogik," BM 8 (1863):245-263, in particular p. 251; [LUDWIG] STRÜMPELL, "Κ. E. von Baer's Ansichten über Schule und Schulbildung. Aus dessen Selbstbiographie," BM 12 (1865):305-319. 35 Finishing even without the graduation certificate (Abitur), service was reduced to three years. An elementary education reduced service to four years. Sons who had younger siblings to support were also exempted. See SEESEMANN, "Programme," p. 320; ANREP, p. 161. Service started at age 21. School certificates noted which rights the graduate enjoyed when fulfilling his military service. Earlier in the century, the certificate had noted privileges for entering civil service. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta 4, Leitas Nr. 2, pp. 14-15. 36 37

38

ANREP, p . 1 6 1 . SCHWARTZ, p. 9 5 .

CHARLES E. MCCLELLAND, State, Society and University in Germany 1700-914 (Cam-

bridge, 1980), p. 238; on Bildung,

pp. 238-244; cf. LIEVEN, The Aristocracy,

p. 169. It is

ironic that Fanny von Anrep, caught up in the gospel of Idealism, felt in 1903 that there was too much "consideration of the specialness of the individual" in schools and that this harmed the steeling of character. ANREP, p. 217. 256

from earlier times and still emphasized the classics, not just grammatical rules of the languages, but the history, culture, and society of ancient Rome and Greece. This curriculum, a pedagogue argued, awakened a sense of "the ideal values of humanity" and helped build manly virtues like self-control, courage, loyalty and strength of character. "Ancient culture along with Christianity" constituted the two "basic elements of the culture of the present time." 39 History held a special place in this period when historical consciousness was growing in general. Ancient history inspired a "sound idealism." 40 The historical dramas of Friedrich Schiller, the works of Joseph V. Scheffel (1826-1886), author of Ekkehard, and of Gustav Freytag (1816-1895, Pictures of the German Past) aroused the idealistic spirit of youth. Schools also recommended the rousing and heroic Struggle for Rome by Felix Dahn (1834—1912), which captivated youthful imagination and encouraged a projection of the struggle for Rome onto the struggle for Heimat. Baltic provincial history, previously neglected, was now taught in the upper grades, based on the two-volume history by the Kurland noble Otto von Rutenberg. 41 Pedagogues were aware that "knowledge of one's native land" was essential because, as the teacher and pastor V. Wittrock wrote: He who does not know the clod of land on which he sits, in which he is supposed to root, how can he learn to love it and work it purposefully? He who has cut the tie with the past of his native land, how can he judge the present correctly, how can he manage to master the tasks which the future will imperiously put forward? And don't we expect just that of our youth? Are they not our hope in this regard? 42

Emphasis on history and knowledge of native land was used to excite and stimulate youth's commitment to a defense of native land, but such teaching may have served more to close minds than to open them to change. The school curriculum was demanding and many pupils had difficulty mastering the materials prescribed in the seven grades of the gymnasium. In 1879, for example, in nine gymnasia only sixty-four percent of pupils were promoted to the next higher 39 J. F. WLTTRAM, p. 252; Wittram's speech defending the value of a classical gymnasium education was held at the Riga gymnasium in 1882 and published in the Baltische Monatsschrift, pp.245-263. 40 See A. BÜTTNER'S defense of ancient history at the classical gymnasium, "Die alte Geschichte auf dem klassischen Gymnasium," Β Μ 22 (1873):573-583. 41 DAHN also composed a twenty volume series on "The Kings of the Germans." His works reflected increased German nationalism and assertiveness after unification. Rutenberg emigrated to Germany in 1833. His history was more popular than scholarly. OTTO VON RUTENBERG, Geschichte der Ostseeprovinzen Liv-, Esth- und Kurland von der ältesten Zeit bis zum Untergang ihrer Selbstständigkeit, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1859,1860). BOSSE, pp. 114—115. KROEGER, "Zur Situation," p. 616; WOLFGANG WACHTSMUTH, "Werden, Wesen, Bedeutung der baltischen studentischen Korporationen," Baltische Blätter 9 (Berlin, 1926):7. 42 VIKTOR WITTROCK, "Eine Fusswanderung mit Schülern durch Livland. Tagebuchblätter." Heimatstimmen 1 (1904): 57-58.

257

grade. Some gymnasia offered students a second chance at promotion, with make-up exams after a long summer vacation dominated by private tutoring.43 The final exams for the leaving certificate (Abitur) became so much more grueling than earlier in the century that they became a "plague." 44 Many pupils failed on their first attempt. Of twenty-two candidates at the Dorpat gymnasium in 1879, only sixteen passed, and at the provincial Riga gymnasium, of eighteen pupils thirteen passed. Candidates from private gymnasia, so-called "external" students, experienced special difficulty because after 1862 they had to acquire the Abitur certificate from a public school.45 Many noble parents therefore enrolled their sons at least for the last two years in public schools.46 There were, of course, quite a few scions of noble families who did not make it through the gymnasium at all, and noble parents in general were not as persistent as literati in pressing their sons through school. However, a gymnasium education had become a norm for noble society, so that failure could pursue a young man into adulthood. When the twenty-six year old Theodor Pilar von Pilchau proposed marriage to an eighteen year old girl in the 1870's, her parents were "dismayed because he had finished neither school nor university." The girl's parents ordered a six month waiting period and agreed to the marriage only when Theodor's mother had "established him on a manor" and, after some strings were pulled, "he was elected to the post of Ordnungsrichter. With that he had a bit of a position." 47 At school youths enjoyed the opportunity to form relationships that were often carried over to Dorpat University.48 Of 207 students of the Livonia corporation between 1861 and 1900, only three listed solely private education followed by public certificate exams. For Livland's noble youth, the Schmidtsche private boarding school and the two corporate supported gymnasia, Fellin and Birkenruh (which absorbed the Schmidtsche school) held first place in attendance 43 SEESEMANN, "Die Programme," pp. 321-322; some grades (IV and III) had an especially high failure rate because an excessive amount of material was covered; of course, reasons for the failure rates varied. Seesemann lists several from newer, stricter directors or teachers, to ungifted teaching, to inadequate instructional plans. In 1875-1876 the rate of promotion was around seventy percent. The Riga city gymnasium had a rate of 69 percent, and in 1880 seventy-two percent at the Fellin Landesgymnasium rated promotion. Ibid., p. 323. 44 GEORG VON (DETTINGEN, "Erinnerungen," in Lebenserinnerungen, p. 140. 45 The curator of the Dorpat educational district annually listed the approved gymnasia for these tests. After 1862 admission to university was dependent on the Abitur, and no longer upon examination by Dorpat professors. The highest grade for Russian was also made a requirement. The corporations were successful in having this requirement lowered and also achieved agreement that external exams would be conducted with "forbearance:" ToBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:325. 46 SEESEMANN, "Die Programme," p. 325. 47 HSA, 702, Pilar Nachlass, Nr. 42, pp. 22-23. 48 Georg von Mühlendahl, who was to die young at age 29, wrote to his school friend on 11 January 1881 about "the long and beautiful years which we spent inseparably in love and friendship on the school bench." EAA, fond 1443, nimistu 1, järjek. 23.

258

until their closure in 1892 because of Russification. The private gymnasium at Dorpat (named after each of its directors in turn as the Kollmann'sche, Zeddelmann'sche, Waltersche) was also popular, as were the public gymnasia at Dorpat, Riga, and Pernau. For Kurland's youth between 1861-1900, the gymnasium at Mitau led, followed by the corporately supported Goldingen gymnasium. Only four Kurland noble youths, fewer than in the first part of the century, listed nothing but private tutoring with a leaving certificate taken at the Nikolai and Mitau gymnasia. Among Estland's noble youths, the Cathedral School dominated until its closure in 1892. Of 173 Estonia noble students between 1861 and 1900, 115 (60%) attended this school, with the Nikolai, Reval and Dorpat gymnasia taking precedence after Russification. Eleven students had been prepared at the Ösel Arensburg gymnasium. More youths than earlier crossed provincial borders for their schooling, a mixing that probably helped form a more common Baltic German consciousness. In the 1890's, it is noticeable that more youth had spent at least some time in private or public gymnasia in Germany (especially in Dresden and Stuttgart) and at the Lutheran schools in St. Petersburg (the Annen and Petri schools), whose teachers were often Dorpat trained.49 Russification of schools imposed difficult choices on Baltic German parents. German schools had been valued as a pillar of support for home and family; now the influence of schooling could lead to much feared de-Germanization. Since the Empire did not require compulsory school attendance, younger children could be taught in specially constituted home "circles," supported by parents, the corporations, and charitable institutions. For many nobles, home tutoring of children up to age twelve had been the custom all along, and this remained the chosen option for girls. For male youths, however, a Russian leaving certificate was necessary, since with it came a reduction in military service and university admission, the expected norm for upper level society and the route to a future career and security for sons. Parents who could afford it sent their sons out for a few years to Germany, but the majority of boys were sent perforce to the Russified public schools where no German was permitted during classes. Boys experienced more difficulty in mastering the school curriculum, since their exposure to Russian nannies and Russian lessons had usually not prepared them well enough to handle academic work in Russian. At school their teachers were more often than earlier in the century Russians, though Baltic German teachers who agreed to teach in Russian were retained. The teacher 49 Among Estland's youths, six students listed German gymnasia and six attended the St. Petersburg schools (which could only accept a limited number of Baltic German students). Twenty four of 207 Livonia students had attended schools in Germany or Russia. In some decades, particular schools predominated, like the Kollmann private gymnasium in the 1880's for Estland's youth who did not go to the Cathedral school, Fellin for Livland's youth in the 1880's, with Birkenruh in second place, and the Schmidt institution dominating the 1860's, after which it was absorbed by its successor, Birkenruh.

259

of mathematics, F. Demme, for example, kept his job after interning for three months in mathematical courses at a Russian gymnasium in St. Petersburg, where he learned the "appropriate phrases" and familiarized himself with Russian mathematical texts. With such "minimal" knowledge and disregard of proper Russian "grammatical rules," he "operated" for another fifteen years until German schooling was reinstituted after the revolution of 1905. 50 Because of Russian the school experience of noble youth who entered gymnasium in the 1890's was more difficult than before; at the same time much was made of the lowering of the intellectual level of schools through the introduction of the Russian requirement. There was probably some exaggeration here, since it was self-serving to belittle the new Russian schools. 51 In the end, though Baltic German youths did not become Russified, their improved command of Russian was an undeniable advantage for employment in the Empire. Alexander von Keyserling, in whose family Russian had been used all along because of his Russian wife, commented that the "knowledge of Russian" benefitted his son Leo and helped him gain a governmental appointment as a justice of peace in the 1890's. There were fears also that public schools would break the close peer relationships formed at private boarding schools, but in fact a feeling of comradeship seems always to have prevailed among public school boys, and the common experience of adversity in passing through Russian schools created a greater sense of belongingness and a sense of shared destiny. For noble parents, the more immediate concern was the preservation of their sons' Germanness and their ties to the "native land." These were the values emphasized when sons spent their summer vacations at home on the manor. Their socialization continued in other ways as well. Sons continued to indulge in the rituals of the hunt and to polish their dancing under the eyes of a dance master. To Emmy von Campenhausen her sons' dancing lessons had "the character of serious duty." 5 2 Baltic noble hospitality was still practiced on a generous scale and families continued to organize theater productions, "excursions to the forest, picnics, and crayfish parties throughout the summer." 53 Eduard von Dellingshausen remembered that vacations at the seaside laid the basis for life-long sibling ties. 54 However it was only after confirmation - and preparation for this event now 5 0 F. DEMME, " V i e r z i g J a h r e S c h u l d i e n s t , " B M (1927):263-264; see also SCHÖNFELDT, p. 213; SCHWEDER, p p . 272-276; on the G e r m a n school system after 1905, ibid. 51 F o r a representative sample, see SERAPHIM, Aus der Arbeit, pp. 6 3 - 6 4 ; ENGELHARDT, Die deutsche Universität, pp. 4 9 4 - 4 9 5 . 5 2 H I , Baltikum 400/675, entry 22 J a n u a r y 1884; cf. ANREP, p. 31. O n e of the A n r e p sons spent three solid w e e k s at a dancing course at another manor. 53 MENSENKAMPFF, p. 145; E A A f o n d 2489, nimistu 1, järjek. 53, p. 21; E A A , f o n d 1443, nimistu 1, järjek. 23. WERNER ZOEGE VON MANTEUFFEL, Ein Lebensbild in Briefen, Erinnerungen und Worten seiner Freunde und Schüler, ed. ANNA VON KOGELGEN (Stuttgart, 1931), p p . 149-151. 5 4 DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste p. 21.

260

took place over the course of several weeks in groups usually outside the home parish - that youths were allowed to participate in official balls or dances.55 After confirmation or the Abitur, they entered a new stage of life - university study for those with the means and ability, practical work for those who lacked one or the other, money especially constituting a problem in the difficult 1880's.

Theopil von Campenhausen (Wesselshof) with his four sons. (Campenhausen Archiv, Herder-Institut) 55 Ibid., p. 31; HSA, Transehe'sche, Nr. 484, "Memoiren," p. 173. Circles of boys and girls gathered at a pastor's house where they lived for about three weeks.

261

Leon von Campenhausen, Mr. Krüger (tutor) and Rudolf von Campenhausen (Campenhausen Archiv, Herder-Institut)

University Dorpat gained in prestige among the corporate nobility, and attendance there replaced to a certain extent the prior custom of several years of Imperial service. This custom had already diminished somewhat before the 1860's, but as attacks on the autonomy of the provinces increased there was a definite decline in service careers, even short ones, though the flow never stopped completely, if only for financial reasons.56 University, however, became the new norm, often coupled in this period more successfully than earlier with the types of service in 56 JULIUS ECKARDT, AUS der Petersburger Gesellschaft (Leipzig, 1875), 2:13. O n the eve of WW I, for example, only five of the sixty-five adjutant-generals in the army had German names, and only one of them was a Baltic German noble who had not been Russified. In contrast, in the early 1860's, of fifty general adjutants fifteen to seventeen had German names and could be considered German. WLTTRAM, Die Entdeutschung, p. 62. Wittram traces the process over the second part of the century.

262

the provinces for which university studies were the best preparation. Julius Eckardt commented in 1869 that only those who are not able to study and do not want to become pure Landjunker spend a few years in the army. The normal Baltic nobleman lets his son study, first in Dorpat, then Heidelberg or Berlin, and then [lets him] take a corporate elective office. 57

After the introduction of universal military service in 1874, but with the reduction of the required length of service to only six months for university graduates, Dorpat's enrollment grew rapidly (from 606 students in 1837 to 1015 in 1880). Eduard von Dellingshausen noted that Dorpat was filled with young elements who earlier used to enter the Russian guards after finishing school. It became fashionable to go to Dorpat, the green cap attracted, unrestrained glorious university days beckoned; one sang German freedom songs; one was again conscious of belonging spiritually to Europe and not to Russia... Russia existed to be ruled and commanded by Baits; if one did not want our services, we did not push ourselves on them... 58

Dellingshausen expressed the in-bred arrogance and haughtiness of the Baltic German nobility, with its assumption that the whole Russian Empire rested on the pillar of Baltic German service. Corporate noble youth and their literati comrades displayed this same arrogance in their dealings with the increasing number of Russian and native students at Dorpat. 59 Insofar as there was a remarkable uniformity in style and bearing among the Baltic German youth, the literati were not far behind their noble comrades. Dellingshausen realized later that this behavior and also the reduction in Imperial service had not helped the Baltic German cause.60 Coalition and cooperation at university with the later leaders of Estonian and Latvian society might have gained the Baltic Germans valuable allies against the centralizing Russian state, while a continued strong presence in Imperial service would have increased their influence through an understanding of internal conditions in the Empire as a whole. Dellingshausen himself cited economic reasons, and primarily the need for more involvement in an intensive capitalist agrarian economy, and as well as political conviction as the basis for reduction in state service. What he failed to consider, however, was that once the Empire had instituted the Great Reforms and continued with an expansion of educational opportunities for Russians, service itself became ECKARDT, Baltische und russische, p. 72. DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste, P. 14. 59 See KROEGER, "Zur Situation," p. 15 for details on these attitudes. Dellingshausen's opinion was not unusual. Bismarck, ambassador to Petersburg in the early 1860's, whose access to higher Russian society and government circles was facilitated by the Baltic German nobility, remarked in 1867 that "the Russian will never be able to get along without the Germans"; and elsewhere, that "without German help and culture ... Russia ... could not govern itself for any length of time...." Cited in WLTTRAM, Entdeutschung, p. 50. 57

58

60

DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste,

P . 15.

263

more competitive. The rise of ethnocentrism among Russians, the manifestations of which were so strongly evident in the publicist attacks on the Baltic German nobility in the 1860's, was itself linked to the rising social ambitions of Russians, for whom the large presence of Baltic German and other foreign elements in Imperial service appeared a career obstacle. 61 Perhaps the haughtiness and arrogance towards natives and Russians displayed by Dellingshausen and his compatriots was a form of status display to cover up an underlying fear of the future, for the non-Germans were a visible presence of the new competition for positions in a more socially mobile society. For this reason alone, and certainly for the literati, a university education was the best and even necessary preparation for a more competitive life later. At Dorpat, Bildung continued in a neo-humanistic spirit, but now together with the professional training on which German universities by then were concentrating almost exclusively. Professors of Baltic German origin (thirty-six in 1881) continued to transmit German cultural values to their students through the kind of personal contact and intercourse with students that was by then lacking in Germany. 62 The feeling of superiority gained through Bildung manifested itself in the disdain Dorpat students showed toward students of the Riga technical institute, whom they regarded as inferior beings. 63 How deep this Bildung went is another question, since it appears that both noble and literati society appreciated quick wit and the ability to tell anecdotes much more than depth of Bildung·64 For noble youth the first taste of independence came with the first two years at university marked less by serious study than by the joys and rituals of peer relationships. The focus of student life was even more than earlier the fraternity, which continued to be organized along provincial lines. Membership was not automatic, but required a trial period. As Dellingshausen put it, "characters were shaped, the good material refined and firmed into steel, the inferior pushed off as weak iron." 65 Decisions on admission to a fraternity depended on all sorts of murky factors ranging from the personal to the political. In the 61 ARMSTRONG, p. 84; R u s s i a n ethnocentrism b e g a n to emerge in the 1830's and grew with the social m o d e r n i z a t i o n that laid the g r o u n d w o r k f o r the Great R e f o r m s . A t the time, the Baltic G e r m a n presence and contribution to this modernization was notable. 6 2 TOBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:335; SERAPHIM, Im neuen Jahrhundert, p. 47. O t t o von G r u e n e waldt remembered get togethers at the academic club where p r o f e s s o r s met with their students, f o o d w a s offered, chess, billiards, and cards played, and a reading r o o m held f o o d f o r the mind. T h e club also s p o n s o r e d balls and dances. T h e northern Livland c o r p o r a t e nobility w h o had studied at D o r p a t were particularly closely tied to professorial circles. GRUENEWALDT, Lehenserinnerungen, p. 253; cf. (DETTINGEN, " K i n d e r j a h r e , " p. 253. 63 KROEGER, " Z u r Situation," p. 616. 6 4 LENZ, Der haltische Literatenstand, p. 140; PANTENIUS, AUS den Jugendjahren, p . 74; F a n n y v o n A n r e p w r o t e to a G e r m a n friend that " w e value here m o r e an amiable, easygoing being than depth of Bildung." ANREP, p. 8. 6 5 DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste, P. 36.

264

Livonia, for example, there operated for several years a secret society that decided on admission and created a "spirit of distrust" among applicants and members alike. The "society" was evidently guided by political motives, and demanded conformity with the Schirren spirit of resistance; it was forced to disband in 1874.66 Acceptance to the right fraternity became a cause for family celebration. But though fraternity membership raised a young noble in the eyes of his compatriots in Estland and Livland, this was not the case in more exclusive Kurland, whose noble youth twice left the Curonia in protest against social leveling (1888 and 1912). In the Curonia, noble social haughtiness, answered in kind by literati intellectual haughtiness, remained a perpetual problem.67 Emmy von Cam-penhausen was tremendously relieved that her oldest son "took it well" when he was passed over for membership in the Livonia.68 A young noble could survive such a blow, but a literati son had a harder time since fraternity member-ship had become a sine qua non that once attained assured his social position for life, almost regardless of later career success or failure. It was not considered strange when a literati daughter turned down a marriage proposal on the grounds that "he has not studied at Dorpat and worn a fraternity cap." 69 At the basis of the fraternity lay, according to Professor Erdmann, "the common view of honor and honorability."70 Work for the fraternities was seen as good preparation for later provincial service. Dellingshausen, who did both and later became Estland's marshal of the nobility, felt that he "had learned much because of this work; the sense of duty and responsibility was strengthened, as were the feelings of fellowship, self-control, and self discipline."71 The fraternities, like the university experience itself, helped contribute to a common Baltic German consciousness, even though the nobles' consciousness of their own superior status was never wholly overcome, especially not by the Kurland nobility. Lifelong literati-noble friendships were not common, but former fraternity brothers (Philister) continued their ties with each other and with their younger compatriots by founding fraternity clubs (there was one in St. Pe66 HSA, 702, Oeningen, Nr. 33, "Die drei," p. 5; ibid., Pilar von Pilchau, Nr. 42, p. 5. The baroness Eugenie mentioned that the "Harnack-Oettingen" party was instrumental in the creation of the society. I was not able to determine the circumstances surrounding the dissolution of the society. 67 WACHTSMUTH, "Adel," p. 107; LENZ, Der baltische Literatenstand, p. 25 and passim;

(DETTINGEN, " K i n d e r j a h r e , " p p . 1 4 1 - 1 4 2 .

HI, Baltikum 400/675, entry for 13 May 1890. In this particular case the candidate was a merchant. HUNNIUS, Baltische Häuser, p.106; daughters of literati already suffered from a lack of marriage partners. Cf. (DETTINGEN, "Kinderjahre," p. 142. 70 ERDMANN, "Ewige Personen," Β Μ 39 (1892):668. 68

69

71

DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste,

p . 3 9 ; cf. MENSENKAMPFF, p . 8 4 ; SERAPHIM, Im

Jahrhundert, p. 47; WITTRAM, "Die Universität," p. 215.

neuen

265

tersburg) that smoothed over status barriers and provided at least a basis to cultivate common Baltic German interests.72 Fraternity and university ties became even more significant in the period of Dorpat's Russification, which culminated with the introduction of Russian as the language of instruction in 1893. With Russification came a sudden change in professorial staff and student body. Whereas in 1880 there had been 830 Baltic German students at the university (and seventeen Germans from elsewhere in the Empire, thirty-three Estonians, and 135 Russians, Poles, and Jews), in 1900 there were only 268 (and twenty-seven Germans from elsewhere, 121 Estonians and Latvians, and 1,293 Russians, Poles and Jews). The Russian contingent, mainly students from the Imperial seminaries who were excluded from Russian universities, increased by a multiple of ten just in the decade from 1890 to 1900, from 100 to 1000.73 The Baltic Germans (and even Estonians and Latvians) became a minority at a university they had considered as "the heart of the land." 74 By 1910 the Baltic German percentage fell to sixteen percent (from twenty percent in 1900 and eighty-two percent in 1880). The most likely explanation for these figures can be found not in the usual one given by Baltic Germans, that all social strata began to avoid the Russified Iur'ev university, but, as H. Laakmann has suggested, in an overall Baltic German population decline. There were fewer young people because of declining fertility rates, and this decline was not made up, as it had been earlier in the century, by immigration from the German lands. Immigration had previously also mitigated population loss caused by outmigration of Baltic Germans to the Empire (and in the 1890's to Germany).75 72 A new fraternity for the promotion of Baltic German commonality, the Neobaltica, was founded in 1878 to overcome the narrow confines of the three provincially based fraternities. As DELLINGSHAUSEN points out, many of its members were, however, St. Petersburg Germans. Im Dienste, p. 37; see ENGELHARDT, Die deutsche Universität, p. 443. It was even more difficult for different segments of Baltic German female society to overcome status barriers. As DELLINGSHAUSEN wrote, attempts to bridge status barriers between burgher and noble circles in Reval in the latter 1870's "failed because of the women, who did not find a common ground, whereas this was for the most part present among the gentlemen just alone because of their common university memories." Im. Dienste, pp. 29-30. There were limits for males also. The conservative WERNER ZOEGE VON MANTEUFFEL noted that his attempts for social contact with the Reval patricians had failed in the 1870's "because in Reval patrician circles then were very exclusive, much more exclusive than the nobility." H e tried again later "to socialize in burgher circles, all in vain." Ein Lebensbild, p. 166. 73

ENGELHARDT, Die deutsche

Universität,

P. 226; TOBIEN, Ritterschaft,

1:340; WLTTRAM,

" D i e Universität," p. 219. The student body expanded from 1010 in 1880 to 1709 in 1900 to 2761 in 1910. ToBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1:340, 347. 74 Julius Eckardt (1867) quoted in WlTTRAM, " D i e Universität," p. 218. 75 See his survey of Dorpat university in "Hochschulen und Wissenschaft," in Handwörterbuch des Grenz, 2:219-223; cf. WITTRAM, " D i e Universität," p. 219. The literati and merchants had earlier recruited from lower German social strata, the "landsche Mittelstand," and also from guild artisans and talented assimilated natives. In these groups there was more de-Germanization, as they were overwhelmed by natives who successfully competed with them at all levels. Neither the nobility nor the literati paid much attention to the lowest

266

After the initial shock of Russification, Iur'ev recovered its intellectual level within a decade, and remained the university of first choice among Baltic Germans: there were simply fewer of them. It is true, none the less, that in the 1890's increasing numbers of noble y o u t h left Dorpat to attend university in Germany. Between 1890 and 1900 of the forty-three noble y o u t h in the Livonia, twenty five (58 % ) left Dorpat to pursue studies in Germany (for periods ranging from a single semester t o several years). This represented a substantial increase over the previous two decades, when of 124 noble students, thirty-two (26 % ) had studied in Germany. 7 6 Study abroad, though, was an expensive option beyond the means of many noble families (and still m o r e of most literati). B y the second part of the nineteenth century a university education had become an achievement norm and the professional training provided at university had become a central strategy for the Baltic German nobility to accommodate itself t o the demands of the modern age. Higher achievement norms can be seen in the increasing completion rates of degree programs after 1860. According t o the Livonia

register, of 2 1 2 noble students enrolled during the period

1 8 6 1 - 1 9 0 0 , 1 2 0 ( 5 7 % ) finished with a degree; during the previous forty years for which numbers are available ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 6 0 ) , only thirty-three percent had done so. A m o n g Estland's noble youth, sixty-six percent (108 of 164) finished with a degree versus forty-four percent earlier. O f Kurland's, sixty percent (eightyseven of 145) finished with a degree versus twenty-five percent earlier. 77 A m o n g German group, the "Kleindeutsche," until after 1905, when quite a few had already been assimilated into the native population. Of course, the large number of Russians is indicative also of the impact of modernization on the various social strata of Russian society. 76 Estland's poorer youth always studied abroad less than those of Kurland and Livland. Of thirty-four Estonia students from 1861-1900 who listed some study in Germany, eleven (32%) did so in the 1890's, no change from earlier decades. MENSENKAMPFF mentioned that "many young nobles decided against university" or went to study instead at the agricultural and forest academies of Germany. (Menschen, p. 87). The most popular German universities in the second part of the nineteenth century were again Berlin, followed by Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Munich. The Livonia listed seventy-six students who studied abroad between 1860-1900; of these thirty attended Berlin, thirteen each Heidelberg and Leipzig, ten Munich; four each Jena and Moscow, three each Tübingen, Halle, Vienna and the forest academy at Eberswalde; two each at Würzburg, Königsberg, Strassburg, Freiburg, Paris, and the forest academy at Tharandt; one each at Innsbruck, Marburg, Geneva, Göttingen, Erlangen, St. Petersburg, mining institute in St. Petersburg, and agricultural academies at Königsberg and Poppelsdorf. Among Estland's youth, thirteen attended Berlin, six Leipzig, four Heidelberg, three each Vienna and St. Petersburg, two each Halle and Strassburg and the Hohenheim agricultural academy. One each listed Paris, Munich, technical academies in Munich and Charlottenburg. Only nine listed some further travel, whereas forty-three of Livland's students (20%) traveled through Western Europe (Italy, France, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Spain). The percentage of study or travel abroad for Livland's students represents no change from the first part of the century (39 % studied abroad, 20 % traveled). 77 SCHLINGENSIEPEN included in his calculations of degrees granted to the end of the Empire students who were still alive in 1860. According to him, forty-three percent of the Livonia, forty-nine percent of the Estonia and fifty-nine percent of the Curonia finished their studies with degrees, pp. 105-109. 267

degree students, degrees granted were higher than those granted earlier in the century. The candidate degree, which required excellent exams and a thesis, was awarded to eighty-four noble students of the Livonia, sixty-six of the Estonia, and forty of the Curonia.n This still left many noble youths who, on the testimony of contemporaries, did not pursue their studies seriously. Traditional aristocratic behavior of this sort was displayed, for example, by the three brothers Sivers, Edgar, Max, and Victor, who after a few years at university, where they pursued a course in agriculture but "had plenty of time to amuse themselves," were then "established" on manors owned by their father. 79 Not all, of course, had such expectations: about a third of Livonia noble students, for example, had to earn a living on their own. 80 By the end of the century, the laxity in studies that was still considered acceptable in the first year became risky in later semesters for prospective manor heirs or administrators, because, as Fanny von Anrep noted, manor management itself now required professional training in agriculture as well as forestry. In her family's search for a new administrator of their manor, untrained noble candidates, "all unattractive," were passed over in favor of a trained noble professional. 81

A New

Professionalism

Accommodation to professionalism became a key to economic status and therefore social prestige. Older notions of appropriate occupations in a world where political and socio-economic status were more securely anchored gradually gave way over the course of the latter decades of the nineteenth century to a 78 The lowest degree was that of "graduated student." Seventeen noble students of the Livonia were "graduated students," nine graduated as doctors of medicine, three as physicians, nine as doctors of philosophy, one as doctor of law, and one as magister. Twenty-four of the Estonia's noble students were "graduated students," twelve graduated as doctors of medicine, four as physician, one each as doctor of chemistry and engineering. Thirty of the Curonia's noble students were "graduated students," three graduated as doctors of medicine and three as physicians. Some of the doctoral degrees were taken in Germany. 79 HI, Baltikum 400/588, Alice von Sivers, "Erinnerungen", p. 19; the boys' father owned four manors. Edgar and Max Sivers were students at the Riga polytechnical institute. Cf. TOBIEN, Ritterschaft, 1 : 3 3 5 ; "Plaudereien eines Heimgekehrten," BM 2 1 ( 1 8 7 2 ) : 6 9 - 8 3 ,

1 8 1 - 1 8 8 , 2 8 5 - 2 9 1 , 3 8 2 - 4 0 0 , 4 7 1 ^ 1 8 8 , 5 1 4 - 5 1 8 , 5 7 3 - 5 8 7 . I t is indicative t h a t at D o r p a t , f o r

example, the one subject most connected to agriculture (oec) had a lower degree rate than others. Thus, in the Livonia, for example, only seven degrees (27 %) were awarded to twenty-six students of economy, whereas sixty-nine percent of law students finished with a degree and sixty-three of medical students. In the Estonia only three (16 %) of nineteen economy students held degrees. A finished degree was not as important to manor heirs. The degree rate of political economy was higher with eleven of twenty students (55%) in the Estonia and twenty-two (49 %) of forty-five students in the Livonia achieving a degree. 80 The percentage given in SCHLINGENSIEPEN is twenty-nine percent, that is, 160 of 469 noble students who lived after 1860, p. 105. 81

268

ANREP, p . 2 1 7 .

broadened professionalism that began to eclipse the given status of old. The adaptation was probably helped by the traditional Baltic German noble appreciation of education both for its own sake and for the skills it offered. In the first part of the nineteenth century, the nobility had shown that it could accept new fields of study and occupations within the context of Imperial service. In the second half the accommodation continued on a larger scale and for the most part outside the context of Imperial service. The modernizing state and economy offered new professional opportunities in industry and capitalist agriculture, and in fields such as engineering, chemistry, medicine, and business. The process of adaptation was a gradual one, and prejudice against the new occupations remained a problem into the next century. As the Kurlander newspaper editor E. Seraphim noted in an article in 1901, Baltic Germans had to accept that their special position was over and done with and adjust to a "faster pace of life." If his compatriots did not overcome their prejudice towards "new branches of the professions," they would be shut out by Latvians and Estonians. He then commended Baltic Germans for the "significant changes" in their professional lives and in the broadening of their professional vistas. As an illustration, he cited the Kurland nobility: [In] olden times it was unthinkable that, except for the profession of law and, in exceptional cases, clergyman, a nobleman would hold a literati profession. How different it is today. We find our nobility in all conceivable professions, as physicians, pastors, professors and teachers, civil servants of various branches, in technical professions as engineers, foresters, and businessmen.82

Adaptation to the demands of a more mobile and competitive society was by the turn of the century evident in even the most tradition bound segment of the Baltic German nobility, the Kurland nobility. Familial interest required more forward-looking attitudes. What could be more indicative of this trend than the demand in 1897 of Lili von Löwis of Menar's parents that their future son-inlaw, Balthasar von Campenhausen, the prospective heir of an entailed manor, 82 SERAPHIM, Im neuen Jahrhundert, p. 35. Another article on this topic in April, 1909 illustrates that the trend continued. The Düna-Zeitung stressed that "there are hardly positions in which we do not find Baltic noblemen: in academic and practical, classic and modern (reale) positions; as doctors and lawyers as architects and engineers, as teachers and artists of all kinds, also employees of banks.... SERAPHIM, Aus der Arbeit, pp. 89-90. Seraphim, editor of the paper, also noted that the literati had taken up other professions in technical areas and the fine arts. Seraphim published a pamphlet in 1902 in which he urged his compatriots to accept the Estonians and Latvians as sons of the same homeland, deserving of equal rights. At the same time, he said, Baltic Germans had to defend their position in the professions, in society, and in the organs of self-government. (Im neuen Jahrhundert, p. 35). Seraphim's memoirs provide insight into the political position and views of the conservative segment of Baltic German society (1892-1910). He concentrates on the "Russification" period and the revolution of 1905/06 and the beginnings of constitutionalism as decisive moments in the history of the provinces. Aus der Arbeit, passim.

269

"also occupy a position in burgher life (bürgerliche Leben)," since "university studies by themselves are not enough." 83 This sort of demand was a manifestation of the emergence of a new identity even among the nobility, an embourgeoisement (Verbürgerlichung) that signaled a move away from the old caste system. An examination of university subjects studied and professions held (and there was no necessary correlation) shows nobles moving into new areas. The traditional aristocratic predilection for law, however, remained unchanged and, given the Baltic noble connection to the land, the occupation of manorlord/farmer still held the top place among chosen subjects and professions. According to the Livonia register of 212 noble youths between 1860 to 1900, eighty-one (38 %) studied law, forty-five (21 %) political economy (oec. pol.), and twenty-six (12%) agriculture (oec.). Overall, thirty-three percent of students studied subjects that put special emphasis on agriculture. 84 The Wolff family, for example, well known for its more than usual talent and predilection for agriculture, had seven of its eight Dorpat sons study these subjects in the last two decades of the century. 85 Four students of political economy also pursued an additional course of study in forestry in Germany, an option chosen by other young Baltic nobles, especially in the 1890's, when the timber business became lucrative. Among the Livonia students natural sciences held third place. Twenty-six students (12%) chose this concentration, led by chemistry with thirteen, math with five, zoology with four, and physics and botany with two each. Nineteen students (9%) were in medicine. Four students studied diplomacy, three each theology and philology, and one each geography/ethnography, the cameral sciences, and history. 86 Subjects studied in each decade reflect immediate responses to political and economic challenges. In the 1880's and 83

HI, Baltikum 400/675, diary entry for 4 January 1897. Agriculture was meant by oec. whereas oec. pol. was a more broadly conceived course of study of the national economy that also paid special attention to agriculture. ENGELHARDT, Die deutsche Universität, p. 400. A separate listing of agr. as a special course of study appeared twice in the Estonia in the last two decades of the century; these students were added to the oec. totals. Some students listed more than one subject (thirty-eight in the Estonia, twenty in the Livonia); we have chosen the longest studied subject. Some combinations, like chemistry and then medicine have an obvious relationship; in other cases students simply changed their minds. 85 WOLFF, Die Reichsfreiherren, p. 112. Six chose political economy. In the 1860's and 70's law rivalled political economy and agriculture. Forty Wolffs studied at Dorpat in the nineteenth century, of whom twenty-six became Livonia members. 86 Comparisons with subjects studied in the previous half century are not always meaningful. Neither cameral nor military sciences were offered after the sixties, while political economy was a new subject. For example, among Estonia noble students thirty-nine percent studied law and twenty-two percent cameral sciences between 1818 and 1860; between 1861 and 1900, forty-eight studied law, but cameral sciences, the number two subject earlier, was replaced or displaced with the two agriculture-related economic subjects that were studied by twenty-two percent of students. 84

270

90's the study of agro-economic subjects and chemistry, which were useful for both agriculture and the nobility's industrial enterprises, rose as a means to assure familial financial security. Law became less desirable with the abolition of provincial autonomy.87 As Fanny von Anrep commented in 1893, the only field of activity which until now has not been hemmed in is life in the countryside, and it is natural that our youth strive to become farmers and so accumulate capital.88

The Estonia register shows similar patterns. Of 161 noble students between 1861-1900, seventy-eight (48%) studied law. The percentage of students who chose law dropped from seventy-nine percent in 1861-1870 to twenty-nine percent in 1891-1900.89 Thirty-nine students (24 %) studied agriculture and political economy (nineteen agriculture, twenty political economy). Eighteen students (11 %) chose medicine, followed by seventeen (10%) who selected the natural sciences. Of these, chemistry led with eleven students, three studied zoology, two physics, and one mineralogy. Five students elected diplomacy, two students theology, and one each geography/ethnography, cameral sciences, and history. Among 145 Curonia noble students law dominated with 113 students (78%). Until the 1880's law was attractive because it offered paid employment in the administration. Later there was a decline in law and fewer students finished the legal faculty with a degree. In the period from 1883 to 1900, thirty-four students (44 %) finished with a degree, while the rate was fifty-nine percent for the overall period. Political economy held second place with nineteen students (13 %), followed by medicine with ten (7 %). 90 Landholding remained the major occupation of the nobility, usually combined with honorary service in the administration. But close to a third of corporation alumni, who were manorless or uninterested in farming, sought other opportunities. A glance at professional listings confirms this move. Nobles took jobs as engineers, foresters, chemists, businessmen, as directors of banks, facto87 In the 1890's the subject of political economy was hardly taught as the Livonia lists only one student and the Estonia none. From 1860-1869, of forty-one noble Livonia students, twenty six studied law, two agriculture, five political economy, and five the natural sciences (the remainder were spread across the humanities and social sciences). From 1870-1879, of fifty-six students, twenty-four studied law, four agriculture, twelve political economy, five medicine, and three natural sciences. From 1880 to 1889 of seventy students, seventeen studied law, ten agriculture, twenty seven political economy, ten medicine, and four the natural sciences. From 1890 to 1900, of forty-five students, fourteen studied law, ten agriculture, twelve the natural sciences (six chemistry), and one political economy. 88

ANREP, p. 96.

The drop is constant and began before Russification. In 1871 to 1880 forty-nine percent of students chose law with this number falling to thirty-five percent in 1881-1890. 90 ScHLINGENSIEPEN's figures confirm that law held first place (forty-six percent), followed by medicine, political economy and agriculture for Livonia students. But if we combine agriculture and political economy, agro-related studies hold second place with twentythree percent, followed by the natural sciences, led by chemistry with thirty-nine percent (thirty-three of a total of eighty-three). Medicine is next with thirteen percent, p. 105. 89

271

ries, joint stock companies, and construction firms and worked as civil servants or employees of insurance companies, banks, and railroads. Some worked as journalists, writers, teachers, or professors, while more nobles than previously practiced law and medicine. Before the revolution of 1917 fifty-seven noble medical doctors practiced in Livland and forty-five in Estland (though only seven in Kurland). 91 Arved von Ungern-Sternberg, for example, noted that among his best friends from gymnasium days and then Dorpat, he himself chose chemistry and became director of a paper factory in Riga, Werner Zoege von Manteuffel studied medicine, became a professor at Dorpat and also a practicing surgeon with his own clinic, Gerhard von Rosen became a landscape painter, Fedinka von Pahlen studied natural sciences, and Eduard von Toll became a polar explorer. 92 Prior notions of family status and prestige appropriate to the structured status world were stretched to encompass new professions more in line with the norms of burgher society. The well known von Rosen family, for example, had among its members several engineers who worked in the shipping industry, road and waterway construction, and railroading. From the 1860's to the end of the Empire 160 (29%) of 469 Livonia alumni worked outside the field of agriculture. Among the Estonians, for example, thirty-nine worked for the imperial service and five for the military, while another nine served in the excise office. Many others held burgher professions. Thirty-eight practiced medicine (two became professors), seven worked as writers and journalists, two as university assistants, two each worked for the credit association and the railroad, four as engineers, six as insurance civil servants, five as factory directors, and one as bank director. Four were chemists, five each businessmen, and teachers, three worked as manor managers and two as foresters. One each held the occupation of clergyman, pharmacist and professor of philosophy. Thirty were involved in the legal field, predominantly as lawyers. 93 Professional opportunities continued to draw young nobles to the modernizing Russian Empire, though after Russification many also pursued careers in the German Empire. Of fifty-one noble Livonians listed from 1889 to 1900, twenty owned or managed manors in the provinces (of these fourteen had an educational background in agriculture or political economy). Five served as civil servants in Livland (at the noble credit society, the archive, and insurance companies), two practiced law in Riga, three worked as newspaper editors, and one each was a pastor and a director of a music school in Riga. Nineteen (37%) worked outside the provinces. Ten (20%) of these worked in Russia, three as 91 Based on biographical handbooks and cited in HOHEISEL, " D i e deutsche Bevölkerung," p. 226. 92

Z O E G E VON M A N T E U F F E L , Ein Lebensbild,

P. 1 5 4 .

SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 104-109. H e has a more detailed breakdown of professions for all three corporations. Schlingensiepen did not appreciate the extent to which status barriers were breaking down in this period. 93

272

medical doctors, six for the Imperial civil service, and one, with a legal background, as counsel to an insurance company. 94 Nine left for Germany, where three worked as musicians, two as chemists, one each as medical doctor, manor administrator, engineer, and university law professor. Outmigration to Germany had clearly increased as a result of Russification: in the period from 1860 to 1880, of 166 noble Livonians, only six chose to work in Germany (one other worked in Belgium); three of these six left directly after Russification. In this period only eighteen (11 % ) of 166 Livonians chose work in Russia (twelve for the Imperial civil service), a lower rate than later, when Russification eliminated jobs in the administration at home. Russification, then, led to a net loss of Baltic German population in a period of already lowered fertility. Lacking demographic vitality, the Baltic German nobility could not possibly have filled all the new positions nor exploited all the new opportunities offered by the changed economic and social environment of the provinces. However, it was a realistic strategy to adapt to these changes so that the nobility would not lose its predominant status and could assure its survival in the modern world. Looking ahead over the next decades into the twentieth century, this adaptation would in the long run probably also have meant that the nobility would also lose the "functional and cultural homogeneity which had always been a mark of the traditional European ruling class." 95 Overall, this examination confirms that attitudes were changing as the norms of burgher society increasingly broke down the barriers of the world of Stand. As with adaptation to agrarian capitalism, the Baltic German noble family accommodated itself to new norms as means to secure socio-economic status and prestige.

Young Women Status barriers were also challenged in this period by Baltic German lower class burgher parents (artisans, tradesmen, shopkeepers) who encouraged their daughters' aspirations for higher education in the hope that this would open up opportunities for social mobility. By the 1880's lower burgher and also middle class parents were increasingly concerned about a broadening of occupational choices beyond teaching or governessing to assure their daughters' future security. Both the greater emphasis on a higher level of education and the question of woman's role outside the home affected the education and upbringing of young women in the latter decades of the nineteenth century and provoked

94 Three of the six civil servants had studied law, two chemistry, and one theology. Two of them returned to the provinces a few years before WW I. In general, this discussion includes only those who pursued their careers outside the provinces. 95

LIEVEN, The Aristocracy,

p. 5.

273

constant debate. The debate was dominated by socially conservative pedagogues and pastors, who, imbued with the ideology of the characterization of the sexes, supported a program of education for women that would foster "her nature" and fit her for "her destiny" as wife and mother in a German home.96 The need for preparation for higher education exceeded the ability of parents to teach their daughters at home and led to an expansion of girls' public and private institutions and boarding schools. By the 1880's twenty public institutions offered 3,500 students higher preparatory courses, usually taught by male teachers.97 The course of study was capped with an optional certificate of graduation (grosse Examen) that qualified the candidate for teaching at lower level schools or working as a governess. Teaching was still regarded as the only appropriate occupation for the poorer noble and literati daughters who made up the majority of pupils, but their lower-class sisters now aspired to the same position in ever larger numbers.

Education

and

Schooling

The curriculum of the girls' schools, especially at the upper levels, did not equal that at the boys' gymnasia. The girls' program was based instead on religion, biblical history, reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, natural history, German, music, singing, needlework, and foreign languages. If this sounds like a demanding enough curriculum, it should be pointed out that the level of work offered in these courses was purposely lowered to the modest level of women's intellectual constraints. Among foreign languages French, not Latin, occupied center stage; Latin was considered too demanding of woman's limited faculties of logic and reasoning. Subjects thought to develop "the emotionality of woman's nature," such as religion and music, were assigned great importance, while those that required calculation, such as the natural sciences and math were avoided, for the development of theoretical skills and abstract reasoning had no place in woman's education. Texts were adapted to woman's "special nature". History texts, for example, downplayed wars, conquests, and calamities. In both subject matter and style teachers were expected to avoid inciting ambition or inhibiting emotion.98 Apart F o r a full discussion of these issues, see WHELAN,"The D e b a t e . " HALTZEL, Der Abbau, p. 136; ROZHDESTVENSKII, Istoricheskii, 1:675. A s o p p o s e d to b o y s ' schooling, the state did not support this expansion. School fees covered three-quarters of school costs, with municipalities p a y i n g the remainder. In 1866 there were 109 girls' schools in the provinces, thirty-nine public and seventy private schools. STRÜMPELL, " Z u r Finanzstatistik," p. 423. 9 8 CONRADI, " A n die weibliche," p. 159; at the well k n o w n private school of Baroness Maydell in Reval it was a cardinal principle that teachers " n o t incite ambition in girls." WRANGELL, Das Leben, P. 20. 96

97

274

from this, teaching methods varied widely, particularly at private schools, where teachers were allowed to develop their own study plans. Girl's schools often lacked equipment, books, and instruments. As parents and teachers put more stress on the grosse Examen as the goal of education, there was corresponding emphasis on the same style of rote learning used at boy's schools." This curriculum remained basically unchanged into the twentieth century despite attempts by a segment of burgher and middle class society to direct the curriculum toward more vocational training. Neither, however, did the social conservatives manage to redirect woman's educational program towards women's true role in home and family and away from much criticized overeducation and overrefinement that led to the production of the despised "blue stockings." In part the higher educational requirements for girls were a response to higher educational demands on males. The ideal young noble (or upper-class) woman was to be cultured and educated (gebildet) as a mark of her social status. The tone and style of her future home would be shaped by her Bildung and make her a desirable partner and competent mother as well as pedagogue to her future children. As far as household tasks were concerned, a noblewoman was still expected to learn the skills necessary to manage a large household. On the whole, even though young women were kept longer at home and were still socialized mainly to their future role as wife and mother, their contact with the wider world increased as educational demands were raised and society changed in response to the demands of the modernizing economy. At home a young girl's instruction by her governess, under the guidance of her mother, was supplemented more often, after the ages of twelve or thirteen, by additional, and more specialized subject instruction (in most cases by male teachers since it was generally thought that women were incapable of the intellectual demands of mastering a discipline well enough to teach it).100 More noble girls spent at least a few years, usually after age fourteen, at a private institution, often with boarding facilities. The conservative pastor A. Bielenstein, himself much in favor of home education, admitted that "one does not say without some justice that daughters also must leave home and that instruction at home is not enough."101 In Estland, for example, the private boarding school of Baroness Elise Howen, founded in 1879 in Reval, enjoyed an excellent reputation, especially among the nobility. The long established and venerable school 99 WLTTRAM, Drei Generationen, pp. 238-239; JULIE VON KÄSTNER, "Eine Rigaer Mädchenschule vor 70 Jahren," BM (1935):612-621; the pedagogue Ε. REIHER'S article "Das grosse Examen," is representative in its critique of the exam. Rigasche Hausfrauenzeitschrift, Nr. 21, 27 May 1887. 100 HOHEISEL, "Über Mädchenerziehung," p. 247. 101 BLELENSTEIN, p. 200. Some fathers, like Balthasar von Campenhausen, thought his daughter at fourteen "too young to leave the parental home" and postponed her outside schooling. HI, Baltikum 400/675, entry for 3 October 1889.

275

at Finn, staffed only by women, continued to attract young noble women from Estland and also Livland. Baroness Anna Gruenewaldt's private boarding school in Riga enrolled thirty girls in 1888 willing to pay the rather high fee of 500 rubles a year. 102 For poorer noble girls, public institutions with lower fees were the only option. For the first time, noble girls were now more commonly socialized in their teenage years toward their adult roles in a circle of like-age cohorts and were allowed the joys and satisfaction of friendship and comradeship vital to their brothers. Boarding school was also a preparation for a girl's eventual separation from the parental home. 103 Girls' perspectives were broadened by this experience and their awareness of the changing world around them also increased. It was no surprise then that more noble and other upper class girls voiced a desire for occupational training and employment outside the home to secure their futures. In the period from 1850 to 1899 twenty-eight percent of young noblewomen in our sample remained single, at a time when the only alternatives to marriage were to work as a governess or teacher, to remain at home until the death of parents, to live in town on meager and irregularly paid inheritance installments, supplemented by fees from boarders, or to spend a lifetime as a family aunt. The latter institution was on the wane after the 1860's, when younger women keenly felt themselves to be economic burdens and sought to avoid society's mockery of spinsterhood, with its connotations of unfulfilled womanhood, financial dependence, and personal helplessness. 104

New

Careers

Upper class women's desire for occupational training and employment ran head on into society's prejudices. As a woman's journal in 1909 put it, "it is not status-appropriate (standesgemäss) to train daughters in a profession" and so lessen her marital chances. 105 Fathers were especially obstinate in this regard. In 1868 Emmy von Samson-Himmelstjerna's request to her father to permit her a "professional life" was flatly turned down. In 1901 Alice von Sivers' father told 102 Finn had twenty-four paying boarders and educated twelve poor Estland noble girls without fee. Finn charged three-hundred rubles per year. Elise von Howen was a graduate of Baroness Maydell's school in Reval. She saw it as her task to "educate girls who were believing Evangelical Christians." WRANGELL, Das Leben, p. 43; HI, Baltikum 400/588, p. 44. 103 For girls as for boys this separation caused anxiety. Lili von Löwis of Menar noted plaintively in her diary in 1889 that "unfortunately there is still always talk about giving me away from home to a boarding school." H I , Baltikum 400/729, diary entry for 21 January 1890. 104 See HI, Baltikum 400/675, diary entry for 14 March 1880; HUNNIUS, Wenn die Zeit, p. 35; HERMANN, "Erinnerungen," p. 46; Gruenewaldt, Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 291-292. 105 A. PAPPRITZ, "Praktische Frauenberufe," Baltische Hausfrauenzeitsckrift. Leben und Wirken, January 1909, p. 157.

276

her, when she expressed her desire for nursing training, "consider that if you learn nursing, no decent man will want to marry you." Earlier he had forbidden her older sister to take the qualifying exam for teaching. Alice's father, however, allowed later that once she turned twenty-four (and her marital chances were presumably diminished in any case) she could decide on a profession on her own, a concession to changing times. To another noble girl's father, her desire to attend a school for applied arts in Germany in the 1890's appeared simply "absurd." 106 A supportive mother could make a difference in a girl's aspirations. The exceptionally gifted Daisy von Wrangell, who eventually became the first woman full professor in Germany, pursued her course of chemistry studies there in 1903, encouraged by her mother. The more ordinary Alice von Sivers reported that her mother supported her two daughters' occupational ambitions because she was one of those "rare mothers who did not long for her daughters' marriages." The middle-aged, daughterless Fanny von Anrep, who "would have liked to have had a profession," encouraged young women's ambitions, writing in a letter in 1897 that it "would be nice and pressingly necessary to bring up our young girls also for professional work." 107 Attitudes toward occupational training and outside work for young women changed more gradually among the upper segment of society than among the lower orders, where, of course, financial need was often more pressing. Changing attitudes on woman's work are reflected at the end of the nineteenth century on the pages of the middle class "Riga Housewives Journal." The debate on whether women should work shifted to the question of what occupations were consonant with their "essential nature" (wesensgemässe Arbeit). Occupations such as nursing, social work, the applied arts, and, of course, teaching were cited as appropriate. This kind of work was justified as an expression of woman's humanizing role in the competitive world.108 For noble girls, however, opportunities of this sort only became available after the crisis of 1904-1905. Russification of German girls' schools was one reason for the delay in noble girls' occupational aspirations. Russian as the required language of instruction was regarded as a threat to the future Germanness of the home. As Alice von Sivers noted "it was almost regarded as inappropriate in noble circles for a girl to learn Russian," and Eugenie Pilar von Pilchau, who was raised in St. Petersburg

106 In order of citation, HI, Baltikum 400/ 675, diary entry for 6 January 1868; ibid., Nr. 588, pp. 46, 60; ELSABE STRATER, "Lebensbild über ihre Mutter Gerda von Sivers 18791966," in ROSEN, Familiengeschichte, 2:143. 107 HI, Baltikum 400/580, p. 60; ANREP, pp. 147,185. The singer Monika Hunnius (and a writer after the revolution) had the support of her mother. Alice's aged aunt, Ernestine von Schoultz-Ascheraden, was appalled at her desire, commenting that their "ancestors would turn over in their graves." HI, Baltikum 400/580, p. 60. 108

WHELAN, " T h e D e b a t e , " p. 179.

277

as the daughter of Minister of Justice Konstantin von der Pahlen, reported that "it was taken ill by Baltic German society that I spoke Russian" and that she was regarded as "Russified." 109 Many parents among the nobility and literati withdrew their daughters from school and taught them at home or in private circles, with the result that Russian was avoided altogether.110 It was only after the revolution of 1905, when German returned as the language of instruction in the schools and noblewomen became publicly more active and organized themselves into leagues to safeguard German nationality, that prejudices against occupational training and outside work diminished. An article in a Baltic woman's journal for 1908 on the social position of kindergarten teachers noted that students at the Dorpat kindergarten seminary belonged to the "educated and well-off segments of society" and were "recruited ... partly from the nobility, partly from the literati, and partly from the merchantry." More schools were set up to offer courses in nursing, applied arts, bookkeeping, accounting, secretarial skills and household management. Marie von Campenhausen, born in 1876, trained as a nurse at the Mellin institute in Dorpat and went to work at a children's hospital and then a private clinic in Riga. The young Freda von Gersdorff was sent off to Riga in 1906 to take courses in sewing, accounting and typing, not an uncommon event by this time.111 German Baltic noble familial adaptation to socio-economic change that affected daughters was, not surprisingly, slower than for sons or than for parents from the lower social classes, but change there was; this was also true of marital choice where, as with occupational choice, status barriers were lowered.

Marriage

and

Family

For most noble girls formal education was completed at seventeen and life's general rhythm afterwards did not vary much from earlier in the century. With her confirmation in the Lutheran church, a girl was prepared for marriage at home, a preparation that included polishing domestic and social skills, languages, 109 HI, Baltikum 400/588, p. 35; HSA, 702, Nr. 42, p. 64. In his justification for introducing Russian as the language of instruction at Baltic German girls' schools, Minister of Education Count I. D. Delianov stated in 1890 that "the German girls' school serves as the strongest instrument of the upbringing of the whole rising generation in the German spirit. One can say with assurance that as long as girls' schools of the Baltic region preserve their German character a drawing together of the population of this region with the Russian is out of the question." ROZHDESTVENSKII, Istoricheskii, p. 675. 110

STEINWAND, P. 2 3 ; TOBIEN, Ritterschaft,

1:292.

In sequence, Baltische Hausfrauenzeitschrift, June 1908, p. 45; PRA/Solms, Freda von Gersdorff, "Meine Lebenserinnerungen," p. 13. CAMPENHAUSEN, Geschickte...Campenhausen, p. 65. An article in the Düna-Zeitung, published in April, 1909, pointed out that "the number of women from educated families who have, for example, taken positions in business offices is a large one and grows from year to year...." Seraphim, Aus der Arbeit, p. 90. 111

278

teaching younger siblings, and, often in a circle of age cohorts, deepening Bildung through reading the classics. The waiting period between the unmarried and marital state remained steady throughout the century. Table 14: Marriage Age of Women (first marriage)* Date of Marriage

%

%

21-24

17001749

23

64

5

14

3

8

5

14

0

0

36

22.6

17501799

97

56

38

22

24

14

8

5

5

3

172

22.6

18001849

69

24

51

18

26

9

9

3

291

23.4

30-34

35-39

%

Average Age of Marriage

%

25-29

%

Total Marriages

to 21

136

47

18501899

150

44

78

23

90

26

19

6

7

2

344

23.4

Totals

406

48

190

23

168

20

58

7

21

2

843

23.0

»Source: GH Estl., GH Kurl, GH Livl., GH Oesel.

For the seventy-two percent of daughters in our data collection who married between 1850 and 1899, the average age at marriage was 23.4. For the seventyeight percent of sons who married, the average age was 29.4. 112 Forty-four percent of women, as opposed to forty-seven percent in the first part of the century, were married by age twenty-one. An additional twenty-three percent were married by age twenty-four, but thirty-four percent (as against 30 % earlier), married at age twenty-five and above (22 % between ages twenty-five and twenty-nine, 14 % between ages thirty and thirty-four). This represents a twelve percent rise from a century earlier (22 % married at twenty-five and above in 1750-1799). A good third, then, of women's marriages took place in a period 112 Eighty percent of men in our sample married after age twenty-five as opposed to eightyeight percent over the period 1800 to 1849. This figure does not bear out the perception of contemporaries that men married significantly later than earlier in the century because of rising material expectations. But whereas forty-nine percent of men married at age thirty and above in the period 1800-1849, only forty-three percent did so in the second half of the century. The age difference between men and women at time of marriage grew after 1800. In our sample forty-seven percent of men were more than six years older than their partners from 1750 to 1799. In 1800 to 1849 this grew to seventy-three percent, but was lowered to sixty-seven percent from 1850 to 1899. Of 248 marriages over the course of two centuries, only nine were contracted among partners of the same age (four percent) and only thirteen women were older than their husbands. Patriarchalism was reinforced by this age difference, with more mature and financially established men serving as paternal guides for their young wives.

279

when their fertility, highest between ages twenty and twenty-four, was lowered, an indirect method of birth control that might account in part for the lower birthrate in this period. As to the choice of marital partner, Baltic German civil law served to reproduce the social system, as did also those factors discussed in an earlier chapter: courtship institutions, components of spouse selection and factors of parental approval (suitability of families, status, education and occupation, financial considerations including the occasional "family plan"). Thus Fanny von Anrep remarked, for example in 1896, how one of the Livland Wolffs pursued one "rich Kurland heiress" after another and was turned down each time in succession, having to settle finally for "a well off girl." Elly von Stryk and her sister, well endowed financially, were courted by "two young Maydells" because they "considered us good matches." Another young man, a Wrangell, was interested in Elly's sister, "but there was a family plan which made it impossible for him to become engaged to her." 113 Educational levels and occupational status received more attention in marital matters than earlier in the century. For girls the opportunities to meet young men informally, and not only of the nobility, had somewhat broadened by the end of the century, when Fanny von Anrep noted critically that "young girls in Dorpat visit students at fraternity quarters and are invited in." She did not like this "female emancipation."114 Otto von Gruenewaldt noted in his memoirs that by the beginning of the twentieth century "our wives and daughters wanted to participate in the joys of club life" and that the men had to "accommodate" them.115 Was love given more rein than earlier? As this was a much less demonstrative age, diaries and letters do not contain the effusive expressions of feeling, encouraged by the sentimentalism and pietism of the first part of the century. At best, love and sentiment were more acceptable to parents, and a father like Alexander von Keyserling expected and encouraged his son Leo to "choose a bride according to his heart." It was mutual love that was decisive, for example, in parental approval of a love match between two young Campenhausens, even In order, ANREP, p. 116; HI, Baltikum 400/627, pp. 38-29. ANREP, p. 192. But young men still had to be very circumspect in courting a girl. In 1890 Ivan von der Pahlen's tutor apologized to his father, Konstantin von der Pahlen, for allowing too great a familiarity between his son and a young lady, arousing much talk in Mitau society. He noted that this had all been quite innocent and that his son had met the young lady along with other young people at the skating rink and then later had seen her at two dances at private homes. He reported that the son was appropriately shocked by the talk in town. L W A , fond 766, Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 8, letter of 24 February 1890. 115 GRUENEWALDT, Lebenserinnerungen, p. 308; though it was still not acceptable for young men to accompany unrelated young females in the streets, more opportunities were offered to get to know a girl better. At dances, it was now permitted to sit together during breaks (though at dinner the sexes still sat separately); vacations at the beach also led to informal mixing of the sexes at games, dances, boat parties, and theatrical performances. Sons of pastors still served as "cavaliers" at dances on manors. HI, Baltikum 400/627, p. 35. 113

114

280

though the male partner was not well off. 116 More significant change came with a lowering of status barriers; this may partly account for a higher marital rate for both daughters and sons in this period (72 % for women, 78 % of men in our sample as opposed to earlier in the century, also a difficult economic time, when 62 % of women and 72 % of men married). Fanny von Anrep commented in 1903 that the otherwise so very aristocratic Estlanders are gradually also accommodating themselves to the changing times. A Baroness Schilling married Theodor Kraus [a painter], there the artist has replaced the noble, here [in Livland] with Hahn, it is the renowned preacher, father and son." 7

An examination of marriages contracted by the Estland corporate nobility from 1860-1914 confirms Fanny's observation. Of 2,060 marriages, 1,197 (58 %) were contracted among the corporate nobility, 412 (20 %) with non-noble women of literati and burgher background, 452 (22 %) with Russian women, a rate traditionally higher than among the other corporations. Of the Estland Stackelberg family's 150 marriages, for example, thirty-one (21%) were contracted with non-nobles, 13 % with Russians and 66 % with corporate nobles. 118 Even among the proud Kurland nobility, mixed marriages were on the rise. Between 1860 and 1900 according to the Curonia register of 146 nobles, forty (27 %) remained unmarried (a 9 % rise over earlier in the century), seventy-five (51 %) married other corporate nobles (a 15% decline), four married Russians, one a Pole, two German nobles and twenty (16%) burgher or literati daughters from the Baltic and abroad. The social background of these women varied; their fathers worked in the higher levels of the military or served as clergymen, merchants, factory and manor owners, bank directors, medical doctors, or engineers. 119 Among seven116 KEYSERLING, 2:163; HI, Baltikum 400/627, pp. 4 3 ^ 6 and passim. Reinhold Stael von Holstein's daughters and nieces chose their future husband themselves, turning down many a suitor in the process. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta 14, Lietas Nr. 634, pp. 17, 23-24, 44. 117

ANREP, p. 222.

Based on genealogical handbook and table in SCHLINGENSIEPEN; a number of families listed between ten and nineteen commoner marriages, among them Buxhoeveden (eleven), Rosen (twelve), Schulmann (twelve), Ungern-Sternberg (seventeen), Uexküll and Meyendorff (eleven each), Wrangell (sixteen), Baggehufwudt (ten), Krusenstjern (eleven), Mohrenschildt (ten), Dehn (eighteen), Rennenkampff (fourteen), Schilling (eleven). The Stackelbergs listed more than twenty marriages with Russians, Uexküll and Meyendorff each twenty-eight, Wrangell twenty-seven, and Schilling twenty-one. 119 HANDRACK also affirmed that after 1870, with the beginning of Russification, barriers of status began to wane in Kurland. "Soziale Inzucht," p. 78. Only fifteen of more than one thousand literati Curonians married corporate noble girls, suggesting that for Kurland's noble girls the marriage circle was more restricted than for their brothers. Among the women's husbands five were medical doctors - by now a more respected profession in noble circles also - three rented manors, one each was a lawyer, chemist, excise civil servant, two served in paid positions in the Livland judicial system, and one was a professor of theology. Of 121 marriages of Kurland clergymen between 1850-1910, ten (8 % ) took place with corporate noble daughters. HOHEISEL, "Die deutsche Bevölkerung," p. 228. 118

281

ty-eight Livonians,who graduated between 1885 and 1900, nineteen (24 %) remained unmarried, thirty-six (49 %) married corporate noble women, two married foreign nobility, and twenty-one (27 %) married women of burgher or literati background. 120 This examination shows that the Baltic German family accommodated itself with considerable flexibility to economic and social changes in the second part of the nineteenth century. The nobility was on the defensive, but at every step it managed to secure its social and economic status in a more competitive and increasingly more open and capitalistic society. In this competition the nobility, of course, had an advantageous social and economic start, but they also had the handicaps of habits and customs of the old aristocratic order that were not easily overcome. N o n e the less, the nobility had shown that it could compete in this new world. While there was change in the social world, nothing comparable occurred in the political arena, where the nobility showed less flexibility. This failure would ultimately lead to the nobility turning from a dominant ruling class into an expropriated ethnic minority when the new Baltic states emerged from the rubble of World War I.

120 Twenty-seven literati Livonians married corporate noble girls betwen 1861 and 1900, no significant increase over the first part of the century (twenty-two). The professions of literati husbands confirm that medicine ranked highly as an acceptable occupation (eleven), followed by administrators or owners of manors (four), university teaching (three), lawyers (two), gymnasia teachers (two), one each clergyman, engineer, forester, librarian. Mixed marriage figures for noble girls for both the Livonia and Curonia suggest that women's opportunities may have been restricted, and this may also account for their lower rate of marriage.

282

C h a p t e r X I I : F r o m R u l i n g Stand t o E c o n o m i c E l i t e : T h e N o b i l i t y in the M o d e r n W o r l d Economic modernization and the revolutions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries undermined the claims of all pre-industrial elites in Europe. The impact of these events came to the Baltic provinces slowly, but it came. The aristocratic order of the provinces was challenged not only by the modernizing Russian state and the national awakening of the Estonians and Latvians, but also by a parallel process of accelerated industrialization and consequent rapid urbanization. This process brought opportunities to the Baltic German burghers who (with the aid of significant foreign capital) dominated industry, banking, the professions, and wholesale trade. Latvians and Estonians also gained social mobility when the highly regulated economy with its guild system was abolished in 1866. These changes, together with industrial and agrarian growth, also promoted the internal commerce of the provinces. New railroads were built in the provinces, especially in the 1870's and 1880's, and linked them with the major industrial and agrarian centers of the Empire, from St. Petersburg to Odessa and into Siberia and Central Asia.1 Railroads both tied the provinces more closely to the Empire and widened markets and mobility. By the end of the century the railroad network was more developed in the provinces than anywhere else in the Empire (2,128 km), though even here it was still behind Germany or England in density.2 At that time the provinces ranked among the most highly developed industrial areas of the Empire (in 1908 Livland and Estland held fourth and fifth rank), with industrial output in metals, machines, textiles, pulp and paper, construction materials, and food processing. Exports and imports benefitted Baltic sea ports, with Riga in first place, Reval in second, and after them Windau and Libau. Communications improved with the appearance of the telegraph (stimulated by the Crimean war), and in the 1880's of

1 See Istoricheskii ocherk razvitiia zheleznykh dorog ν Rossit (ikh osnovaniia po 1897 god vkliuchitel'no) (SPb., 1898); A. R A D T S I G , Vliianie zheleznykh dorog na sel'skoe khoziaistvo, promyshlennost' i torgovliu (SPb., 1896). Maintenance of the railroad system was not within the jurisdiction of the corporate nobility, but the corporations none the less made frequent representations in the capital about the expansion of this network. See the memoirs of R. Stael von Holstein, who was involved in expanding the railroad network in the provinces. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 634, pp. 2, 36-37, 39, 43-44, 71-73. 2

PÖNICKE, p. 4 8 6 .

283

telephones and horse drawn streetcars.3 Major changes and technological innovation also came to agriculture in the last four decades of the nineteenth century when a severe economic crisis in the 1880's led to a reorientation of the manor economy from grain to dairy, cattle, and timber.

The N e w Agrarian Crisis The economic position of the Baltic German nobility was affected by the loss of the manor monopoly in 1866. The loss of noble monopoly over the land was most visible in the emergence of a landholding and landleasing peasantry. In Estland, for example, by 1881 seventy-seven (48%) of 160 estate renters were Estonians.4 Higher excise taxes in 1862 on liquor and then the establishment in 1900 of an Imperial monopoly on liquor sales (though not beer) hit the manor economy hard. But the greatest threat to the economic standing of the nobility came in the 1880's with the fall of world and Russian prices of grain, the staple crop of the manors. Differential railroad shipping rates for grain introduced by the Russian government to favor the interests of the interior provinces compounded the problem of a Baltic agricultural economy based on grain.5 Russian protective tariffs on imports of machinery and fertilizers, and then German import tariffs added yet further blows. Manor mortgage debts continued to be a problem and were alleviated neither by the sale of land to peasants at higher prices than in the Empire nor by the exploitation of undercompensated rural labor. The threatened loss of political privileges in the 1860's and administrative centralization in the 1880's underscored the importance of preserving at least economic dominance, and many a manor lord who had previously served in

3 RAUN, Estonia, p. 71; Riga became the biggest export port of the Empire between 1870 and 1914 and Reval the second most important import port after Petersburg. See, Ergebnisse der Rigaer Handelsstatistik aus den Jahren 1876-1880 (Riga, 1882); BRUNO VON GERNET, Die Entwicklung des Rigaer Handels und Verkehrs im Laufe der letzten 50 Jahre his zum Ausbruche des Weltkrieges (Jena, 1919). The telephone made a large impact in country life. The Livlander Fanny von Anrep commented in a letter of 1897 on the "astonishing invention of the telephone" and how she was amused by the "constant telephone calls among neighbors" in her rural district. ANREP, p. 149. 4 RAUN, Estonia, p. 68. The number of rentals to burghers or Estonians and Latvians was higher in the transition period to a money economy in the 1860's and 70's, a difficult adjustment for some nobles. Of 185 manors in the Latvian part of Livland in 1866, for example, seventy eight were leased out (43%) whereas in the early 1860's only thirty-nine (21 % ) of these had been leased. Ocherki ekonomicheskoi istorii Latvii, 1860-1900 (Riga, 1972), p. 33; SIVERS, Das Buch der Güter. 5

O n t h e s e i s s u e s , s e e GASTON B A R O N CAMPENHAUSEN, " D i e B r a n n t w e i n - P r o d u k t i o n

in Kurland seit Einführung des neuen Accisegesetzes," Β Μ 23 (1874):225-253; F. ZAITSEV, Ocherkipo istorii zhelesnodorozhnikh tarifov SSSR, Part I: Khlebnye tarify (Moscow, 1925).

284

provincial administration or justice system now turned all his energy to his own domestic economy.6 The nobility countered the worsening economic trends with major changes in the agrarian economy, a transition starting in the 1880's away from grain to an emphasis on cattle, dairy and timber, and the increased use of agricultural machinery to raise productivity. In this period, too, the transition was completed to a multifield system with better crop rotation, and the further development of subsidiary sources of income, all of these efforts being supported by corporate credit associations and agrarian banks. Increased publicistic activity and improved agrarian studies at Dorpat and the Riga Polytechnical spread agrarian innovation. Organization and marketing became more professional with the foundation of local associations of manor owners and the creation of co-operatives to promote the sale of liquor, dairy products, cattle, and timber.7 More nobles entailed their manors to ensure that they remained within their families. In 1898, the Livland corporation tried to go one step further by discussing a proposal to introduce an Anerbenrecht (principal heir), though nothing came of it. As had happened earlier in the century, the corporations continued to seek governmental support through reductions in tariffs on imports of fertilizer and machinery and compensation for losses incurred because of the new Imperial liquor monopoly. Manors managed to retain important revenue-producing privileges such as the rights to manufacture beer and liquor, to build and operate taverns and inns, to sell beer and victuals, and to hold fairs. Overall, despite the challenges of a changed economy and the emergence of a propertied peasantry that was proving quite competitive with the manor economy, the nobility man-

6

Wahl

See HSA, 702, (Dettingen, Nr. 33, "Die Drei," p. 270; Erlebtes Livland. Die Familie von 1795-1993,

ed. E N A VON HARPE a n d DIETER VON W A H L ( W e i s s e n h o r n , 1 9 9 3 ) , p p .

164-171. 7 Co-operatives also provided funds for modernizing the manor economy. Major sources used for this section, Ocherki ekonomicheskoi istorii Latvii, which discusses Livland and Kurland and uses archival sources; FRIEDRICH VON JUNG-STILLING, Ein Beitrag zur livländischen Agrarstatistik (Riga, 1881); Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii, sobrannye ofitserami general'nogo shtaba, vol. 13: Kurlandskaia gubemiia, ed. A. ORANOVSKII (SPB., 1862) and vol. 14: Lifliandskaia gubemiia, F. WEIMARN (SPb., 1864); ΙΑ. I. LUDMER, Kurlandskaia gubemiia. Svod statisticheskikh dannykh, Part I (Mitau, 1888). Statistika zemlevladeniia 1905 goda 50: Lifliandskaia gubemiia, 44: Kurliandskaia gubemiia (SPb., 1906); ALPHONS BARON HEYKING, Statistische Studien über die ländlichen Zustände Kurlands (Mitau, 1862); SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 76-103; RAUN, Estonia, pp. 48-53, 67-71; Ν. A. EGIOZAROVA, Agramyi krizis kontsa XIX veka ν Rossii (Moscow, 1959); BENNO MARQUART, Die landwirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse Kurlands, 2 Parts (Berlin, 1917); V. ZEMTSEV, Κ agramomu voprosu ν Lifliandii (Riga, 1907); N. KARLBERG, Sbomik statisticheskikh svedeniipo Lifliandskoi gubernii (Riga, 1886); TRANSEHE-ROSENECK, "Agrargeschichte," in Baltische Bürgerkunde, pp. 277-299 and "Agrarverhältnisse", ibid., pp. 300-330; MAX VON BLAESE, "Agrarverhältnisse," ibid., pp. 331-350; GERNET, Geschichte; PLSTOHLKORS, "Geschichtsschreibung," for a review of Baltic German historiography on agrarian (and constitutional) problems, pp. 273-309.

285

aged to maintain a dominant economic position in the countryside to the end of the Empire. 8

The L o s s of M a n o r M o n o p o l y T h e fight to abolish the noble monopoly on manors, led by the great guild of Riga, stretched from 1836 to 1866. After the success of the nobility in codifying its land monopoly in 1845, the fight was taken up again in the new liberal era of Alexander II with the aid of the Baltic German press and under the impetus of the new peasant legislation of 1849 and 1856, which divided agrarian land into three parts. Manor lords were required to set aside a certain portion of land {Bauernland) for rent or sale to the peasantry, with lords retaining full control of manor land (Hofsland). T h e third portion, the so-called quota land (or in Estland "one sixth land") was kept also at the disposal of the lords, though, as we shall see later, there was some confusion over its purpose. 9 With the law on peasant land purchase the noble monopoly of landholding was broken. In addition, the Imperial government also opened up the sale of crown estates to the peasantry, and at lower prices than prevailed for manor land. 10 In 1864 Riga t o o k the offensive on behalf of the Baltic towns with a proposal to the diet to restore the old burgher right to manor ownership. 1 1 Many corporation members feared for their exclusive political privileges and the " p u r i t y " of the noble register, suspecting that burghers as "alien elements" were planning to penetrate the ranks of the matriculated nobility (many nobles forgetting in the process

8 PlSTOHLKORS, "Historische Einführung," p. 5. Peasant owners, especially on the fertile soil of northern Livland, kept up with technical improvements, were successful in cattle breeding and generally ran a market oriented economy. See PlSTOHLKORS, "Die Stellung,"

p . 118; RAUN, Estonia,

p . 70.

In Estland there was a requirement that land sold to the peasantry be consolidated by changing the custom of scattered strip farming; in Russia stripfarming lasted until the end of the Empire, though the Stolypin reforms of 1907 encouraged the consolidation of lots. 9

10

THEODOR BÖTTICHER, " D e r D o m a i n e n v e r k a u f in d e n O s t s e e p r o v i n z e n u n d d a s

Güterbesitzrecht," BM 3 (1861): 334-425; in 1856 Riga's burghers attempted to gain the right to purchase Bauernland, rejected by the Livland diet, and confirmed by the Baltic Committee in St. Petersburg. For details on the manor issue, see R[EINHOLD] BARON STAEL VON HOLSTEIN, " D i e F r e i g e b u n g d e s R i t t e r g ü t e r - B e s i t z r e c h t s , " BM 63 (1907): 1 8 0 - 2 0 8 , 2 7 6 - 3 0 1 ; TOBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2 : 2 8 6 - 2 8 9 ; SAMSON, " A d d e l i b e r a n d u m , " p . 2 8 5 ;

also consult BULMERINCQ, "Baltische Presse," for a review of articles on this issue in the Baltische Monatsschrift. 11 In 1862, the Livland diet discussed a proposal to restore the old ninety-nine year Pfandrecht discussed in Chapter 4, which was defeated in 1864, and would not have satisfied the burghers in any case. THEODOR BöTTICHER, "Der Pfandbesitz in Livland," BM 9 (1864): 219-256.

286

their own origin).12 After much disunity and personal hostility, in 1866 the Livland diet was the last to abolish the manor monopoly, a year after the diets of Kurland and Estland had done so in decisions that, as was well known, were well received in St. Petersburg. 13 The abrogation of the manor monopoly did not however rescind the restrictive article of Livland's civil law on the sale of inherited noble manors. This could still only occur with the agreement of all heirs. Nor did it end the preemptive right of the corporate nobility to purchase manors one year, six weeks, and three days after any other buyer. In Kurland and Estland all owners of manors, the so-called Landsassen, were now free to attend the diets, but as in Livland, could vote only on tax matters. 14 The abolition of manor monopoly did not lead to a significant loss of manors for the corporate nobility, but overall, except in Livland, burghers registered some gains. Livland's corporate nobility gained twenty manors from 1840 to 1900, most of these after the 1870's, though this was reduced to thirteen on the eve of WW I, probably as a result of flight from the land after the revolution of 1905. Table 15: Number of Estates According to Nationality of Owner: Livland Germans

Year 1840 1900 1909 1913

Total MatriN o . of culated Estates Nobles 716 716 716 716

526 546 541 539

%

Nonmatriculated Nobility and Burghers

73.46 76.26 75.56 75.29

147 113 106 104

%

Total Number of Germans

20.53 15.78 14.80 14.53

673 659 647 643

%

Russians and Poles

93.99 92.04 90.36 89.90

28 13 21 22

%

Latvians and Estonians

3.91 1.81 2.93 3.07

2 25 29 32

%

In Possession of Towns

%

0.28 3.49 4.05 4.47

13 19 19 19

1.82 2.66 2.66 2.66

German burgher and non-matriculated nobility manor ownership was actually reduced by thirty-four in this period, to the benefit of Latvians and Estonians,

12

STAEL VON HOLSTEIN, " D i e Freigebung," p. 280. In 1864, GEORG BERKHOLTZ wrote

in the Baltische Monatsschrift that since "1710 until today the history of Livland was the history of the legal diminution of burgher rights in favor of the corporation," especially on the "question of manor ownership." He urged the reconciliation of the estates and the commonality of their interests to strengthen the German element. "Pro ordine civico," Β Μ 9 (1864):268, 274. 13 In 1864, 127 nobles voted against, nine for; in 1865, 115 again cast negative votes, but there were seventy-eight approvals, and in 1866, 115 voted for abolition and ninety against.

STAEL VON HOLSTEIN, " D i e Freigebung," p. 294. 14 GERNET, Geschichte, p. 15.

287

who gained twenty-three manors by 1900 and twenty-nine by 1913.15 The growth in manor ownership reflects parental concern for the future of sons in the period of Russification. Eugenie Pilar von Püchau noted about this time that "for sons one tried to buy manors." 16 Leo von zur Mühlen, a successful farmer and owner since 1878 of the manor Woiseck, managed to buy three additional manors to provide for his four sons.17 Fathers purchased manors or divided already existing manors; these had to meet the minimal requirement of manor qualification stipulated by law. The size of a Livland manor, for example, was set at 300 desiatin not counting marshes, water, or other unusable land.18 The figures for Estland's always poorer nobility were not as favorable. In 1902, 401 manors were in the hands of the corporate nobility and seventy-nine were owned by burghers (in 1841 three burghers owned manors, and twentythree held hereditary mortgages on manors); this number remained constant to 1913. In Kurland the number of burgher manor owners also increased; by 1912, 392 manors were in the hands of the corporate nobility and 103 manors in the possession of burghers (in 1841 it had been 477 corporate nobility, twenty-nine burghers). 19 At the same time in Osel, fifty-seven manors belonged to corporate nobles and seven to burghers, an increase of six after 1841, and a loss of nine manors to the corporate nobility. 20

15 Table based on information in ERNST BARON CAMPENHAUSEN, Die Rittergüter Livlands nach der Nationalität ihrer Besitzer (Dorpat, 1914.) Burgher manors were usually smaller than those of the corporate nobility. These figures confirm the assertion of Livland's governor M. A . Zinov'ev, repeated in Schlingensiepen, that the number of corporate manors rose after the 1870's. M. A . SLNOWJEW, "Untersuchung über die Landschaftsorganisation des livländischen Gouvernements", BM 42 (1895):1-103; SCHLINGENSIEPEN, p. 23. 16 HSA, 702, Nr. 42, "Aufzeichnungen," p. 5. 17

MÜHLEN, p . 6 3 .

See footnote 13 in Chapter 5 for a detailed discussion of manor requirements. SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 78-79. Kurland still retained a large number of crown estates (in 1912, 248 of a total number of 779 estates), in Livland, of a total number of 843 estates, ninety-four belonged to the crown, in Estland only one remained of a total of 515 estates. In Osel, of 118 estates, thirty-five were crown estates and six others had been sold to the peasantry. Ibid. 20 SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 78-79; also Chapter on Economics 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 5 5 . Statistics on manor ownership vary in the sources, see SCHLINGENSIEPEN for an explanation, p. 144. Not all burgher manors were purchased f r o m the corporate nobility. KRUSENSTJERN, Zur Geschichte, p. 144; TRANSEHE-ROSENECK, "Agrarverhältnisse in Livland," pp. 3 0 0 - 3 0 1 ; BLAESE, "Agrarverhältnisse in Kurland," pp. 331-332. For more statistical information, see Materialy, vol. 13, pp. 223-225; LUDMER, 1:222; JUNG-STILLING, Ein Beitrag, p. 4. O n Estland, see ERICH BARON SCHILLING, "Der Rittergutsbesitz in Estland zur Zeit der Enteignung 1919", Baltische Hefte 4 (1962):l-7; HARALD BARON TOLL, Estlands Landbücher und Landrollen (Reval, 1902). 18 19

288

Entailment The figures on manor ownership explain why increasing numbers of corporate nobles in the last decades of the nineteenth century thought that they could assure "the preservation of the prestige of the family" by entailing their manors. 21 This option had been open to Liv- and Estland's corporate nobility since 1686 and, except for Livland, did not require Imperial confirmation. Entailment was of longer standing in Kurland, where the first entail had taken place in 1608 (the Behr family, manor Edwahlen), with one hundred manors entailed by 1850. Succession to entails was commonly vested in the male line and based on primogeniture; entails could not be indebted beyond a certain sum (Antrittspreis)

stipulated "irrevocably" by the founder as compensation to his other

heirs. 22 In 1907, Livland had eighty-four entails with a total of 291,234 desiatin, Estland had forty-nine with 205,222 desiatin (only ten entails in 1850), and Kurland had 133 entails with 424,649 desiatin. 23 Entails cut down on the sale PRO, III, article 2525. Prussia also experienced a wave of entails in this period, as Junkers feared the inroads of burgher capital. SCHISSLER, "Die Junker," p. 97. Depressed agrarian prices were a major reason for a rising interest in entails. In Russia, for example, a campaign for the right of entail began in 1887 at the height of the agrarian crisis. See WAGNER, pp. 295-316; see BECKER, on the Russian entail debate, pp. 68-75. On Baltic entails, see PRO, articles 2525-2540. Another source listed 1598, 1621,1685 for the first three Kurland entails with 45 entailed by 1799. Statist. Jahrbuch...1862, pp. 30-33. In the Baltic provinces entails were commonly called Majorate, though legally this term applied only to entails based on primogeniture (articles 2569, 2570). Entails could be founded through testamentary disposition or a legal contract (article 2528). In Livland nobles had to request Imperial confirmation through the Ministry of Justice (article 2532). The same held if the founder stipulated that in the absence of a male heir, succession was passed on to a person of different family name who would inherit only by taking on the founder's family name. (Article 2527). A daughter, for example, could succeed, but only if her husband took her family name. For examples, see HSA, 701, VI, 3, v. Behr, "Fideicommiss Torgelov", Nr. 8; 702, Nr. 80, "Fideikommiss Wayküll," Familie von Schubert. 23 Based on information provided by the provinces' marshals of the nobility to the Land Commission of the duma in 1907. K.ARJAHÄRM, p. 164. In 1911, Livland's entails rose to ninety-eight with 531,051 desiatin. Another source lists fifty-two entails for Estland in 1902. TOLL, p. 20. Becker cites 266 entails for the provinces in 1909 (921,000 desiatin), twenty seven percent of all noble land. BECKER, p. 70. In Livland there were only a few entails founded in the eighteenth century, those of the Campenhausen family in 1748 (Gen. Lieut. Balthasar von Campenhausen, Orellen with Kudum and Lenzenhof, Wesselshof with Paulershof), and one by Andreas Zoege von Manteuffel in 1756. Most were established in the 1870's. Entails were also open to other estates, including the peasantry, after the abolition of manor monopoly. ERNST SAMSON-HLMMELSTJERNA, "Güterfideikomisse und Familienstiftungen," BM 71 (1911):178-179. BEHR, p. 376. Samson discusses the disadvantages of entailment provisions, particularly in regard to the manor economy. Defenders of the institution usually praised the ethical value of entails, since they assured the socio-economic position of the nobility, who could then devote themselves wholeheartedly to service, praised the higher educational status of entail owners (some founders did stipulate educational levels, for an example see WOLFF, Die Reichsfreiherren, p. 422), and entail owners' superior knowledge of the economic conditions of their locality, since manors remained 21

22

289

and trade of manors, activities the corporations had considered to be a problem throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When J. Gustav von Rosen, for example, managed to repurchase the old family manor of Gross-Roop in 1866, he entailed it that very year.24 Sales still remained a constant feature throughout the centuries, as can be seen in the case of the numerous and well endowed von Wolff family. The Wolffs of Livland from 1725 until expropriation in 1920 held seventy manors, of which thirty-eight were sold and thirty-two remained in the family.25 In the nineteenth century the zur Mühlen family owned thirteen manors in Livland, eight in Estland, and two in Kurland; of these in 1920 only eight manors remained in Livland, four in Estland, and one in Osel.26 Continued high mortgage debts, partly caused by inheritance laws, also led to the sale of estates. Gideon von Maydell, for example had to sell his heavily mortgaged inherited manor in 1867; he found salaried employment as an official at the credit association. Georg von Gersdorff, who in the 1880's inherited a manor highly mortgaged because of inheritance settlements with two brothers, barely managed to hang on to his manor.27 In Livland, the mortgage debts of private manors rose from 13.8 million rubles in 1847 to 15.6 million in 1861 and to 24.9 million in 1869. In Kurland, mortgage debts on private manors were about 9 million rubles in 1861 and rose to 21.2 million in 1865 and to 25.4 million in 1869. Half the value of manors was mortgaged overall. This rise in debt was due not just to inheritance, but also to greater capital outlays for the intensification of agriculture. To balance this picture of debt, the profitability of manors, especially the larger ones, also rose three to four times from the 1840's to the 1880's as a result of capital investments, the sale of land, income from rents, and subsidiary rural enterprises.28 permanently in the family. For legal details, see FR. TRAMENDACH, "Das Recht der Fideikommissbesitzer nach dem Privatrecht Liv-, Est- und Kurlands," Dorpater Zeitschrift für Rechtswissenschaft 11 (1892); HERMANN LUTZAU, "Das Recht am adeligen Güterfideikommiss nach Liv-, Est- und Curländischem Privatrecht," Dorpater Juristische Studien 4 (1896):143—485.

ROSEN, Familiengeschichte, LX. WOLFF, Die Reichsfreiherren, pp. 170-71. 26 MÜHLEN, p. 51. Manors generally remained in possession from between five and sixty years. Of the fifteen noble families of Livland who owned most manors at the end of the Empire, only five had owned manors in the time of the Livonian Confederation (before 1561), BEHR, p. 397. See also Geschichte des Geschlechts der freiherrlichen Familie SchoultzAscheraden (Görlitz, 1926). Estland had the highest fluidity. 24

25

27

BOGDAN BARON MAYDELL,

Das

freiherrliche

Geschlecht

von

Maydell,

vol.

1:

1868-1894 (Reval, 1895), p. 18. PRA/Solms, "Mein Vater," Freda Solms-Gersdorff, p. 7. 28 Ocherki, pp. 68-70. The high mortgage rate on manors shows the nobility's dependence on the credit associations into the twentieth century. The underdevelopment of a financial network for personal credit was a constant source of concern. This led some observers to urge the creation of a network of communal savings banks organized around a central bank. See, for example, "Zur livländischen Agrarfrage," Baltische Wochenschrift Nr. 30 (1906):338.

290

The trade in manors, the abolition of the manor monopoly, the continued high mortgage rate of manors, and a lowering of land values in the latter decades of the century led one Livland noble, Alexander von Stryk, to send a proposal to the deliberating assembly (Adelskonvent) of the corporation for the creation of a new law designating a principal heir (.Anerbenrecht) to consolidate the landholdings of the nobility. Stryk argued that the dangers to the economic (and therefore social) position of the corporate nobility could only be averted by an expansion of the credit system to enable the heir to pay off debts within his lifetime and through modified inheritance provisions that would prevent debt from overburdening the principal heir. This could be achieved if, for example, the family's property went undivided to a principal heir who could pay off the inheritance portions of other heirs through annuities for a set rate and period, but would never be required to pay off the whole sum at once. The Adelskonvent created a commission to study the proposal and in 1897 their reworked project was positively reviewed by a lawyer and was then in 1898 submitted to the diet, where it was accepted with minor modifications in 1902. After a long delay in 1908, the project was finally sent for approval to the Ministry of Interior, which sent it on to the Ministry of Justice for an opinion. In 1912 the Justice Ministry submitted a negative opinion because the project proposed too far reaching changes of the existing Livland manor inheritance legislation and this project was "premature," as it could only be discussed within the context of a "possible reform" of manor inheritance laws in both Russian and Baltic civil law. The Ministry further recommended that the corporations of Estland and Kurland submit their positions on this project. By 1914 Estland's corporation expressed its approval of the project with some modifications. The Kurland corporation felt that the project was appropriate for Livland and "promised success" there, but objected to the project because its own inheritance laws were very different from those of Livland. The war put an end to any further discussion.29 29 In the project, an Anerhengut was defined as a manor which could neither be partitioned nor diminished in size, could only be mortgaged to a set norm, and had one principal heir, who upon inheritance could continue the operation of the manor with all necessary inventory. The Ministry of Justice objected to the preference shown to the principal heir who received an outright 20 % share of ownership in the manor on top of his legal son's portion. The old laws were also to be changed in regard to the inventory, which was now awarded to the principal heir, who was also only obliged to pay annuities to the other heirs; only after eighteen years could the heirs ask for the capital. L W A , fond 214, Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 59, pp. 194-218. This fund contains full information on the project, including all correspondence with Estland's, Osel's, and Kurland's corporations. Osel had approved of the project early on. The project was published by E. VON (DETTINGEN, "Zur livländischen Agrarfrage, Denkschrift der 'Ökonomischen Sozietät'" in Baltische Wochenschrift für Landwirtschaft, Gewerbefleiss und Handel, Nr. 36 (1906):19; this number contains (pp. 1-35) the "Bericht an den Livländischen Landtag im März 1898 über den Entwurf eines Anerbenrechts für Rittergüter in Livland," which was printed in 1898 for the Livland diet on the order of its residing counselor, Heinrich Baron Tiesenhausen.

291

Agricultural

Challenge and Agricultural

Entails and the attempt t o introduce an Anerbenrecht

Innovation

were a result of the chang-

ing patterns of landholdings in the countryside, increased burgher ownership, and the emergence of a new class of peasant landowners. Initially in the 1860's many manor lords w h o lacked capital were disinclined to take on the financial burden of developing a manor economy based on hired labor. They resisted the sale of peasant land and had difficulty adjusting to a transition from labor rent t o money rent. In 1868, under governmental pressure and peasant agitation, the diets agreed to the abolition of labor rent. This led to a money economy in the countryside. Sale of peasant land on long term mortgages proceeded unevenly among the provinces with Kurland leading the movement and Estland, the poorest province, bringing up the rear with only 50.4 percent of peasant land sold by 1897. 3 0 Despite this sale, the distribution of landholding in the provinces favored the nobility t o the end of the Empire. In Estland and N o r t h e r n Livland, for example, fifty-eight percent of the total rural land and f o r t y - t w o percent of the agricultural land (Kulturland) was in the hands of the nobility, w h o constituted only a tiny segment of the rural population. 3 1 There remained a large group of Estonians and Latvians, about t w o thirds, w h o were either

30 Figures on land sales varied among agricultural experts and led to some controversy. Jung-Stilling, for example, held that in Livland 86.1 % of peasant land had been sold by 1885. In contrast, Agthe, defining property differently, concluded that by 1909 68 % of peasant land in Livland was still in the hands of manor lords. Tobien disagreed, claiming that by 1887 77.7 % of peasant land in Kurland and 75.2 % in Livland had been sold, rising to 95

% b y 1 9 0 2 f o r K u r l a n d ( 9 9 % b y 1 9 1 0 ) and 8 5 . 3 % f o r L i v l a n d (89.1 % b y 1 9 1 0 ) . TOBIEN,

Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:265; PlSTOHLKORS, "Historische Einführung," p. 5; RAUN, Estonia, p. 69. For a review of the controversy, see PlSTOHLKORS, "Inversion," p. 176. The rate of purchase of land by the peasantry was tied to the price of grain on the market. Good harvests and high grain prices helped peasant renters accumulate capital and purchase land. Generally, the price of land was at least twice as high in the provinces as in the black soil region of the Empire, and higher than the price of crown estate land. For details on price fluctuations, rate of sale, and rising money rents, see Ocherki, pp. 35-36. 31 RAUN, Estonia, p. 69; for a discussion of Kurland's and Livlands percentages, see TRANSEHE-ROSENECK, " A g r a r g e s c h i c h t e , " and BLAESE, " A g r a r v e r h ä l t n i s s e , " pp. 3 0 0 - 3 0 6 ,

331-333. The size of manors was quite large in comparison to Germany, but much of the land in the provinces was not suitable for agriculture. According to Blaese, manors under 1,000 desiatin were regarded as small, manors between 1,000 and 2,500 as middling, manors between 2,500 an 7,000 as big, and manors of more than 7,000 as latifundia. Schlingensiepen found that according to this division, Livland had 109 small manors, 201 middling ones, 307 big ones, and a large number (126) of latifundia. Estland had 102 small manors, 189 middling, 177 big manors, and forty-two latifundia. Kurland had 224 small, 163 middling, 101 big manors, and twenty-four latifundia. In Osel there were twenty-one small, thirty-eight middling ones, eleven big, and one latifundium. Small manors were usually located in the more fertile areas. MARQUART, Die Landwirtschaft, 1: 9, 106. SCHLINGENSIEPEN, p. 80; see also ADOLPH AGTHE, Ursprung und Lage der Landarbeiter in Livland (Tübingen, 1909), p. 125. Some families owned several manors (from three, to ten and even more). For a discussion of land concentration, see Ocherki, p. 26. 292

landless or had very little land, and had to work for the nobility and the landed peasantry. This landlessness was in part the result of Baltic peasant legislation, which had generally diminished the acreage formerly used by the peasantry, and split off one-sixth of the land (the quota land) that had earlier been at the disposal of the peasantry. The manor lord could sell or rent this land, settle his own laborers on it, or, as was done by many, annex much of this land to manor land to round out its borders. Ostensibly, however, this was peasant land, and confusion about its disposal, particularly the annexations, led the government to issue circulars in the 1860s and 1890s to limit the practice. 32 The nobility's tendency to encourage the creation of fairly large peasant farmsteads (about forty-nine ha. in Livland, thirty-eight ha. in Estland, forty-eight ha. in Kurland), though it contributed to the emergence of a prosperous and conservative class of peasants, a "peasant aristocracy," pejoratively called grey barons by their less fortunate and resentful countrymen, came at the expense of the majority of the Estonian and Latvian rural population. 33 The minimal norm set for a peasant farmstead of 32.7 ha. in Livland made it difficult for rural laborers to rise into the ranks of the propertied peasantry and not only increased dissatisfaction, but also promoted movement to the urban areas and outmigration to the interior. As industry developed along with rail and roadbuilding, rural labor began to leave despite restrictive passport regulations. 34 Manor lords experienced labor shortages, especially during the 1890's and after the revolution of 1905. N o n e the less, a large proportion of Estonians and Latvians remained employed in rural labor (52 % of the total population of Livland, 34.1 % of Estland, 50.2 % of Kurland). 35 Even though the problems of rural labor were a constant object of public discussion in the leading journals of the provinces, the nobility proved again politically shortsighted and failed to do anything meaningful about the 32 ZEMTSEV, Ο kvotnoi, p. 182; Ocherki, pp. 26-27; this practice was particularly widespread in Kurland. 33 ToBIEN discussed the nobility's goal of creating such an aristocracy. Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:164. Livland peasant legislation set the minimum size of a peasant farmstead at 32,7 ha. (about one eighth Haken). Ibid., 2:235; HAMILCAR BARON FOELKERSAHM, Die Entwicklung der Agrarverfassung Livlands und Kurlands und die Umwälzung der Agrarverhältnisse in der Republik Lettland, Greifswalder Staatswissenschaftliche Abhand-

l u n g e n 2 2 ( G r e i f s w a l d , 1923), p. 38; ENGELHARDT, Die Livländische,

p p . 1 2 1 , 1 2 6 (he has the

exact size of peasant farmsteads, p. 126); TRANSEHE-ROSENECK, "Agrarverhältnisse," p. 307; (DETTINGEN, "Zur livländischen Agrarfrage," p. 335. The nobility was interested in encouraging peasant conservatism as a stabilizing factor of the social order by the creation of fairly large farmsteads. 34 Until the beginning of the twentieth century a passport was required to leave one's district and was then replaced by a work permit as a means of control over the local labor force. PLSTOHLKORS, "Inversion," p. 179. 35 MAX SERING, Die agrarischen Umwälzungen im ausserrussischen Osteuropa (Berlin and Leipzig, 1930), p.81. For a discussion of the labor problem, see SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 47-48; G. VON RATHLEF-TAMMIST, "Wirtschaftsgeschichte eines livländischen Gutes, " supplement, Baltische Wochenzeitschrift (Riga, 1914), p. 4; Ocherki, pp. 58-60.

293

social and economic grievances of laborers. The nobility was above all interested in control over labor, and it enforced passport laws and paid laborers in kind rather than cash not only for economic reasons, but also in order to tie the peasants to their localities. In so doing the German masters antagonized the native rural laborers and, one might add, also the landed peasantry as well, who resented deeply the old feudal ways and privileges.36 Labor arrangements on the manors clearly reflected the lords' preference for a mixed wage system that assured control. Farm laborers were divided into several categories. Sharecroppers (Halbkörner), who received a piece of land from the lord, worked with their own inventory and were entitled to half the crop, and to living quarters, heating material, and space for grazing livestock. This arrangement arose after the liquidation of labor rent and was employed by lords who could not or did not wish to invest in inventory. Landknechte also received some land, agrarian products, and pay, but had to work three or four days a week on the lord's land, while their wives owed between thirty to fifty work days a year, due primarily in summer. This arrangement again lessened cash payments. Deputatknechte hired themselves out on an annual basis, were paid mostly in kind, but with some cash, and worked on the lords' fields every day except Sundays and holidays; their wives also worked from thirty to sixty days a year. Year-long contract workers (Akkordknechte) undertook assigned work and were compensated in kind and pay. In addition there were paid seasonal workers (Tagelöhner or Lostreiber). Manors also employed specialists, including managers, foresters, accountants, machinists, blacksmiths, gardeners, millers, and locksmiths. 37 In the 1860's and 1870's industrial development and the growth of the urban population led to a rise in demand and higher prices for agrarian products. This, in turn, led to significant technological innovation and improved methods of farming and thus to greater productivity. From the 1860's to the early 1880's agricultural land was expanded, land was improved, and more machinery and fertilizer introduced. As we have seen, as early as the 1840's the three field system was increasingly replaced with a multi-field system promoting more extensive crop rotation. By 1863, 64.8% of manors in Livland had shifted to a multi-field system, 5.5% used a four field system, and 21.3% remained with the three field system, figures that would steadily change throughout the prov36 For details, see PlSTOHLKORS, "Inversion", pp. 178-179. Peasants especially resented the tax system since a desiatin of peasant land was taxed at 63.33 kopeks, while manor land was taxed at only 10.87 kopeks. Ibid., p. 174. The differences were actually worse than these figures indicate. In the year 1897 taxation on peasant land in three districts of southern Livland was actually 1,21 Rbl. per desiatin, on manor land however only 11,5 kop. Taxes were levied by the state, the zemstvos and parishes. See BALEVICA, p. 117. 37 In contrast to Agthe, TRANSEHE-RoSENECK's discussion of the situation of rural laborers paints a rather rosy picture which favors the nobility. See, "Agrarverhältnisse," pp. 315-323; AGTHE, pp. 141-158; ToBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:347-364; SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 82-84; Ocherki, pp. 58-60.

294

inces.38 Technology allowed the introduction of new ploughs, harrows, threshing, haymaking, and seeding machines and other agricultural machinery. This was mainly imported from abroad, though the provinces also began their own manufacturing.39 Mineral fertilizers were imported from abroad and provincial resources of lime, gypsum, and bonemeal were also increasingly exploited. In addition, subsidiary rural enterprises were improved and further developed. Technological innovation also raised the productivity of already existing subsidiary rural enterprises (distilleries, breweries, saw mills, brickyards, flour mills) in the 1860's and 1870's.40 Though the number of distilleries went down between 1863 and 1879 because smaller distilleries were hard hit by the new excise taxes and became uncompetitive, the production of the remainder rose steadily because of better equipment and the use of the more productive potato. 41 The median annual income from distilleries on Kurland's manors was 3,244 rubles between 1863 and 1872. A co-operative society of manor distillery and brewery owners was founded in Reval by Arved von Rosen in 1870 and organized marketing of their products. 42 The sale on the St. Petersburg, Hamburg, and London markets of oxen raised on the distilleries' draff brought in good additional income to lords. Estland's manors had deposits of limestone and dolomite and established cement factories for export to Sweden and Finland.43 Lords derived income from leasing of mills, inns, and especially taverns, sometimes several per manor.44 As agrarian and technological changes demanded capital investment, 38 8.4 % of manors did not report on their field system. FRIEDRICH VON JUNG-STILLING, Material zu einer allgemeinen Statistik Livlands und Osels (Riga, 1864), p. 205. 39 Ocherki, pp. 44-46; Baltische Wochenschrift, N o s . 22-24 (1871):323. At the beginning of the 1880's, there were 291 locomobiles, 461 threshing machines, 366 seeding machines, 188 haymaking machines, and 304 saw mills in Livland. Materialy k izucheniiu agramykh uslovii Lifliandskoi gubernii i ν osohennostipolozhenie mestnykh batrakov ipodenshchikov (Riga, 1885), p. 14; cf. Ocherki, p. 55. The other provinces advanced similarly. In Estland the use of machinery increased ninefold beween 1867 and 1910. RAUN, Estonia, p. 69. 40 In 1860, for example, there existed 609 rural enterprises on noble manors in the Latvian part of Livland. Materialy, vol. 14, pp. 446-454; for Kurland, see Materialy, vol. 13, pp. 287-290. In 1898 there existed 1573 commercial and industrial enterprises on the private manors of Livland. BALEVICA, p. 108. 41 In the period from 1863-1878 the number of distilleries went down from 305 to 106 in Livland, and from 180 to 107 in Kurland. KARLBERG, Sbornik, pp. 42-43; CAMPENHAUSEN, " D i e Branntwein-Produktion," pp. 234-237; for a detailed table, see Ocherki, p. 65. In 1800 Livland and Estland had 650 distilleries, lowered to 233 by 1867. 42

CAMPENHAUSEN, " D i e B r a n n t w e i n - P r o d u k t i o n , " , p. 247; PÖNICKE, p. 486.

In 1871 an oxen was sold for 103 rubles in Hamburg. SCHLINGENSIEPEN, p. 90. Baltische Landeskunde, ed. K[ARL] Rfeinhold] KuPFFER (Riga, 1911), p. 438; PÖNICKE, p. 463. O n some manors in Estland linen was manufactured from local flax and marketed in the provinces between 1863 and 1872. PÖNICKE, p. 486. 44 Rents for milleries varied from between 200 to 1000 rubles annually, taverns from between 150 to 600 rubles a year. In the 1870's there was one tavern per 156 rural dwellers in Livland, 261 in Kurland. Ocherki, p. 65. 43

45

ANREP, p p . 1 1 3 , 2 0 2 .

295

mortgage debt on manors increased, but so did income as agrarian and subsidiary enterprises became more productive.

A g r a r i a n C r i s i s and R e s p o n s e to C h a l l e n g e The agrarian economy had become more capitalist in an environment that was far more competitive for the nobility than it had been in the first half of the century. To preserve their economic status lords had to make greater outlays not just of capital - and many found it difficult to raise capital - but also of energy and attention. As Fanny von Anrep noted in her correspondence, "on the average, lords in the countryside are working harder than before, since there is no other way," for "in Livland one lives only for the agricultural economy, with its cares and improvements." 45 Not all nobles succeeded or were willing to farm their manors for profit. The ethos of the Baltic German nobility ostensibly prohibited activities directed purely to money profit. None the less a significant portion of the Baltic German nobility in the second half of the nineteenth century had little difficulty in embracing more capitalist farming while paying lipservice to the ethos that land was not to be a source of personal gain or material speculation.46 Others avoided the transition out of laziness or ineptitude. Fanny von Anrep remarked in letters to friends that "our comfortable, pleasant Baltic life produced few serious characters and the number of those who will prove themselves in the most difficult times will be small." She criticized (as was common throughout the century) the "lack of working zeal," "lack of backbone," and the "pampered aristocratic way of life" that prevented many nobles "from working as needed." Her observation that "the times have now also passed in our Baltic provinces when one could be a farmer or forester if one desired, without any talent for it" are indicative of the change. Running a manor economy required more expertise. If many manor lords lacked this, they could hire experts or send their sons out for professional training.47 Capital-poor lords and those attached to their cozy way of life were the ones most likely to lease out their manors. Whereas in 1860 in the Latvian part of Livland only thirty-nine (21 %) of 185 noble manors were leased out, this figure rose to seventy-eight (43 %) in 1866.48 But though many lords worked harSee chapter 2 and BRINKMANN, p. 24. In order of citation ANREP, pp. 39, 45, 57, 217 and passim. E. VON MENSENKAMPFF also noted that the nobles "lacked quantitative work power," a common criticism. Menschen, p. 328. Reinhold Stael von Holstein also criticized nobles who leased out their manors because this damaged the economic status of the nobility and threatened its political control over the countryside, since nobles who moved to town neglected their work in local government on the parish and district levels. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta 14, Lietas N r . 6 3 4 , p. 6 1 . 48 Ocherki, p. 33. SIVERS, Das Buch der Güter for 1860. 46 47

296

der than their fathers, the successes achieved through technological and agrarian innovation were put in serious jeopardy when the high price of grain in the 60's and 7O's fell in the early 1880's. That the economic crisis coincided with administrative centralization and cultural Russification produced a feeling of double jeopardy among the nobility. For some the challenge provoked new energy and greater devotion to the future of the manor economy and preservation of status. When G. von Rosen inherited his father's rather neglected manor in 1892, he immediately set out to "modernize" it in order to increase its "profitability," using terms that would have been strange to nobles of an earlier generation. Rosen renewed the cattle herd, built a brickyard and distillery, bought machines, and built better housing for his laborers.49 These efforts, like the earlier ones, were supported by the nobility's credit associations, the corporate leadership, the Estland and Kurland Agricultural Leagues, and particularly the Livland Public Benefit and Economic Society, which in 1865 founded a weekly, Die Baltische Wochenschrift für Landwirtschaft, Gewerbefleiss und Handel to promote the rural economy. The societies employed agrarian specialists and ran experimental stations; their findings were published in the weekly paper. Throughout the provinces local assemblies of manor lords were associated with the Livland Public Benefit and Economic Society and Estland's and Kurland's Agricultural Leagues and co-operatives were founded for specialized products. The Baltische Molkereiverband, for example, from Copenhagen and Hamburg marketed dairy products for all three provinces for sale to England and Europe. Hail and fire insurance companies were formed. Joint stock companies were founded by manor lords, using Baltic German merchant and foreign capital to promote industry in the countryside. Estland's expansion of manor cement production, for example, was financed by a joint stock company formed by Count Stenbock in Reval in 1899.50 A number of 49 ROSEN, Familiengeschichte, p. 141; for examples see HSA, 701, Pilar von Pilchau, Nr. 42; ibid., Oettingen, Nr. 33, "Die drei," p. 270, DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste, pp. 59-60. Dellingshausen, an enthusiastic farmer, improved his economy by concentrating on dairy, timber production, better fertilization and other improvements. Dellingshausen noted that his capital for improvements came from the sale of peasant farmsteads and from credit extended by the Association of Liquor Producers. Leo von zur Mühlen, a gifted farmer, worked hard at improving his cattle herd, raised sheep and pigs, improved his potato distillery, and raised cheese production at his dairy. He also raised fish and race horses and founded a tree nursery. His profits enabled him to buy three additional manors for his sons.

MÜHLEN, p. 6 7 . 50 PöNICKE, p. 463. Livland's Public Society was also instrumental in the organization of daughter societies like the Association of Foresters (Verein haltischer Forstwirte, or Baltischer Samenhauverband, Baltischer Moorverein). ToBIEN, Die Agrargesetzgebung, 2:66. For timber marketing there was also a special marketing society, the Livonia. These associations like the one for liquor also helped finance improvements. See BALEV1CA, p. 115. Reval and Riga banks opened branches in the smaller Baltic towns and banking capital was instrumental in financing an expansion of rural industry and trade, for example in the liquor business. Nobles served on the boards of some banks like the "Revaler Handelsbank." See the mem-

297

wealthy nobles shifted investments from land to urban industry and property in the manner of their counterparts in England and Russia, who increasingly became major shareholders after the 1880's.51 Some nobles worked as directors of factories (as trained professionals, for example, in chemistry), or served on the board of joint stock companies. In the main, however, Baltic noble wealth remained based primarily on agriculture and on rural industrial and commercial activity, and economic co-operation with merchants in the development of rural industry did not bring nobles and German burghers closer together politically. In sum, however, if the two last decades of the nineteenth century saw the greatest challenges to the manor economy, overall the nobility responded successfully. The most serious challenge was again the fall in the price of grain. The price break began in 1882 and by 1886 the situation had become catastrophic. In Riga, the average price of rye from 1886 to 1890 fell by 30 % over the previous five years; by 1894-1895 it fell again by half.52 The ensuing crisis can only be understood in the context of international developments that affected the Baltic market and European farmers in general. This was a period when industrial capitalism itself was changing from the individualism and competititiveness of the early entrepreneurs to increased reliance on government aid through subvention and, in particular, protective tariffs. Economic growth in Europe and overseas had been promoted by the development of the transportation system (rail and steamship). Increased productivity with the introduction of agricultural machinery and lower freight rates meant that grain could be delivered for cheaper prices and more rapidly over long distances. Grain from Russia's interior provinces and from the United States forced prices down everywhere in Europe. European agrarian interests allied with industrial interests (except for England, Belgium, Denmark, and Holland which remained open economies) to pressure their governments for protectionist policies. Germany passed protective grain, textile, timber, meat, and iron tariffs in 1879. Russia passed protective tariffs on the import of machinery (1885) and fertilizers (1893). The Russian oirs of R. Stael von Holstein, an involved manor lord who routinely dealt with merchants and bankers. L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta 14, Leitas Nr. 634, pp. 52, 69. The peasantry also founded agricultural societies, mainly in the 1890's; many functioned as branch establishments of the Livland society, though relations were sometimes marked by tension. In 1864 a periodical, Estonian Farmer, was founded, but an expansion of independent native agrarian societies and cooperatives occurred only after 1906, encouraged by Stolypin's agrarian policies. RAUN, Estonia, p. 70. 51 LIEVEN, The Aristocracy, pp. 109-133. In Russia some of the oldest aristocratic families (Volkonskii, Obolenskii, Shcherbatov, Golitsyn, Shakhovskoi) participated in industrial and commercial enterprise. BECKER, p. 115. In Reval, for example, the noble families of Tiesenhausen, Ungern-Sternberg, and zur Mühlen held significant urban property. In 1914, in Dorpat, two hundred urban properties were held by noble families like the Engelhard (eleven properties), Stackelberg (ten), and Stryk (eight). KARJAHÄRM, Estonskaia, p. 68. 52 Svod statisticheskikh svedeniipo sel'skomu khoziaistvu Rossii k kontsu XX veka (SPb., 1902), pp. 24—41; cf. Ocherki, p. 216.

298

government also continued to lower long distance shipping rates for export of grain through Baltic and Black Sea ports. As a result, Russian grain sold in the Baltic provinces became cheaper than Baltic grain. This was particularly devastating to local producers, because with industrial and urban growth the manor economy had come to rely heavily on home consumption. Coincidentally, prices for liquor and flax began to fall as competition from the interior provinces increased. 53 The corporate leadership attempted several times to convince the government to abolish preferential freight rail rates, to adjust them to reflect genuine transportation costs, or at least to guarantee that grain from the interior would be exported. Eventually the leadership recognized that its main competition came from the agrarian interests of the interior provinces, supported by the government's launch of a major industrialization drive partly financed through grain exports, and that this policy so superseded all Baltic agrarian interests that their battle was bound to be a losing one. The corporations were at least more successful in achieving a modification of the fertilizer import restrictions in 1898, though tariffs on machinery stayed in place. 54 The response to this new economic challenge was two-fold. Manor lords were able to improve productivity by twenty to thirty percent in this period through increased use of imported and domestic machinery, increased fertilization, use of hired labor, and completion of the transition to a multi-field system. 55 Where conditions permitted, emphasis shifted from grain to oats or clover and dairy and beef farming; along with timber these became the new industries of the manors. 56 This shift required renewed capital outlays as cattle initially had to be acquired from abroad. Through a great deal of experimentation, supported by agrarian societies, manor lords finally settled on breeds of cattle (Angler and Holländer) that 53 Estland's export of liquor to Spain, for example, was hard hit by Spain's protective tariffs in the 1880's. "Zur livländischen Agrarfrage," Baltische Wochenschrift, N r . 36

( 1 9 0 6 ) : 3 3 5 - 3 3 7 ; ZAITSEV, Ocherki,

1: Khlebnye,

p p . 2 7 - 2 8 ; Ocherki,

pp. 216-222. The Rus-

sian government invoked new protective tariffs in 1876, 1885, 1891, and 1903; duties of about thirty percent were levied on pig iron, steel, machinery, minerals, and some foodstuffs. High tariffs led to economic and political problems with Germany, which were alleviated in 1894 with a trade treaty that moved Germany to second place in trade with the Empire after England. Russia's exports to Germany consisted of grains, flax, lumber, hides, and livestock; from Germany Russia mainly imported machinery and pig-iron products. Before WW I Russia's major exports consisted of wheat, barley, lumber, eggs, oats, butter, sugar, rye, and oil. 54 Ocherki, p. 222. The government also modified railway freight rates to protect grain producers in European Russia from their competitors in Western Siberia and the North Caucasus. 55 Between 1891 and 1895 machinery imports through Riga for the Russian market grew almost two and a half times over the 1885-1890 period. Ergebnisse der Rigaer Handelsstatistik aus den Jahren 1866-1891 (Riga, 1903), p. 33. There was a forty-two times rise in the import of fertilizers, though again not all was destined for the provinces. Ibid., p. 29. 56 Clover fertilized the soil as well as providing fodder. BLAESE, Landwirtschaft, p. 133; MAX BLAESE and M. STAHL-SCHRÖDER, Der Futterbau in Kurland und den umliegenden Provinzen

(Riga, 1893), p p . 1 4 4 - 1 4 6 .

299

could be acclimatized to the provinces. Stalls and barns were built or improved, meadows and pastures ameliorated and drained with pipes purchased or produced at the manor's brickyard; this incidentally gave rise to a new provincial specialty in engineering, the Kulturingenieur.57 Dairies had to be built for processing butter and cheese. In 1896 Kurland's manors listed thirty-eight dairies, twenty-eight of which had been established between 1890 and 1896. By 1898 their number grew to about sixty. In 1898 Livland registered 186 dairies (as against only sixty in 1880).58 Prices of dairy and meat products fluctuated less than that of grain, and markets both in the provinces and abroad were favorable. Manors closest to towns or railroads benefitted most, since the communications system, though improved, was still underdeveloped. The market for timber both for export and home consumption grew along with industrial and urban development. In the 1880's the sale and export of railroad ties was especially good business.59 In Livland, the annual income from private forests was 1.6 million rubles, and in smaller but richly forested Kurland, 1.7 million at the end of the century.60 Fanny von Anrep noted in 1897 that "what keeps people in money are forest and lumber sales, and with the sale of butter we, at least, are doing decently."61 Forestry required professional training and more Baltic German noble youth went to study forestry in Germany. Rational exploitation of forest resources remained a problem, and some lords continued to plunder their forests for quick cash income. The Imperial government passed a law on forestry protection in 1898 and corporate diets also attempted to regulate forestry, but by the turn of the century only twenty-six percent of forests on Estlands private manors, twenty-two percent on Kurland's and Osel's, though sixty-one percent of Livland's, were run rationally.62 Firewood and building materials were also sold at profit to the peasantry. The high price of firewood in the cities stimulated the development of a new industry in peat, especially in Livland for the Riga market, but also in Kurland, where in the 1890's about fifty-two manors engaged in the business.63 Other subsidiary industries also increased. By MARQUART, 1:24, 49; SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 88-100; Ocherki, pp. 216-244. BLAESE, Die Landwirtschaft, P. 159; Ergebnisse der Rindviehzuchtenquete in Liv,- Estund Kurland vom Jahre 1898 (Reval, 1899), p. 53. Eggs, poultry, butter, cheese, skins, and venison were exported. 59 SCHLINGENSIEPEN, p. 24. 60 Ocherki, p. 262; SCHLINGENSIEPEN, p. 94. Almost fifty percent of manor income came from forestry in Kurland. 61 ANREP, p. 134. 62 MAX VON SIVERS, Die forstlichen Verhältnisse der baltischen Provinzen (Riga, 1903), pp. 26-27; PSZRI, vol. VIII, Nr. 5120. Local authorities were not delegated enough power to enforce forestry regulations. See also A. M. ANFIMOV, "Chastnovladel'cheskoe lesnoe khozyaystvo ν Rossii ν kontse X I X . " , 1storicheskie Zapiski 63 (1958); J. C. BROWN, Forests and Forestry in Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, and the Baltic provinces of Russia (Edinburgh, 1885). 63 Ocherki, p. 261. 57

58

300

the end of the century 100 saw mills and paper enterprises existed in Livland and Estland, though the paper industry survived only with the help of protectionist policies by the government. 64 At the same time the number of distilleries continued to fall because of cheap Russian grain-based liquor, but production remained high, with the potato firmly establishing its place. 65 Breweries remained of importance in Livland. Manors still derived good incomes from taverns and inns, on the average 400 rubles per tavern annually; their value played an important role in calculating the sale price of manors. 66 Their importance to family income can be glimpsed in E m m y von Campenhausen's comments in her 1898 diary when her son came home with the "ill news" ( H i o b s b o t s c h a f t ) that taverns were to be closed; this she called "a great loss for all manor owners." Fanny von Anrep expressed similar concerns, asking "what will become of us is difficult to foretell if taverns should really be closed and the sale of beer prohibited. F o r many it will certainly lead to absolute ruin, for everyone it will mean an enormous damage to their property assets." 6 7 Taverns stayed open for beer sales, but the manor economy still suffered a heavy blow with the institution in 1900 of an imperial liquor monopoly in the provinces; the Ministry of Finance would thenceforth determine the quantity of production and price of liquor. The corporations appealed to the government for compensation, with success. The government essentially bought the right to monopoly from the manor distillery owners, paying a total of nine million rubles to the producers in the three provinces, a compensation not granted to noble distillery owners in the interior provinces. 6 8 Taverns continued to bring in income with sales of beer, mead, and foodstuffs.

Profitability, I n c o m e , and M a n o r M a n a g e m e n t Overall, the nobility had responded well to the economic challenges of the latter part of the nineteenth century and managed, as the Livland Public and EcoPONICKE, P. 466. KARLBERG, Sbornik, pp. 38—43. F r o m the 1880's to 1900 Livland's distilleries fell f r o m 105—110 to ninety, though production remained at the same levels. 64

65

66 In 1893 a quarter of inns in Livland and almost forty percent in Kurland were closed as a result of new rules on the conduct of the inn trade and because of excise taxes established by the government. Ocherki, p. 265. 67 In order, HI, Baltikum 400/675, diary entry for 27 September 1898. ANREP, p. 167. 68 Ocherki, pp. 266-267. This was an insignificant expense given the income from the liquor monopoly. Much of the Empire's liquor was produced in state run factories and the Empire held first place in the production of hard liquor. By 1900 the State Monopoly of Spirits employed some 40,000 workers, ran hundreds of stores and shops, and brought in

revenues of 889 million rubles by 1913. ALEXANDER M . MICHELSON, PAUL APOSTOL, and MICHAEL BERNATZKY, Russian Public Finance during the War ( N e w H a v e n , 1928), p. 34.

301

nomic Benefit Society acknowledged, "to maintain their position." 69 However, this was not only due, as the Society held, to a switch in the economy, but also to capital received from the sale and rent of land, income from inns and taverns, and subsidiary enterprises. The net profitability of manors in Livland toward the end of the century was on the average 12,000 gold rubles, not counting income from subsidiary rural enterprises, which could be considerable.70 Profitability depended on a well equipped and efficiently run manor economy and here there were the expected variations. Size and productive capacity also affected income and, though documentation is not available, indications are that there was growing economic differentiation amon^the Baltic German nobility. Nobles maintained, none the less, that socially this made no difference, an assertion that contained a good deal of wishful thinking.71 Hamilkar von Foelkersahm, for example, recalled in his memoirs how his father told him as a boy that when his inheritance was sold out from under him in the 1890's because of debts, and he was not only manorless but in penury, that he had been exposed "to much disdainful treatment" from his peers. In this case the disdain motivated the father to work hard enough to buy another manor by 1905.72 Living expenses were also increasing and this was, as usual, especially hard on families with many children. The middling size Livland manor of Orellen (with Kudum and Lenzenhof), ca. 2,000 desiatin or 2,200 ha. was leased out by its owner Balthasar Μ. von Campenhausen in 1891 for 18,500 rubles; taxes and other liabilities reduced the net amount by another 2,000 rubles. The family rented an apartment in Riga for 1,100 rubles and economized on carriages and horses. Four sons were in private school and university, and a daughter was taught at home by a governess who was paid 1,200 rubles a year. Educational expenses alone could absorb half a family's income. As an example, one noble student received over the course of three years of study at Dorpat and Halle 5,150 rubles from his family.73 The Campenhausen family had to dip into its capital in 1891 and for several years afterwards, and over the 69 Ocberki, p. 269. Interestingly, the Society had worked on several addresses filled with demands to the Imperial government in its sessions of 1894,1895, and 1896. These included support and privileges for the liquor industry, the lowering of protective tariffs on imported machinery and mineral fertilizer, a considerable expansion of the credit institutions, and governmental support for the nobility's credit associations. These demands reflect the interests of the nobility. Ibid., p. 222. 70 Ocherki, p. 270. SCHLINGENSIEPEN cites 10,000 rubles for a middling sized manor, p. 103. In 1897 Minister of Finance S. Witte improved Russian finances by replacing the silver ruble with the gold standard in response to the violent fluctuations of the ruble and the negative effect this had on the Russian economy. 71 See, for example, the memoirs of DELLINGSHAUSEN, Im Dienste and FOELKERSAHM (Das alte) cited in this study; also EDUARD VON STACKELBERG, Ein Leben im baltischen Kampf (Munich, 1927); MENSENKAMPFF, p. 188. 72

73

302

FOELKERSAHM, " E i n L i v l ä n d e r , " p . 17.

HSA, 702, Pilar von Püchau, Nr. 44, letter of 28 October 1873.

entire period did not undertake any lengthy travel abroad in the manner of other Baltic nobles.74 When Otto von Gruenewaldt and his wife spent three months in the 1890's traveling through Germany, Switzerland and Italy, he did not, as he emphasized, particularly economize, and traveled first and second class, hired carriages for extra excursions, and bought presents for a total expense of 2,503 rubles. In 1887 Fr. von Seydlitz spent about 2,200 rubles traveling to Germany, where for almost nine months he set up a household staffed with servants.75 Nobles with large families could not afford many luxuries, but none the less managed to maintain themselves at a level suitable to their status.76 Fanny von Anrep cited an annual income of between fifteen to eighteen thousand rubles as an example of a "rich existence."77 A comparison of noble income at an assumed average of 12,000 rubles with that of literati illustrates the superior position of the nobility. In 1879, for example, the city of Riga paid upper level foresters, trained at a forest academy, a salary of 2,500 rubles per year, of which 500 was allotted to living quarters. An inspector of manors owned by the city received 2,200 rubles, free housing, and was provided with two horses maintained at city expense. Literati usually lived to the limit of their incomes, though they did manage to provide their sons with good educations to launch them into the world. 78 Clearly, the nobility's income was sufficient to assure superior status displays, though noble wealth was more than matched by the elite of German burghers, whose investments in industry or banking produced high returns. 74 HI, Baltikum 400/675, diary entries for 30 June 1891, 6 October 1892, 31 May 1893 and passim. Emmy did not consider her life "luxurious." In 1893 the family overspent by 8,000 rubles, mainly because of expenses for student sons ("who were admonished to be more economical") and building costs on their manor. Entry for 31 May 1893. 75

GRUENEWALDT, Lebenserinnerungen,

p. 267; HSA, 702, Nr. 106a.

For a perspective on expenses, see the market prices for groceries listed in the Rigasche Hausfrauenzeitschrift, 7 January 1887. A pound of butter cost between twenty-six and thirty kop., a pound of pork between thirteen and eighteen kop., veal and beef between nine and twelve kop., twenty pounds of flour one ruble. Manors produced many of these items and ordered others, previously produced at home from town. Mass production of the industrial age had made clothing etc. not only better, but also less expensive. As E. von SchoultzAscheraden commented in contrasting the period of the 1890's (1892) with earlier times, previously "one demanded of a Livland housewife that she had to be all-knowing, that everything which one buys now ready made, better and cheaper, had to be fabricated in the house, and the swarm of manor people were dressed like children from head to toe in linen and wool that was spun and woven and fabricated at home." HSA, Transehe'sche Bibliothek, Nr. 484, "Memoiren," p. 143. 76

77

ANREP, p. 2 1 4 .

Rigasche Stadtblätter, Nr. 47 (1879), p. 410. Literati sons received between 400 to 600 rubles annually for study at Dorpat and quite a few fell into considerable debt. See T. HAHN, Erinnerungen, p. 150. Hahn got by on 400 rubles in 1867. JOHANNA CONRADI cited an income of between 1,500-2,000 rubles as the average for the middle class (Mittelstand) in the 1860's. "Der Luxus", p. 530. 78

303

Status display was, of course, not a new phenomenon in the provinces or elsewhere. The corporations' diets had repeatedly tried to outlaw such practices in previous centuries. Equally common all across Europe at the end of the century was criticism of socially mobile groups and the materialist culture of capitalism. The loss of political exclusiveness, the emergence of an independent peasantry in the countryside, and uncertain economic times that undercut the old hierarchical social order promoted displays of outward status and social exclusiveness indicative of a new insecurity. Estland's Otto von Taube observed that his father "was intent on preserving lordly dignity." This included a good stable of ten horses, carriages with coachmen and attendants in livery and house colors, while at the lordly table guests were served by liveried and white gloved attendants.79 Noble families beautified their residences, building more impressive stone structures and creating parks that separated the residence from the farm buildings. An observer commented that "the houses of the nobility have changed into castles and country residences. Building with stone has replaced the old wood construction." Fancier carriages and gigs replaced the old "buckboards and city coaches." 80 Fanny von Anrep commented repeatedly in her letters that "luxury and expectations have risen significantly and, in my view, also the inordinate love of pleasure..." Elsewhere she noted "the frivolity of people ... who engage in parties and pleasures and live day to day...." 81 Expectations certainly rose with a growing economy, but the new emphasis on "pleasure and frivolity" among not only nobles but also the literati, who faced an uncertain professional future after Russification, were signs of a lack of the inner security and assurance that had once characterized the upper levels of society. Maintenance of status required profitable manors, and this could be a frustrating endeavor, especially in Estland. Alexander von Keyserling noted in his diary in 1889 how difficult it was to "maintain a suitable (standesgemäss) standard of life," and remarked, after another failure in his efforts to improve agriculture, how "hard it was to be a manorlord in Estland," where "one does not become rich." 82 Keyserling was himself deeply involved personally in running TAUBE, Im alten, p. 80; cf. HSA, 702, TOBIEN, Nr. 35, p. 6. " A u s einem livländischen," p. 121; cf. FoELKERSAHM, Das alte Kurland, p. 103; WlTTRAM, Drei Generationen, p. 247. 81 ANREP, pp. 5 7 , 2 0 2 . E m m y von Campenhausen also found fault with the "frivolity and weakness of character among Baits." HI, Baltikum 400/675, entry for 20 October 1892. Criticism of the negative effects of these high expectations were common at the time, and were often directed toward upwardly mobile urban German burghers as seen, for example, in the critical articles published in the Rigasche Frauenzeitschrift (see articles "Warum heiraten so wenig Männer," " Uber Kinderbälle," Nos. 12 and 45, 25 March and 11 November 1887; also CONRADI, " D e r Luxus," passim; WLTTRAM, Drei Generationen, p. 247. 79 80

8 2 Keyserling made many comments indicating his frustrations with agriculture. His experiment in beer brewing, for example, was a resounding failure. KEYSERLING, 2:207, 544 and passim.

304

Neu-Schwanenburg (Livl.) 1878 Transehe Family. Frontal View (Pirang, vol. 3)

Λ

Allatzkiwi (Livl.) 1870 Nolcken Family. Rear View (Pirang, vol. 3)

his manor; conclusive figures are not available on how many others were actually run by nobles themselves. The published Baltic manor address books list size and management of manors, but the information provided to the author was incomplete. Furthermore, since the books were published in 1909, the information on numbers of nobles in residence in the countryside does not reflect the situation at the turn of the century, since noble residence in the countryside was affected by the flight from the land of many nobles after the revolutionary 305

Lustifer (Livl.) 1890 Wahl Family Salon (Pirang, vol. 3)

crisis of 1905. 8 3 O n e c a n , h o w e v e r , c o n c l u d e t h a t f a r m i n g w a s still t h e m o s t c o m m o n p r o f e s s i o n a m o n g t h e n o b i l i t y , even t h o u g h m o r e a n d m o r e c o r p o r a t e n o b l e s c h o s e t o lease o u t t h e i r m a n o r s o r e n t r u s t t h e m t o p l e n i p o t e n t i a r y s t e w a r d s ( o f t e n t h e m s e l v e s m e m b e r s of t h e c o r p o r a t e n o b i l i t y ) . M a n y s i m p l y p r e f e r r e d t h e c a l m e r a n d less d e m a n d i n g life of t h e r e n t i e r t o t h e r i g o r s of c o p i n g 83

Schlingensiepen analyzed manor owner management based on the address books of (Baltische Verkehrs- und Adressbücher, 3 vols. [Riga, 1 9 0 9 - 1 9 1 2 ] ) , supplemented with KRÖGER'S book (Livländisches Verkehrs- und Adressbuch, [Riga, 1 8 9 2 ] ) . He found that in Estland of 4 0 1 noble manors, almost half provided no information ( 1 8 9 ) . Of the remaining 212, seventy-three were run by the owners, seventy-three by stewards, fortythree were leased out, and on fourteen manors the owners lived elsewhere. Twenty-one of the lessees (leaseholders) and fifty-five of the stewards were members of the corporate nobility. One burgher manor was leased by a noble, as was another one with a steward in charge. For Kurland information was missing on about 119 manors. Of the remainder, eighty-seven were run by noble owners, seventy-nine were leased out, ninety-seven had put stewards in charge. O n nine manors the nobles lived elsewhere. Of the leaseholders, nineteen were corporate nobles, as were forty-eight of the stewards. In Livland, 195 of 657 noble manors were run by the owners, sixty-five owners lived elsewhere, 194 were leased out, eighty-nine had stewards. N o information was available on 114 manors. As Schlingensiepen points out, these figures convey the impression that only a third of the corporate nobility ran their manors themselves, but much information was lacking, and some nobles had more than one estate and leased out others or entrusted their administration to stewards. In addition, in the first years after the revolution of 1905, there was some flight from the land. SCHLINGENSIEPEN, pp. 8 2 - 8 3 . SERING claimed that three-quarters of the nobility managed their manors themselves (Die agrarischen, p. 78). A D O L F RICHTER

306

St. Kockora (Livl.) 1890 v. Rathlef Family (Pirang, vol. 3)

307

in a capitalist economy. Others left their manors for a time to move into town in search of better educational opportunities for their children. Overall, however, the Baltic German nobility had adapted successfully to a modern market oriented agrarian economy. This relative economic success in the agrarian sector, superior to that of any other Imperial province, was probably a significant reason why the Imperial government refrained from interference in the economic affairs of the Baltic countryside. This same relative success, in turn, blinded the Baltic German nobility to the extent of rural problems. 84 The Baltic German nobility had deep roots in a countryside they had dominated for centuries at the expense of the native population. Even though the emerging class of peasant freeholders challenged the old hierarchical order in the countryside, the nobility managed to maintain its superior social and economic position to the end of the Empire, albeit at the cost of neglecting the plight of the majority rural population. After World War I and the emergence of an independent Estonia and Latvia, the nobility would pay for its earlier economic and political neglect of the native peoples in the coin of large scale expropriation.

84 Class conflict in the provinces was only discussed in context of urban, not rural problems. PlSTOHLKORS, "Inversion," p. 177.

308

The nobility and major landowners in general are the representatives of the monarchist and moderate-conservative direction; the peasantry, in contrast, is the representative of the democratic and disintegrating element of the State, of the current that reigns in the broadest levels of the Latvian population.1

E p i l o g u e and C o n c l u s i o n The Baltic German nobility's success in rising to the economic challenges of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did nothing to settle the cauldron of political unrest brewing in the provinces. During the last three months of 1905 the Baltic nobility lost all control over the countryside and the Latvian and Estonian lands exploded in a wave of violence. More than 90 Germans were killed, 184 manors were burnt, and most of the German population, particularly in Kurland and southern Livland, was forced to flee to the cities to escape the revolutionary fury of the Estonians and Latvians. Cities and countryside alike were consumed by disturbances directed by well organized social democrats whose pamphlets attacked the local German lords in equal measure with the autocracy. The social upheaval reflected grievances caused by hundreds of years of German oppression, by an awakened national consciousness, by the strains and stresses of industrialization and urbanization that had led to the emergence of an urban proletariat and social democratic parties, and by a disenchantment with the Russian government that only increased when the natives realized that it was ready to use Russian bayonets in support of their German oppressors. In response to the social conflagration, in the latter part of 1905 the Imperial government declared martial law in Kurland and then Livland. The Livland corporation wanted a military solution to the rural upheaval and, after the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese war in September of 1905, the Imperial government responded, unleashing a reign of terror on the native populations. 2 From the end of 1905 through to 1908 armed detachments with Cossack outriders de1 From a memorandum on the introduction of Russian zemstvo institutions in the Baltic provinces that was sent by the Kurland corporation to Minister of Interior I. L. Goremykin in 1914. The corporation again repeats the theme that the Baltic German nobility had used at every sign of unrest or disturbance since the era of Catherine II, that in the provinces it alone serve as support of the throne and was the only reliable defender of autocratic government. EAA, fond 854, nimistu 2, järjek. 1380. 2 The peasantry in the provinces of Russia suffered much the same fate. Millions of peasants had participated in disturbances. Between 1905 and 1908 thousands were executed and tens of thousands were exiled to Siberia. The army with the co-operation of local police and newly formed rural guards put down the peasantry.

309

scended on the Baltic, helped and encouraged by local German noble manor lords who had organized themselves into militias and had prepared lists of those to be punished. Natives were flogged, killed in armed clashes, put before quick courts-martial and shot, or were shot without even semblance of trial. In the end, far more peasant than noble homesteads were burnt to the ground. Estimates vary on the number of victims, but in the provinces overall at least 900 people were executed and another 2,000 were exiled to Siberia, while many of the most vocal and active members of the intellectual elite fled abroad.3 The direct participation of the corporate nobility in this bloodbath drove even deeper the wedge that separated them from the native population.4 By its own actions, the nobility had limited its options. The revolutionary upheaval and the reprisals that followed had clearly shown that it was wholly dependent for the preservation of its position on the external autocratic power. From then on, its fate was unalterably linked to the fate of the regime to which it was bound by ties of fear, blood, and brute force. The Baltic German nobility's renewed claim after the events of 1905 to be the most stable and loyal element in the whole Empire served it well, leading the Imperial government to restore a portion of the privileges lost over the course of previous decades. German-language schooling was restored and the Imperial government played an active role in maintaining the political, social, and economic status quo in the provinces. Even so, it resisted several of the nobility's major demands, including restoration of the vice-royalty that had set the Baltic apart from the rest of the Empire over the period.1801 to 1876.5 The government also refused to implement other measures the nobility claimed to need to preserve its position, including reform bills proposed by the Baltic diets that 3 RAUN, Estonia, pp. 83-86. R a u n notes that a Soviet estimate held that a b o u t 300 people were killed in E s t o n i a (Estland and N o r t h e r n Livland), 600 were flogged, 652 were courtmartialed with a verdict of execution, and another 495 were sent to forced labor in Siberia, (p. 86). See also PLSTOHLKORS, " T h e I n v e r s i o n , " p p . 191-192 and " D i e O s t s e e p r o v i n z e n , " p. 416-436; Plakans cites the largest estimate, which held that b y 1908 "punitive expeditions had executed 2,042 L a t v i a n peasants. Military tribunals tried and executed 724 others, and 128 were tried b y civil courts and executed. S o m e 713 were sentenced to hard labor, to jail, or to deportation to Siberia." W h i p p i n g s or "lighter sentences" were administered to s o m e 2,652 peasants. (PLAKANS, " T h e L a t v i a n s , " p. 266.) THADEN, Russia's, pp. 73-74. T h e goal of Baltic revolutionaries in 1905 was cultural and politicial a u t o n o m y f o r the Baltic within the E m p i r e . T h i s remained their aim (except f o r the centralist Bolsheviks) until the latter stages of the revolution of 1917, when separatist leanings came to predominate. G i v e n the Imperial preference for the G e r m a n lords, a p o r t i o n of the left intelligentsia, especially a m o n g the Latvians, began to d o u b t that Latvian aspirations could be fulfilled within the Empire. (PLAKANS, " T h e L a t v i a n s , " p. 267). 4 N o t all Baltic G e r m a n s a p p r o v e d of their c o m p a t r i o t s ' involvement in repressions. FANNY VON ANREP f o r e s a w the negative consequences in the relationship between natives and nobles. Briefe, pp. 266-267. 5 D u r i n g the revolutionary crisis a t e m p o r a r y vice-royalty had been established in the provinces. It was abolished in m i d - 1 9 0 9 . T h i s was a disappointment f o r the Baltic G e r m a n nobles as they had h o p e d to use this institution as a vehicle for advocacy of their interests.

310

would have given a limited franchise to propertied Estonians and Latvians (though it was clear from debates of the Livland diet during the revolutionary crisis that the nobility would not concede true political participation to the natives and not even parity at the level of rural self-government). 6 Among the Baltic Germans, anxiety over the continued "stability" and "viability" of the Empire became the central feature of existence.7 This time the Baltic Germans responded to political turmoil by turning both inward and outward. If the earlier response to Russification and other threats to provincial autonomy had been a rejection of political engagement with the Empire and a turn to home and Heimat, after the Revolution of 1905 the Baltic Germans pursued a policy both of engagement with and renewed emphasis on Deutschtum. The turn inward was marked by the formation of new national-ethnic organizations and an attempt to initiate a policy of settling the Baltic land with Germans from other parts of the Empire. Neither was wholly successful. Under the leadership of the corporate nobility, by 1908 almost a quarter of the German population (37,200) had enrolled in the new nationalist associations and was taking some part in their educational, cultural, and electoral activities. In later years, though, membership declined, and probably not only, as Wittram thought, because of the materialistic and individualist traits of the time, but also because the memory of 1905 was fading. 8 N o r was the colonization policy consistently implemented. It had been initiated by members of the nobility in Kurland where the violence had been the worst, but only a minority among nobility as a whole supported the effort, for they feared new German peasant settlers would alienate the natives even further. 9 None the less, the policy led to the settlement of about 20,000 Volga and Polish Germans in Kurland and Southern Livland until the Imperial government in the years leading up to WW I began to have second thoughts about further Germanization of its Baltic borders with the German Empire, and began to favor a policy of Russian settlement instead. Still, not all response to 1905 was in an inward direction. For the first time Baltic Germans became involved, as direct representatives from the Baltic and not simply as Imperial civil servants, in the political affairs of the Empire. Earlier they had avoided such participation because direct participation contradic6 On this issue see PLSTOHLKORS, Ritterschaftliche, p. 254 and passim. There were differences of opinion in the corporation on this issue, and some well known figures like A. von Meyendorff warned his compatriots against the pitfalls of "egoism of Stand." Ibid. 7 THADEN, Russia's, p. 74. 8 WITTRAM, Baltische Geschichte, p. 234; JÜRGEN VON HEHN, "Das baltische Deutschtum zwischen den Revolutionen von 1905-1917," in Die haltischen Provinzen, pp. 45—49; G. KRÖGER, "Die deutschen Vereine in Liv-, Est- und Kurland 1905/06-1914," Jahrbuch

des haltischen

Deutschtums

16 (1968): 3 9 - 4 9 ; ANDERS HENRIKSSON, " M i n o r i t y N a t i o n a l i s m

and the Politics of Gender: Baltic German Women in the late Imperial En," Journal of Baltic Studies 9

27, N o . 3 ( 1 9 9 6 ) : 2 1 3 - 2 2 8 .

HEHN, "Das baltische Deutschtum," p. 51.

311

ted the claim to a separate status for the Baltic. But the Revolution of 1905 had led to shifts in the political landscape of the Empire that the Baltic Germans could no longer ignore. With the election in 1906 of a limited parliament, the State Duma, the Empire had embarked upon a cautious course of narrowly circumscribed constitutionalism. The First Duma, and the Second that soon followed upon suppression of the First, showed the danger of a democratic franchise, as measures were introduced for radical land reform, including the expropriation of land without compensation. 10 In Russia most of the nobility reacted to this threat to their pocketbook by giving up their flirtation with revolution and, like their Baltic counterparts, by re-emphasizing their central role in the state as the chief bulwark and support of the throne, a new activism motivated, in the words of Dominic Lieven, in defense not of "feudal privileges, but [of] the very bourgeois principle of private property in land." 11 After the government dissolved the first two dumas over the agrarian issue, it promulgated in 1907 a new electoral law that favored noble and other propertied elements. The result in the Baltic was that in contrast to the first two dumas, where all deputies from the provinces had been Latvians and Estonians from opposition parties, six to seven members of the Third and Fourth Dumas were Baltic Germans, as in the new franchise their status as property owners outweighed their continuing small numbers in the population. 12 Once in the Duma the Baltic German nobles allied themselves with the parties that represented the interests of the gentry landowning and other propertied classes, in defense not simply of their bourgeois right to private property, but in their case very definitely also of their feudal seignorial privileges. 13 In the end, the defense was bound to fail, and fail it did. The nobility required maintenance of the political status quo to retain its dominant political position. Economic and social change in the Empire associated with the growth of industrialization, urbanization, and the emergence of a new class system (which incidentally served to integrate the provinces deeper into the Empire) would inevitably lead to change in the political system even in the Baltic. Constitutional change no matter how gradual would eventually lead to a wider franchise and the end of Baltic German noble political dominance. As it happened, the collapse of the imperial regime in the last years of WW I eliminated all hope of gradualism and brought radical and immediate political change to the Baltic. The Baltic Germans did not welcome war against Imperial Germany, but most of them fought loyally for the regime on which the maintenance of their 10 Even the liberal Constitutional D e m o c r a t s s p o n s o r e d a land reform bill, though with compensation. T h e Cadets were not exponents of a laissez faire economy. 11 LIEVEN, The Aristocracy, p. 248. 12 Kurland also sent a J e w i s h representative to the first t w o dumas. THADEN, Russia's, pp. 73-74; RAUN, Estonia, pp. 83-88. 13 This was not the case for the more liberal Baron Alexander M e y e n d o r f f , elected as an at large delegate f r o m Livland nor the G e r m a n bourgeois representatives.

312

position depended. German forces advanced relatively quickly into the Baltic and the tsarist government, afraid of Baltic German collaboration with the enemy, outlawed the use of German in public and closed down German schools and associations (but the use of Estonian and Latvian and of other non-Russian languages of the borderlands was restricted at the same time). World War I placed an intolerable strain on the resources of the Russian Empire. Decades of modernization, industrialization, and urbanization had done much to disorient Russian society, and the social fabric was further weakened by the massive mobilization efforts required by the war. As the Empire's infrastructure, communication, and administrative services deteriorated and food and fuel shortages became increasingly common, resentment was directed toward the government and led to the collapse of the autocracy in February 1917. In the revolutionary period from February to October 1917, though the Bolsheviks skillfully exploited the antagonisms and sense of injustice caused by centuries of oppression and sacrifice, most Estonians and Latvians struggled for cultural autonomy within the confines of a liberal democratic Russia. The ensuing Bolshevik Revolution increased the desire for full independence from Russia. By then much of the Baltic was occupied by troops of the German Imperial army, and after the end of World War I, the Allies delayed their withdrawal, afraid to leave the Baltic to the Bolsheviks, who had already launched a campaign to regain these and other lost territories. During the civil war of 1918-1921, which extended across the former Russian Empire from the Pacific coast in the east to Poland in the west, from Murmansk in the north to Azerbaijan in the south, many forces struggled for power in the Baltic. Some Estonians and Latvians (a coalition of conservatives, liberals, and socialists) fought for an independent liberal democratic Latvia or Estonia with the support of the Entente powers. Others fought with the Bolsheviks for a Baltic united with the new Soviet Union. The Baltic Germans formed a home defense force (the Baltische Landeswehr) and, for the most part, joined cause with German volunteer troops to establish a German protectorate or a Baltic German duchy that would again deny political rights to the natives. Some 700 Baltic Germans formed the Baltenregiment which volunteered to fight the Bolsheviks under the command of Estonian national forces. The final outcome proved to be neither German duchy nor Soviet republics, but independent Estonian and Latvian national-populist states in which the former German rulers soon found themselves an ethnic minority. The new governments of Latvia and Estonia dissolved the corporations and decreed expropriation. 14 In response, more than fifty percent of Baltic German 14 PlSTOHLKORS, " I n v e r s i o n , " pp. 197-198. In E s t o n i a the previous m a n o r o w n e r s could stand in line f o r 50 ha of land (and in 1926, pressured b y the L e a g u e of N a t i o n s the government agreed to a three percent compensation of the " n o m i n a l value of the p r o p e r t y expropriated." C o m p e n s a t i o n was in government bonds, not cash.) Ibid., p. 199. In Latvia, in con-

313

nobles moved to Germany. Their attitude is well reflected in a 1931 memorandum to the Council of the Kurland corporation in exile. The issue was a proposed transfer of corporate headquarters to Latvia, and was composed by the well known former Kurland district marshal, a leading figure both of the German association and settlement movements, Karl Baron Manteuffel-Katzdangen, now resident in Bavaria. Manteuffel's arguments against the move illustrate the political intransigence of a large segment of those among the Baltic German nobility who had chosen exile: The stay ( A u f e n t h a l t ) of the corporation in the emigration was a continuing protest against the Latvian rape, as it found expression in our partial exile (Vertreibung), in expropriation, and in the suppression of Deutschtum. The old law (Recht) has been broken and we do not want to enter a pact with the robbers of our property and our rights, those who have stepped on our honor and still do it today.... [We] believe that we owe it to our tradition to persevere in protest.

Manteuffel continued that a transfer of headquarters to Latvia would lead the Latvians to believe that the corporation had given up its protest. It would be far better for the nobility to bear an "honorable exile than officially renounce (relinquish) its old position and activity."15 Such continued political intransigence into exile demonstrates that only a radical solution mediated by war, revolution, and civil war offered the native peoples an opportunity to determine their own fate. The Baltic noble illiberal state of mind was a reflection of their essential character as colonialists who never integrated with the native population from whom they differed ethnically, culturally, and linguistically. The natives could never have been accepted as equal partners. Such an offer of partnership was made even more unrealistic given the demographic problems faced by the Baltic German nobles because full democratic voting rights would have swept aside any importance the nobles could have hoped for. All of these factors mitigated against a peaceful settlement among the rulers and the ruled who anyway had been developing their own agenda all along. This agenda led

trast, 50 ha were allotted to manor owners before the division of land started to the native population. N o compensation was offered to dispossessed manor lords. Most Baltic Germans left the Baltic States in October 1939, since the area had been allotted to the Soviet sphere of interest in the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Hitler had urged them to settle the newly conquered districts of Poland or to settle in Polish cities like Posen and Thorn. German defeat led to final Baltic German resettlement throughout Germany though they could be found in many other countries of the world as well. 15 L W A , fond 1100, Apraksta 9, Lietas Nr. 7, pp. 24-25. Manteuffel claimed that a majority of the 200 Kurland nobles in Germany shared his position. According to him only sixty Kurland nobles had remained in Latvia and twenty had settled in Lithuania. He assumed that these figures which were provided to him were authentic. Of course, Kurland nobles were always more intransigent than members of the Estland, Livland and Osel corporations. 314

to independent Latvian and Estonian states where those Baltic nobles who had not chosen exile, accepted, if reluctantly their new role as an ethnic minority. A portion of the nobility was still capable of adaptation; by now that portion was a minority at best.

315

BIBLIOGRAPHY PARTI: ARCHIVES Marburg, Germany, Dokumentesammlung des Herder-Instituts (HI) Archiv Nr. 154. Nr. 161. Nr. 166. Nr. 235. Nr. 236. Nr. 267. Nr. 282. Nr. 328. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr.

331. 334. 367. 370. 371. 373. 379. 380. 382. 383. 384. 385. 387. 395. 396.

der Familie

von Campenhausen

Baltikum

400

"Martha Baranoff an ihren Bruder Senateur Balthasar von Campenhausen." "Briefe an Martha Baranoff, geb. Campenh. von ihrem Grossneffen Andreas Baranoff." "Senateur Balthasar von Campenhausen. Betr. seinen Nachlass 1800." "Senateur Balthasar an Sohn Hermann." "Briefe des Senateur Balthasar C. an seine Tochter Sophie. (13. Januar 1799-9.Juli 1800)." "Testament der Martha Baranoff." "Reichskontrolleur Balthasar C. Briefe an seine Eltern 1778-1797." "Briefe von Dorothea Keyserling an ihre Schwägerin Sophie Plessen, geb. Campenhausen." "Briefe an Hermann C. von seiner Braut Dorothea Keyserling." "Briefe an Hermann C . " "Einzelne Briefe an Hermann C . " "Hermann Campenhausen. Varia." "Hermann Campenhausen. Briefe und Concepte." "Rechnungen und Quittungen Hermann C. 1805-1817." "Sophie Plessen. Briefe an Bruder Balthasar." "Sophie Plessen, geb. C. an Bruder Hermann C . " "Sophie Plessen an ihre Schwester Charlotte Budberg." "Briefe von Sophie Plessen an ihren Schwager G. Budberg." "Sophie Plessen an Leocadie Barclay de Tolly." "Briefe von Sophie Plessen an ihre Schwägerin Clementine C . " "Sophie Plessen an Schwester Lisette C . " "Briefe von Charlotte Budberg, geb. Campenh. an ihren Bruder." "Briefe von Charlotte Budberg an ihre Schwester Sophie Plessen." 317

Nr. 389.

"Briefe an Sophie Plessen von Nichte Virginie Okuneff, geb. Budberg." Nr. 401. "Christoph Campenhausen. Constitutia." Nr. 405. "Briefe von Clementine Wolff an ihren Verlobten Christoph 1806." Nr. 406. "Christoph Camp, an seinen Bruder Hermann." Nr. 407. "Briefe von Christoph C. an seine Frau Clementine." Nr. 409. "Christoph C. an Schwester." Nr. 413b. "Christoph C. an seinen Sohn Ernst 1832-1835." Nr. 415. "Briefe von Clementine C. an ihre Kinder." Nr. 415b "Clementine Camp. geb. Wolff. Liste betr. Aussteuer für Leocadie." Nr. 419. "Briefconcepte von Clementine C." Nr. 420. "Clementine Campenhausen. Briefe an ihren Mann Christoph." Nr. 421b. "Auszug aus den Familiennachrichten der Freiherren von Wolff. 'Aus dem Tagebuch des Lehrers Krause.' Karl von Wolff-Neu-Laitzen, 'Die Geschichte meiner Zeitgenossen'." Nr. 423. "Briefe an Christoph C. von G. F. von Bruiningk." Nr. 424. "Briefe an Clementine C. von ihrer Mutter." Nr. 426. "Briefe an Clementine Wolff von ihren Schwägerinnen Constance, Lisette, Amalie Wolff." Nr. 429. "Charlotte von Sivers, geb. von Knorring. (1795-1829). Briefwechsel mit ihrem Mann, Friedrich von Sivers 1817-1828." Nr. 430. "Christoph C. Personalia. Todesanzeigen." Nr. 431. "Marie Wolff, geb. Falois. Briefe an ihre Schwester Sette." Nr. 432. "Christoph C. Betr. seinen Nachlass und Erbteilung. 1841." Nr. 437. "Lorenz von Campenhausen. Briefe an seine Schwester Sophie." Nr. 466. "Hochzeitsgedichte." Nr. 565. "Esther von Campenhausen, geb. von Kahlen. Briefe." Nr. 580. "Theophil C. an Onkel Gottlieb Wolff betr. Vater Christophs Krankheit." Nr. 585. "Esther C. Briefe an ihren Enkel Freytag von Loringhoven." Nr. 588. "Alice von Sivers, geb. Campenhausen. Erinnerungen." Nr. 591. "Jenny von Vegesack, geb. Campenh. 'Bilder der Vergangenheit'." Nr. 625. "Elisabeth, gen. Elly Camp., geb. von Stryk. Briefe an Louise 1874-1884." Nr. 627. "Elly Campenhausen, geb. von Stryk. Erinnerungen." Nr. 632. "Marga Campenhausen, geb. von Stryk. Erinnerungen." Nr. 640. "Ernst Campenhausen. Personalia." Nr. 643. "Ernst C. an seine Braut Minna von Smitten." Nr. 644. "Ernst C. an Frau und Sohn." Nr. 647. "Otto G. Wolff an Ernst Campenhausen. Briefe." Nr. 651. "Sophie Auguste von Schmitten, geb. von Reutern an ihren Schwiegersohn Ernst. Briefe." 318

Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr.

652. 654. 667. 670. 675. 683. 684.

Nr. 685. Nr. 699. Nr. 729.

"Marie Campenhausen an Schwester Minna von Smitten." "Marie Campenhausen, geb. von Smitten. Briefe." "Smitten'sche Verwandtschaft. Briefe." "Balthasar C. an seine Mutter. Briefe." "Emmy Campenhausen, geb. von Samson. Tagebücher 1868-1922." "Erinnerungen der Freifrau Stael von Holstein, geb. von Nolcken." "Tagebuchauszüge Ε. M. R. von Klot, geb. 1782 betr. auch die Familie von Stael." "Wilhelm von Samson-Himmelstjerna (1781-1851). Seine Briefe an seine Kinder Ferdinand, Karl u. Eugenie." "Aus dem Reuterschen Archiv." "Lili von Löwis of Menar. Tagebücher 1885/1886/87,1888-1896."

Marburg, Germany, Hessisches Staatsarchiv (HSA) Archiv der Baltischen R i t t e r s c h a f t e n Estländische Nr. 80.

Nr. 5.

702

"Das Fideicommiss Waykuell und die Familie von Schubert. 1840-1920."

Familienarchiv Nr. 4.

Ritterschaft

von

Kotzebue

"Familiengeschichtliche Niederschrift. An meine Kinder und Nachkommen (1850.)", August J. von Kotzebue. "Statuten von der Kotzebue Stiftung."

Familienarchiv

von

Seydlitz

Nr. 106a. "Aus meinem Leben. Aufzeichnungen des Friedrich von Seydlitz.* 1884. Nr. 106b. "Verschiedenes und Reisen". 1885.

Kurländische VI, 3.

Ritterschaft

701.

Nachlass

von

Lieven

Nr. 21 and Nr. 22. "Briefwechsel des Fürsten Carl Lieven (17671844) besonders mit seinem Sohn Otto (1798-1856) in den Jahren 1805-1844." 319

Nachlass VI. 3. XIV. 3b XIV. 4 XIV. 2. XIV. 5. XIV. 6. XIV. 7. XIV. 8. XVI.

Ritterschaft

702. Nachlass

320

von

Tobten

von

Blanckenhagen

"Erinnerungen an Alt-Livland." I. Teil. Herbert von Blanckenhagen. (1947).

Nachlass Nr. 42.

Oeningen

Wolf von Tobien. "Erinnerungen eines alten Livländers." I. "Bilder aus der alten Heimat 1891-1921."

Nachlass Nr. 39.

von

"Sechs Brüder von Oettingen. Ihr Leben und Wirken für ihre livländische Heimat." Dargestellt von Arved von Oettingen-Ludenhof. 1. Band: "Die Herkunft und die Vorfahren;" 2. Band: "Die drei Politiker."

Nachlass Nr. 35.

Behr

Nr. 9. "Haushaltsbuch des Berendt von Behr 1828-1832." "Brieflade Rudden." "Brieflade Zierau." Nr. 42. "Brieflade Ehnau. Korrespondenz zwischen Wilhelm und Friedrich von Heyking." Karton 1 (gez. "Gr. Dahmen"). "Brieflade des Gutes Gross-Dahmen in Kurland, zuletzt im Besitz der von Schroeders." Karton 2 (gez. "Suhrs"). "Brieflade der kurländischen Güter Suhrs und Atlitzen." Karton 3. "Gutslade Berstein." Karton 4. (gez. "Diverses."). "Papiere aus der Brieflade von Steinensee, Kurland." C117. Alexander von Lieven. "Curländische und Piltensche Landesbeamte 1562-1910."

Livländische Nr. 33.

von

Pilar von

Püchau

"Bilder aus meinem Leben als Landwirt, Verwaltungsbeamter und Politiker von 1875 bis 1920." A. Baron Pilar von Püchau (1922).

Nr. 42. Nr. 44.

"Aufzeichnungen der Baronin Eugenie Pilar von Püchau, geb. Gräfin von der Pahlen." "Briefe 1801-1803; 1845-1874 und 1914." Nachlass

Nr. 78.

von

"Aus den Erinnerungen des Heinrich von Hansen aus dem Hause Dutkenshof." Kapitel 3: "Über Geisterhof." Nachlass

Nr. 81.

Stael

Berg

von

Holstein

"Erinnerungen von Reinhold Baron Stael von Holstein-Uhla 1819-1897." Nachlass

Nr. 153.

von

"Papiere des Generalmajors Alexander von Berg. 1859-1897." Nachlass

Nr. 82.

Hansen

von

Wolff

"Familiencommiss des Joseph Otto Albert Freiherrn von Wolff a. d. Η. Neu-Laitzen (I860)."

Transehe'sche Bibliothek. Baltische Ritterschaften. Statut der Stiftung zur gegenseitigen Unterstützung der freiherrlichen Familie von Engelhardt. Reval, 1903. Nr. 484. SCHOULTZ-ASCHERADEN, ERNESTINE VON. Memoiren der Baronin Ernestine Schoultz-Ascheraden, geh. Baronesse Campenhausen. Riga, 1908.

M a r b u r g , P r i v a t a r c h i v der Gräfin Solms, geb. v o n G e r s dorff (PRA/Solms) "Aus meinen Kinderjahren. 1. Theil. Jeanette Koch, geb. von Gersdorff." "Briefe von Alexander Meyendorff an seine Cousine Minna Gersdorff, 1850ger und 60ger Jahre." 321

"Briefe von Casimir und Eulalie Meyendorff an ihre Cousine Gersdorff, 1841, 1855." "Briefe von Peter von Meyendorff an Fr. Gersdorff. 1814-1816,1837 und 1841 an seine Mutter." "Briefe von Moritz Gotthard Gersdorff an seine Frau Charlotte, geb. von Meyendorff. 1821-1827." "Meine Lebenserinnerungen. Freda Solms-Gersdorff." "Mein Vater Georg von Gersdorff, geb. 1856. Freda Solms-Gersdorff."

Riga, Latvia. Latvijas Valsts Vestures Arhivs (Latvian State H i s t o r i c a l A r c h i v e ) (LVVA) Fond

214,

Vidzemes brunnieclbas Ritterschaft of

arhivs (Archive Livland)

of

the

Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 59. "Archiv Nr. 581: Acta des Livländischen Landrats-Kollegiums betreffend: das Anerbenrecht für Rittergüter. 1896-1914." Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 138. "Ermittelung d. Baronsfamilien und Beweise; Erteilung von Attestaten über die Baronstitel, 1834-1854." Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 141. "Acta des Livländischen Landmarschalls. Barons und Grafentitel, Berechtigung zu deren Führung; Vorstellung a. d. Heroldiedepartement 1860/63." Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 393-409. "Gräflich l'Estocsche Legats für arme adelige Witwen und Frauen des Fellinschen Fräuleinstifts für 1839-1865."

Fond

764.

Hagenmeisteru

Dzimta Family)

Arhivs.

(Hagenmeister

Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 7. "Pis'ma pomeshchikov i drugikh po semeinym, sudebnym i sel'sko-khoziaistvennym voprosam. 1807-1874."

Fond

766.

Palenu

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Pahlen

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 8. "Pis'ma raznykh liudei po sudebnym voprosam, vospitaniu syna i po drugym sluzhebnym i semeinym voprosam."

322

Fond

1100.

Muiznieku

Firksu

dzimtu Noble

Dzimta

Arbivs.

dokumenti. Families)

(Fircks

(Collection

of

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 4, Lietas Nr. 2. "Dokumenti par dzimtas loceklu izglitibu." Apraksta Nr. 4, Lietas Nr. 3. "Dokumenti par dzimtas genealogiju par 1325.g.1833.g." Apraksta Nr. 4, Lietas Nr. 103. "Dokumenti par nekustama lpasuma i egüsanu 1581.g.-1921.g."

Fitinghofu-Se

lu Dzimta Arhivs gen. Scheel Family)

(Vietinghoff,

Apraksta Nr. 5, Lietas Nr. 1. "Dokumenti par dzimtas genealogiju." Apraksta Nr. 5, Lietas Nr. 9. "Sarakste ar amatpersonam muzniekiem, radiem ut citi."

Grothusu

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Grotthuss

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 6, Lietas Nr. 2. "Dokumenti par dzimtas genealogiju (1623.g.1824.g.)." Apraksta Nr. 6, Lietas Nr. 9. "Muiznieku vestules dzimtas locekliem saimniciskos un person!gos jautäjumos. 1725.g.-1826.g." Apraksta Nr. 6, Lietas Nr. 37. "Sarakste ar amatpersonam u radiem administratives saimnieciskos un persoriigos jautäjamas 1709.g.-1850.g.)."

Llvenu

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Lieven

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 8, Lietas Nr. 9. "Statut der Stiftung zu gegenseitiger Unterstützung des Geschlechts der Durchlauchtesten Fürsten Lieven."

Manteifelu-Scegti Dzimta (Manteuffel-Zoege

Arhivs Family)

Apraksta Nr. 9, Lietas Nr. 7. "Dokumentia par savienibas darbu, 1910.g.1913.g." 323

Apraksta Nr. 9, Lietas Nr. 16. "Dokumenti par dzimtas loceklu dzimtas vestures petltjumiem. 1737.g.-1931.g."

Brinkenu

Dzimta

Arhlvs

(Brincken

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 13, Lietas Nr. 256. "Dokumenti dzimtas loceklu un citi (1826.g.1834.g.)."

Brunnovu

Dzimta

Arhlvs

(Brunnow

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 13, Lietas Nr. 324. "Dokumentia dzimtas loceklu un citi. 1765.g1880.g."

Buholcu

Dzimta

Arhlvs

(Buchholtz

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 13, Lietas Nr. 351. "Dokumenti dzimtas loceklu 1815.g.-1860.g."

Mirbahu

Dzimta

Arhws

(Mirbach

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 13, Lietas Nr. 999. "Sarakste ar muizniekiem personlgos jautäjamas 1697.g.-1907.g."

Betiheru

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Boetticher

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 122. "Dokumenti par dzimtas vesturi un citi, 1770.g.-1815.g."

Bistramu

Dzimta

Arhlvs

(Bistram

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 132. "Dokumenti par dzimtas vesturi un citi. 1704.g.-1927.g."

Engelhardt*

Dzimta

Arhlvs

(Engelhardt

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 207. "Dzimtas loceklu dienas grämatas. 1855.g.-1863.g. 1863.g." 324

Kaizerlingu

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Keyserling

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 397. "L. Kaizerlingas dienas grämata. 1874.g."

Knorringu

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Knorring

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 436. "Dokument! par dzimtas genealogiju un citi."

Kampenhauzenu

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Campenhausen

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 400. "Dzimtas loceklu sarakste ar radiem, draugiem un citi."

Kalenu

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Kahlen

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 409. "Dzimtas locekla sarakste ar radiem, draugiem un citi. 1836.g.—1918.g."

Kozenu

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Cosens

Family)

Apraksta Nr. 14, Lietas Nr. 442. "Dzimtas loceklu sarakste ar radiem un draugiem personlgos jautäjumos. 1808.g.-1883.g."

Stelu-Holsteinu

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Stael-Holstein

Family)

Apraksta 14, Lietas Nr. 633 and 634. "R. Stela-Holsteina autobiogräfiskas atminas."

Tranze

Dzimta

Arhivs

(Transehe

Family)

Apraksta 14, Lietas Nr. 750. "Dokumenti par dzimtas genealogiju par 1703.g.1923.g."

325

Fond

7402.

Η. von

Bruiningk.

1891-1893

Apraksta Nr. 1, Lietas Nr. 28. "Ritterschaftssekretair. Manual-Acte."

Tartu, Estonia. Eesti Ajalooarhiiv (Estonian Historical Archive) ( E A A ) Fond

854.

Estländische

Ritterschaft

Nimistu 2, järjek. 3039. "Akte Ausschlussverfahren gegen Fr. Stackelberg, 1906." Nimistu 2, järjek. 1380. "Akte der estländischen Ritterschaften betreffend die Reform der Landesversammlung." Angef. 9. Sept. 1909, beendigt 28. April 1914. Nimistu 2, järjek. 2873. "Akte betr. die Gründung einer Unterstützungskasse für die hilfsbedürftigen Familien des immatrikulierten Adels." Angef. 19. Dez. 1901, beendet 31. Okt. 1917. Nimistu 2, järjek. 3027 and 3032. "Akte in Klagesachen des Carl von Sievers wider den Baron C. Uexküll wegen Ehrenverletzung 9. Sept. 1852-16. Febr. 1853; Akte betr. die bei dem Kurländischen Rittschaftskomitte gemachten Meldung über die Ehrenstreitsachen W. von Rehbinder und von Aderkas. 29. Mail-5. April 1805." Nimistu 2, järjek. 3853. "Akte in Beschwerdesachen der Baronin Anastasie Stackelberg wider den Baron von Baggehuff und N. von Stackelberg wegen des Ruinierens des geerbten Gutes Lilienbach als Vormünder ihrer Töchter."

Familie

von

Uexküll-Güldenband

Nimistu 7, järjek. 647. "Privatbriefe Uexküll-Güldenband an Familienmitglieder u. andere." (8. Jan. 1553-26. April 1871.)

Familie

von

Berg

Nimistu 7, järjek. 6. "Briefe des v. Berg an den Präsidenten von Samson in Walling über landes- und persönliche Angelegenheiten (1807-1842)." Nimistu 7, järjek. 7. "Briefe des J. G. von Berg aus Reval an den Baron de Rouissilon in SPb." Angef. 28. Okt. 1813, beendet 16. Juli 1814. 326

Fond 4372. Familie von

Löwenstern

Nimistu 1, järjek. 3. "Briefe von verschiedenen Personen an Carl Otto von Löwenstern in Schuld-, Vokations-, Unterstützungs-, Pflaumen-, Familien-, Finanz- u. a. Sachen." Nimistu 1, järjek. 5. "Briefe an Carl Otto von Löwenstern, Assessor und Landrath auf Alt-Anzen, Wolmarshof und Stockmannshof."

Fond 1687. Stackelberg

Familie

Nimistu 1, järjek. 92. "Gut Ottenküll." Mathias B. von Stackelberg, Erbherr.

Fond 5147. Rehbinder

Familie

Nimistu 1, järjek. 15. "Briefe des Grafen Karl Gotthard Rehbinder an seine Frau. 1864-1877." Nimistu 1, järjek. 17. "Briefe der Anna Wulf an die Komtess Anna Rehbinder, 1883-1888."

Fond 2489. Stryk

Familie

Nimistu 1, järjek. 1. "Statuten des von Strykschen Familienlegats 28. Sept. 1877." Nimistu 1, järjek. 13. Gustav von Stryk. "Die livländische Landwirtschaft im 19. Jahrhundert." Maschinenschrift. Nimistu 1, järjek. 53. "Jugendjahre Gustav von Stryk (1850-1927)."

Fond 1443. Familie von

Mühlendabi

Nimistu 1, järjek. 3. "Briefe vom Sohn Paul an die Mutter. 1818-1833." Nimistu 1, järjek. 5. Karl Gustav von Mühlendahl. "Schulzeugnis, Todesanzeige seiner Frau und Briefe seines Schwiegervaters, des Gouverneurs von Gruenewaldt, u. a." Nimistu 1, järjek. 16. Pauline Bogren, geb. von Mühlendahl. "Briefe an verschiedene Verwandte, 1857-1901." Nimistu 1, järjek. 20. Jakob Johann Mühlendahl. "Briefwechsel mit Geschwistern und Verwandten. 1881-1919."

327

Fond 1874. Berg

Familie

Nimistu 1, järjek. 1108. "Briefe, Charlotte von Berg, geb. von Sivers mit Emilie Charlotte von Sivers, geb. von Krüdener und Fr. G. M. von Berg 1853-1865."

PART II. NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALS Baltische Frauenzeitschrift. Leben und Wirken. Riga, 1906-1910. Baltische Monatsschrift (BM). Riga, 1859-1913, vols. 1-76. (Vols, for 1914-15 and 1927-1931 only have year of publication). Between 1932 and 1939 the BM was continued as Baltische Monatshefte. Baltische Wochenschrift für Landwirtschaft, Gewerbefleiss und Handel. Dorpat, 1863-1914. Das Inland. Dorpat, 1836-1863. Rigasche Hausfrauenzeitschrift. Riga, 1887-1890. Rigasche Stadtblätter. Riga, 1810-1907.

PART III: BOOKS AND ARTICLES AGTHE, ADOLPH.

Ursprung und Lage der Landarbeiter in Livland. Tübingen,

1909.

Album Academicum der Kaiserlichen Universität Dorpat. Ed. ARNOLD H A S SELBLATT and GUSTAV O T T O . Dorpat, 1 8 8 9 . Album Curonorum 1808-1932. Ed. WILHELM RÄDER. Riga, 1 9 3 2 . Album Estonorum. Tallinn, 1939. Album der Howenschen und Elisenschule 1879-1929. Reval, 1930. Album Livonorum 1822-1939. Ed. WILHELM LENZ. Otterndorf, 1 9 5 8 . AMBURGER, ERIK. Die Geschichte der Behördenorganisation Russlands von Peter dem Grossen bis 1917. Leiden, 1966. ANDERS, EMIL. "Aus den Erinnerungen des Bibliothekars E. Anders." In Altlivländische Erinnerungen. Ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN. Reval, 1911, pp. 9 0 - 1 5 5 . ANDERSON, MICHAEL. Approaches to the History of the Western Family, 15001914 . Studies in Economic and Social History. 2nd ed. London, 1984. ANFIMOV, A . M . "ChastnovladeFcheskoe lesnoe khoziaistvo Ν Rossii Ν kontse ΧΙΧ-nachale X X v." (Privately Owned Forestry in Russia at the End of the Nineteenth and Beginning of the Twentieth Century). Istoricheskie Zapiski 63 (1958):244-258.

328

ANREP, FANNY VON. Briefe einer Livländerin aus den Jahren 1873-1909. Ed. GERTRUD WESTERMANN. L a n d s h u t , 1990.

ARBUSOW, LEONID. Grundriss der Geschichte Liv-, Est- u. Kurlands. 4th ed., Riga, 1918. Archiv der Familie von Stackelberg. Ed. AXEL VON GERNET. 2 vols. St. Petersburg, 1898-1900. ARI£S, PHILIPPE. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York, 1962. ARMSTRONG, JOHN A. "Mobilized Diaspora in Tsarist Russia: The Case of the Baltic Germans." In Soviet Nationality Policies and Practice. Ed. JEREMY R. AZRAEL. New York, 1978, pp. 63-104. ARNOLD, KARL. "Theodor Hermann Pantenius." In Heimatstimmen 2 (1906):157-189. "Aus der 'guten alten Zeit.' Erinnerungen an die 40ger Jahre." In Aus vergangenen Tagen. Der "Altlivländischen Erinnerungen" neue Folge. Ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN. R e v a l , 1913, p p . 7 2 - 1 3 3 .

Aus den Aufzeichnungen eines livländischen Hofmeisters am Ende des 18. Jhdt. 3rd. ed. Riga, 1894. Aus den Tagen Kaiser Pauls. Aufzeichnungen eines kurländischen Edelmannes. E d . FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN. L e i p z i g , 1886.

"Aus einem livländischen Erinnerungsbuche." BM 68 (1909):84-123. Aus kurländischen Reisetagebüchern. Ed. OTTO CLEMEN. Berlin-Steglitz, 1918. BALEVICA, LIDA. "Adelsgüter und Bauernwirtschaft in Südlivland und die Rolle der Livländischen Adeligen Güterkreditsozietät 1880-1905." In Bevölkerungsverschiebungen und sozialer Wandel in den baltischen Provinzen Russlands

1850-1914.

E d . GERT VON PISTOHLKORS, ANDREJS PLAKANS,

PAUL KAEGBEIN. L ü n e b u r g , 1995, p p . 1 0 3 - 1 2 6 .

Baltische Briefe aus zwei Jahrhunderten. Ed. ALEXANDER EGGERS. Berlin, 1918. Baltische

Bürgerkunde.

E d . CARL VON SCHILLING a n d

BURCHARD VON

SCHRENCK. First Part. Riga, 1908. Baltische Kirchengeschichte. Ed. REINHARD WITTRAM. Göttingen, 1956. Baltische Landeskunde. Ed. K[ARL] R[EINHOLD] KUPFFER. Riga, 1911. BASEDOW, JOHANN BERNHARD. Das Methodenbuch für Väter und Mütter

der

Familien und Völker. 3rd ed. Dessau and Leipzig, 1773. BECKER, SEYMOUR. Nobility and Privilege in Late Imperial Russia. DeKalb, 1985. BEHR, ULRICH BARON. Edwahlen und die Behrsche Ecke in Kurland. Verden, 1979. BERDAHL, ROBERT. "Preussischer Adel: Paternalismus als Herrschaftsstand." In Preussen

im Rückblick.

E d . HANS-JÜRGEN PUHLE a n d HANS-ULRICH W E H -

LER. Göttingen, 1980, pp. 123-145. The Politics of the Prussian Nobility - The Development Ideology 1770-1848. Princeton, 1988.

of a

Conservative

329

Bericht an den livländischen Landtag im März 1898 über den Entwurf eines Anerbenrechts für Rittergüter in Livland. Riga, 1898. Bericht des Landratskollegiums über die definitive Fassung des Entwurfs eines Anerbenrechts für Rittergüter in Livland. Riga, 1906. "Bericht über ein altes Tagebuch." BM 34 (1888):772-785. BERKHOLZ, GEORG. Geschichte des Wortes "baltisch". Riga, 1909. Formerly published BM 29 (1882):519-530.

BERKIS, ALEXANDER V. The History of the Duchy of Courland Towson, Maryland, 1969.

1561-1795.

BERNSTEIN, GEORGE, BERNSTEIN LOTTELORE. "Attitudes toward Women's

Education in Germany, 1870-1914." International Journal of Women's Studies 2, No. 5 (1979):473^88. "The Curriculum for German Girl's Schools 1870-1914." Paedagogica Historica 18 (1978):275-295. BERTRAM, G. [GEORG VON SCHULTZ], Baltische Skizzen oder Fünfzig Jahre Zurück. Dorpat, 1873. BEUYS, BARBARA. Familienleben in Deutschland. Reinbek, 1980. BIELENSTEIN, AUGUST. Ein glückliches Leben. Riga, 1904. BIENEMANN, FRIEDRICH. Altlivländische Erinnerungen. Reval, 1911 Aus vergangenen Tagen. Der "Altlivländischen Erinnerungen " neue Folge. Reval, 1913. Liv-, Kur- u. Estländer als Offiziere in den Kriegen 1812-1815. Reval, 1912. BIENEMANN, H. VON. Neue geographisch-statistische Beschreibung des kaiserlich-russ. Gouvernements Kurland. Mitau, 1841. BLAESE, MAX VON. "Agrarverhältnisse in Kurland." In Baltische Bürgerkunde. E d . CARL VON SCHILLING u n d BURCHARD VON SCHRENCK. R i g a , 1 9 0 8 ,

pp. 331-350. BLAESE, MAX VON, STAHL-SCHRÖDER, M. Der Futterbau

in Kurland

und den

umliegenden Provinzen. Riga, 1893. BLAESE, MAX VON. Die Landwirtschaft in Kurland. Mitau, 1899. BLOCHMANN, ELISABETH. Das «Frauenzimmer»

und die

«Gelehrsamkeit».

Heidelberg, 1966. BLUM, JEROME. "Russia." In European Landed Elites in the Nineteenth Century. Ed. DAVID SPRING with an introduction. Baltimore and London, 1977, pp. 6 8 - 9 7 .

BLUM, K[ARL] L[UDWIG], Ein Bild aus den Ostseeprovinzen

oder Andreas

von

Löwis of Menar. Berlin, 1846. BLUMENBAKH, EVGENII. Grazhdanskoe sostoianie (soslovie) ν Rossii ν chastnosti ν Pribaltiiskikh gubemiiakh ego prava i obiazannost' (The Civil Estate in Russia, in particular in the Baltic Provinces, its Rights and Obligation). Riga, 1899. BODISCO, ALEXANDER VON. Geschichte des Adelgeschlechts derer von Baranoff. Ein Beitrag zur Güter- u. Familiengeschichte Estlands. Reval, 1912. 330

BOOR, HELMUT DE, NEWALD, RICHARD. Geschichte

der deutschen

Literatur.

Vol. 5: Vom Spdthumanismus zur Empfindsamkeit 1570-1750. Munich, 1951. BORNHAUPT, CARL VON. Entwurf einer geographisch-statistisch-historischen Beschreibung Liv- Ehst- und Kurlands. Riga, 1855. BOSSE, HEINRICH "Geschichtsschreibung des baltischen Biedermeier." In Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung. Ed. GEORG VON RAUCH. Cologne, 1986, pp. 103-120. BÖTHFÜHR, H[EINRICH] J[ULIUS]. Die Livländer

auf auswärtigen

Universitäten

in vergangenen Jahrhunderten. Riga, 1884. BÖTTICHER, THEODOR. " D e r D o m a i n e n v e r k a u f in den O s t s e e p r o v i n z e n u n d

das Güterbesitzrecht." Β Μ 3 (1861):334-425. "Der Pfandbesitz in Livland." BM 9 (1864):219-256. BRACKEL, FRIEDRICH VON. "AUS d e n L e b e n s e r i n n e r u n g e n Fr. v o n Brackels

(1830-1839)." In Altlivländische Erinnerungen. Ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEΜΑΝΝ. Reval, 1911, pp. 191-269 BRINKMANN, CARL. "Die Aristokratie im kapitalistischen Zeitalter." In Grundriss der Sozialökonomik IX. Part 1. Tübingen, 1920, pp. 23-34. BROWN, J. C. Forests and Forestry in Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine and the Baltic Provinces of Russia. Edinburgh, 1885. BRUFORD, W. H. The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation. London, 1975. BRÜGGEN, ERNST VON DEN. Die agraren Verhältnisse in den russischen Ostseeprovinzen. Berlin, 1883. BRUININGK, HERMANN BARON. Das Geschlecht

von Bruiningk

in

Livland.

Riga, 1913. BRUNNER, OTTO. Adeliges Landleben und europäischer Geist. Salzburg, 1949. [BUCHHOLTZ, ALEXANDER], Deutsch-protestantische Kämpfe in den baltischen Provinzen Russlands. Leipzig, 1888. BUDDEUS, AURELIO. "Weltansprüche und Mädchenerziehung." BM 2 (1860): 229-241.

Halbrussisches. 2 vols. Leipzig, n.d. BULMERINCQ, AUGUST. "Baltische Presse." BM 5 (1862), 1:48-99. "Die Bildung des Nichtgelehrten." BM 5 (1862):387-437. "Die Rechtsbildung und das Rechtsstudium in den Ostseeprovinzen." BM 22 (1873):68-77. BUNGE, FRIEDRICH GEORG VON. Das liv- und esthländische

Privatrecht

wis-

senschaftlich dargestellt. 2 vols. Reval, 1847-1848. BUSH, M. L. Noble Privilege. New York, 1983. BÜTTNER, A. "Die alte Geschichte auf dem klassischen Gymnasium." BM 22 (1873):573-583. BUXHOEVEDEN, OSKAR BARON. Die Oeseische Ritterschaft

im Wandel der Zeit.

Hamburg, 1974. 331

CAMPE, JOACHIM HEINRICH.

Väterlicher

Rath für meine

Tochter.

Braun-

schweig, 1789. Die Rittergüter Livlands nach der Nationalität ihrer Besitzer. Dorpat 1914 (special reprint from Baltische Wochenschrift für Landwirtschaft, Nr. 16, 1914). Geschichte des Geschlechts der von Campenhausen. Riga, 1908. CAMPENHAUSEN, GASTON BARON. "Die Branntwein-Produktion in Kurland seit Einführung des neuen Accisegesetzes." BM 23 (1874):225-253. CARSTEN, FRANCIS L. A History of the Prussian Junker. Aldershot, 1989. CHODOROW, N A N C Y . "Family Structure and Feminine Personality." In Woman, Culture and Society. Ed. MICHELLE Z . ROSALDO AND LOUISE LEMPHERE. Stanford, 1974, pp. 43-66. CONRADI, JOHANNA. "An die weibliche Lesewelt." BM 5 ( 1 8 6 2 ) : 1 : 1 5 4 - 1 7 3 . "Der Luxus in seiner Einwirkung auf das Familienwohl." BM 3 (1861):525541. "Der Wechsel in unseren Sitten und Gebräuchen." BM 11 (1865):1:118-140. Lehensbilder aus der haltischen Heimat. Mitau, 1861. "Zur Erziehungsfrage." Β Μ 6 (1862):2:335-348. CRUSE, KARL WILHELM. Kurland unter den Herzögen. 2 vols. Mitau, 1833, 1837. DAHLMANN, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH. Die Politik. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1 8 4 7 . DANNENBERG, KARL. Zur Geschichte und Statistik des Gymnasiums zu Mitau. Mitau, 1875. DELLINGSHAUSEN, EDUARD VON. Die Entstehung, Entwicklung und aufbauende Tätigkeit der baltischen Ritterschaften. Langensalza, n.d. Im Dienste der Heimat! Erinnerungen des Freiherrn Eduard von Dellingshausen. Schriften des Deutschen Ausland-Instituts. No. 3. Stuttgart, 1930. DEMME, F. "Vierzig Jahre Schuldienst." BM ( 1 9 2 7 ) : 2 5 1 - 2 6 8 ; 3 3 0 - 3 4 4 ; 4 0 1 - 4 1 4 . Deutschbaltisches Biographisches Lexikon 1710-1960. Begun by O L A F W E L DING and ed. by WILHELM LENZ with the assistance of ERIK AMBURGER and GEORG KRUSENSTJERN. Cologne, 1 9 7 1 . DRACHENFELS, PETER PHILIPP VON. "Jugenderinnerungen des Freiherrn P. Ph. von Drachenfels. 1 7 9 5 - 1 8 1 3 . " In Altlivländische Erinnerungen. Ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN. Reval, 1 9 1 1 , pp. 1 - 3 8 . DUKHANOV, MAKSIM Μ . Ostzeitsy. lav' i vymysel. Ο roli nemetskikh pomeshchikov i biurgerov istoricheskykh sud'bakh latyshskogo i estonskogo narodov ν seredine XIX veka (Baits. Reality and Fiction. About the Role of the German Landowners and Burghers in the Historical Fates of the Latvian and Estonian Peoples in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century). Riga, 1970. DUNSDORFS, EDGARS. "Zum Hakenproblem." Commentationes Balticae 1 (1935):l-25. CAMPENHAUSEN, ERNST BARON.

332

ECKARDT, JULIUS. AUS baltischer Geistesarbeit. Vol. 1, Riga, 1908. Aus der Petersburger Gesellschaft. Leipzig, 1873. Baltische und russische Culturstudien aus zwei Jahrhunderten. Leipzig, 1869. Bürgerthum und Bureaukratie. Vier Kapitel aus der neuesten livländischen Geschichte. Leipzig, 1870. "Der livländische Landtag in seiner historischen Entwicklung." BM 63 (1861): 1:37-78,116-159. Die Baltischen Provinzen Russlands. Politische und culturgeschichtliche Aufsätze. Leipzig, 1869. Jungrussisch und altlivländisch. Leipzig, 1871. Lebenserinnerungen. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1910. Livland im achtzehnten Jahrhundert: Umrisse zu einer livländischen Geschichte. Leipzig, 1876. "Livland um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts." BM 64 (1907):1-10. Memoiren eines Livländers. Part I: Erzählungen meines Grossvaters. Leipzig, 1883. Russische und baltische Charakterbilder aus Geschichte und Literatur. Leipzig, 1876. Zur Charakteristik der Balten. Eine Analyse aus dem Jahre 1863, reprint, Hamburg, 1962. ECKHARDT, HANS WILHELM. Herrschaftliche Jagd, bäuerliche Not und bürgerliche Kritik. Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck Instituts für Geschichte, 48. Göttingen, 1976. EGIOZAROVA, N. A. Agrarnyi krizis kontsa XIX veka ν Rossii. (The Agrarian Crisis at the End of the Nineteenth Century in Russia). Moscow, 1959. EICHHORN, W. F. "Aus dem Estland der 40er Jahre. Aus den Erinnerungen W. F . Eichhorns." In Aus vergangenen Tagen. Ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN. Reval, 1913, pp. 45-71. Die Elisenschule - ehemals Howensche Schule - in Reval in der Erinnerung ihrer Schülerinnen. Hannover-Döhren, 1979. ENGELHARDT, ALEXIS VON. Die Kavaliere von Illuxt. Munich, 1949. ENGELHARDT, HANS DIETER VON, NEUSCHÄFFER, HUBERTUS. Die Livländische Gemeinnützige und Ökonomische Sozietät (1792-1932). Quellen und Studien zur baltischen Geschichte, vol. 5. Cologne and Vienna, 1983. ENGELHARDT, HERMANN BARON. Zur Geschichte der livländischen adeligen Güterkreditsozietät. Riga, 1902. ENGELHARDT, RODERICH VON. Die deutsche Universität Dorpat in ihrer geistesgeschichtlichen Bedeutung. Munich, 1933. ENGELMANN, J. "Professor Dr. juris Carl Erdmann." BM 55 (1903):l-28. ERDMANN, BRUNO. "Einige Glossen über baltische Lebensformen." BM 7 5 (1913):404—416. ERDMANN, CARL EDUARD. "Das Glück im Winkel." BM 39 (1892):661-672.

333

Das Güterrecht der Ehegatten nach dem Provinzialrecht Liv-, Ehst- und Curlands. Dorpat, 1872. "Das Wesen der Heimat." BM 34 (1888):187-199. "Die Ehre." BM 26 (1878/79):265-279. "Ewige Personen." BM 39 (1892):661-672. System des Privatrechts der Ostseeprovinzen Liv- Est- und Curland. 4 vols. Riga, 1889-1894. Erlebtes Livland. Die Familie von Wahl 1795-1993. Ed. ENA VON HARPE UND DIETER VON WAHL. Weissenhorn, 1995.

EROSHKIN, NIKOLAI P. Krepostnicheskoe samoderzhavie i ego politicheskye instituty (pervaia polovina XIX veka) [ Serf (Feudal) Autocracy and Its Political Institutions ( First Half of the Nineteenth Century)]. Moscow, 1981. Die Erziehung. Pädagogen und Philosophen über die Erziehung und ihre Probleme. Ed. W. FLITNER with an introduction. Bremen, n.d. Estland. Rittergutsbesitz in den Jahren 1765,1818,1902. Reval, 1909. "Die Familie." BM 38 (1891):697-709. Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in 'Western Europe, 1200-1800. Ed. JACK GOODY, JOAN THIRSK, Ε . P. THOMPSON. C a m b r i d g e , 1976.

FEOKTISTOV, EVGENII MIKHAILOVICH. 2a

kulisami

politiki

i

literatury

1848-1896. (Behind the Scenes of Politics and Literature). Leningrad, 1929. FERTIG, LUDWIG. Campes politische Erziehung. Eine Einführung in die Pädagogik der Aufklärung. Darmstadt, 1977. Zeitgeist und Erziehungskunst. Eine Einführung in die Kulturgeschichte der Erziehung in Deutschland von 1600-1900. Darmstadt, 1984. FIRCKS, EDUARD VON. "Die Ritterbanken in Kurland nach dem Original-Protokolle von 1618-1648 "Jahrbuch für Genealogie, Heraldik undSphragistik Mitau, 1896. FOELKERSAHM, HAMILCAR BARON. Das alte Kurland.

Rostock, 1925.

Die Entwicklung der Agrarverfassung Livlands und Kurlands und die Umwälzung der Agrarverhältnisse in der Republik Lettland. Greifswalder Staatswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, No. 22. Greifswald, 1923. FOELKERSAHM, HAMILCAR VON. "Ein Livländer in den Wirbeln des 20. Jahrhunderts." Manuscript, Waldkraiburg, 1979. Library, Herder-Institut, Marburg. FOGEL', V. K. Novyi spisok imenii lifliandskoi gubemii (New Roll of Estates of Livland Province). Riga, 1906. Die Freiherren und Grafen Schmysing v. Korf. Ed. ALEXANDER VON GERNET. 2 vols. SPb., 1894-1913. Das freiherrliche

Geschlecht

von Maydell.

Ed. BARON KARL VON MAYDELL.

Helsingfors, n.d. GAETHGENS, EVA. Alt-Livland. Heitere Bilder aus dem Baltikum. Hamburg, 1918. 334

GARLEFF, MICHAEL. "Geschichtsschreibung der Neuzeit in den baltischen Provinzen 1870-1918." In Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung. Ed. GEORG VON RAUCH. Cologne, 1986, pp. 233-272. GARVE, HORST. Konfession und Nationalität: Ein Beitrag zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Gesellschaft in Livland im 19. Jahrhundert. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ostmitteleuropas, no. 110. Marburg, 1978. GATHORNE-HARDY, JONATHAN. Marriage, Love, Sex and Divorce. New York, 1981. The Unnatural History of the Nanny. New York, 1973. Geneaologisches Handbuch der baltischen Ritterschaften, Teil Estland. 3 vols. Görlitz, 1929-1935. Geneaologisches Handbuch der baltischen Ritterschaften, Teil Kurland. 2 vols, (incomplete) Görlitz, 1930-1942. Genealogisches Handbuch der baltischen Ritterschaften, Teil Livland. 2 vols, (incomplete) Görlitz, 1929-1942. Genealogisches Handbuch der baltischen Ritterschaften, Teil Oesel. Tartu, 1935. "Die Generation vor uns." BM 34 (1888):375-390. GERNET, ALEXANDER VON. Geschichte und System des bäuerlichen Agrarrechts in Estland. Reval, 1901. Geschichte der Familie von Wrangeil von 1250 bis auf die Gegenwart. Nach Urkunden und Tagebüchern. Ed. WILHELM BAENSCH. 2 vols. Berlin, 1887. Geschichte der Familie Zoege von Manteuffel estländische Linie. Ed. H. ZOEGE VON MANTEUFFEL and EUGEN NOTTBECK. Reval, 1894.

Geschichte des Geschlechtes derer von Uexküll. Ed. G. OLAF HANSEN. Vol. I, Reval, 1900. Geschichte des Geschlechts der Freiherrlichen Familie Schoultz von Ascheraden. Görlitz, 1926. Geschichte des Liv-, Est- und Curländischen Privatrechts. SPb., 1862. Gesetz für die evangelisch-lutherische Kirche in Russland. SPb., 1832. GILLIS, JOHN R. Youth and History. Tradition and Change in European Age Relations 1770 to Present. New York, 1974. GÖRLITZ, WALTER. Die Junker. Adel und Bauer im deutschen Osten. Limburg, 1964. GREENFELD, LIAH. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, 1992. GROSBERG, OSKAR. Meschwalden. Ein altliv ländisch er Gutshof. Munich, 1937. GRÜNER, V[IKTOR]. Die baltischen Provinzialsynoden als Spiegelbild der geistigen Strömungen Deutschlands im 19. Jahrhundert. Riga, 1931. GRUENEWALDT, OTTO VON. Kindheitsparadies und Domschule. Reval, 1928. Erinnerungen. Studentenzeit. Reval, 1927. Vier Söhne eines Hauses. 2 vols. Leizpig, 1900. Lebenserinnerungen. Hannover-Döhren, 1977. 335

Materialien zu einer Geschichte der Landgüter Livlands. 2 vols. Riga, 1836-1837. "Uber den Werth der livländischen Landgüter und ihrer Erzeugnisse." Livländische Jahrbücher der Landwirtschaft 1 (1831):15-25. H A H N , BARON HANS. "Baltische Studenten in Deutschland 1820-1924." Nachrichtenblatt der Baltischen Ritterschaften 21 (1979):83. H A H N , SOPHIE VON. In Gutshäusern und Residenzen. Denkwürdigkeiten der Freifrau Sophie von Hahn. Ed. OTTO VON TAUBE. Hannover, 1 9 6 4 . H A H N , TRAUGOTT. Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben. Vol. 2: Von meiner Jugendzeit. Haus und Amt. Stuttgart, 1923. Lebenserinnerungen. 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1940. HALTZEL, MICHAEL H . Der Abbau der deutschen ständischen Selbstverwaltung in den Ostseeprovinzen Russlands 1855-1905. Marburger Ostforschungen, no. 37. Marburg/Lahn, 1977. "The Baltic Germans." In Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland. Ed. EDWARD C. THADEN. Princeton, 1981, pp. 111-206. HANDRACK, HELGE. "Soziale Inzucht unter kurländischen Literatenfamilien." In Genealogisches Jahrbuch. 8 (1968):63-92. Neustadt/Aisch, 1968. Handwörterbuch des Grenz- und Auslandsdeutschtums. Ed. C A R L PETERSEN, OTTO SCHEEL. Vol. 2 . Breslau, 1 9 3 6 . HAUSEN, KARIN. "Family and Role-Division: The Polarization of Sexual Stereotypes in the Nineteenth Century - An Aspect of the Dissociation of Work and Family Life." In The German Family. Essays on the Social History of the Family in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany. Ed. RICHARD J . EVANS and W . R . LEE. Totowa, 1 9 8 1 , pp. 5 5 - 8 3 . HASSELBLATT, ARNOLD, OTTO, GUSTAV. Von den 14,000 Immatrikulierten Dorpats. Dorpat, 1891. HAXTHAUSEN, AUGUST VON. The Russian Empire, Its People, Institutions, Resources. Tr. ROBERT FARIE. London, 1856. HEHN, JÜRGEN VON. "Das baltische Deutschtum zwischen den Revolutionen 1905-1917." In Die baltischen Provinzen Russlands zwischen den Revolutionen von 1905-1917. Ed. ANDREW EZERGAILIS, GERT VON PISTOHLKORS. Quellen und Studien zur baltischen Geschichte, no. 4. Cologne and Vienna, 1982, pp. 20-42. H E H N , VIKTOR. "Über den Charakter der Liv-Est-Kurländer ( 1 8 4 8 ) . " B M 5 9 HAGEMEISTER, HEINRICH VON.

(1928):587-596.

Heimatstimmen:

Ein baltisches Jahrbuch. (Vols. 4 and 5: Hausbuch). Ed. C A R L Vols. 1 - 5 . Reval, 1 9 0 4 - 1 9 1 2 . HENNING, HANSJOACHIM. Das Bildungsbürgertum in den Preussischen Westprovinzen. Wiesbaden, 1972. HENRIKSSON, ANDERS. "Minority Nationalism and the Politics of Gender: Baltic German Women in the late Imperial Era "Journal of Baltic Studies. 27, No. 3 (1996):213-228. HUNNIUS, VIKTOR WITTROCK.

336

The Tsar's Loyal Germans. The Riga Community: Social Change and the Nationality Question, 1855-1905. East European Monographs No. 131. New York, 1983. HENSEL, JOHANN DANIEL. System der weiblichen

Erziehung,

besonders für den

mittleren und höheren Stand; ein Versuch. 2 Parts. Halle, 1787-1788. HERMANN, CARL THEODOR. " E r i n n e r u n g e n 1804-1837." B M 38 (1891):l-23,

81-93. HERMANN, KARL THEODOR. " E r i n n e r u n g e n des Oberlehrers K. Th. H e r m a n n ,

1796-1837." In Altlivländische Erinnerungen. Ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN. Reval, 1911, pp. 39-75. HEYKING, ALPHONS BARON. Statistische Studien über die ländlichen Zustände Kurlands. Mitau, 1862. HOERNER, RUDOLF VON. Die baltischen Ritterschaften. Ursprung, Wesen, Bedeutung. Baltenland in der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, no. 15. Berlin, Leipzig, Riga, 1918. HOERSCHELMANN, MARIE VON. Marie von Hoerschelmann. Ein baltisches Frauenleben

(1837-1899).

E d . CONSTANTIN a n d CLAUS VON HOERSCHEL-

MANN. Hannover-Döhren, 1966. HOFFMANN, JULIUS. Die "Hausväterliteratur" und die "Predigten über den christlichen Hausstand." Weinheim, 1959. HOHEISEL, ARTHUR. "Die deutsche Bevölkerung Kurlands." Ostdeutsche Familienkunde 26 (1978):225-228; 27 (1979):257-262. "Die Bevölkerung Kurlands 1797." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 31 (1982):551559. HOHEISEL, C[ARL], " Ü b e r M ä d c h e n e r z i e h u n g . " BM 1 (1859):241-266.

HOLLMANN, FRANZ. "Bedeutung und Grenzen der häuslichen Erziehung in der Gegenwart." Mitteilungen und Nachrichten für die evangelische Kirche in Russland, no. 35, Riga, 1879, pp. 202-220. HORNSTEIN, WALTER. Vom «Jungen Herrn» zum «Hoffnungsvollen Jüngling». Heidelberg, 1965. HUECK, ALEXANDER VON. Darstellung der landwirthschaftlichen Verhältnisse in Est-, Liv- und Curland. Leipzig, 1845. HUECK, CARL FERDINAND VON. Das Gut Munnales

in Ehstland

und meine

Be-

wirtschaftung desselben in den Jahren 1838 bis 1845. Reval, 1845. HUNNIUS, MONIKA. Baltische Frauen von einem Stamm. Heilbronn, 1930. Wenn die Zeit erfüllet ist... Briefe und Tagebuchblätter. Ed. ANNE MONIKA GLASOW. Heilbronn, 1937.

HUPEL, AUGUST WILHELM. "Der in Lief- und Ehstland zunehmende gute Geschmack." Nordische Miscellaneen. Nos. 13/14 (1787):489-502. "Der Luxus in unseren Nordländern." Nordische Miscellaneen. No. 3 (1781): 113-147. Topographische Nachrichten von Lief- und Ehstland. 3 vols. Riga, 1774,1777,1782. 337

"Von den liefländischen Landsassen, in Sonderheit von solchen die rigische Bürger sind." Nordische Miscellaneen. No. 8 (1784):167-182. IANEL', 2. K. "Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoe razvitie dvorianskikh pomestii lifliandskoi gubernii vo vtoroi chetverti X I X veka." (The Socio-Economic Development of Noble Estates in Livland Province in the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century). Moscow State University dissertation, Moscow, 1961. IGELSTRÖM, ALEXANDER VON. "Erinnerungen des Grafen Alexander Archibald Igelström." Baltische Hefte 16 (1970):6-148. ISAKOV, SERGEI GENNADIEVICH. Ostzeiskii vopros ν russkoi pechati 1860-kh godov (The Baltic Question in the Russian Press in the 1860's). Tartu Riiklik Ülikool, Toimetised, no. 107. Tartu, 1961. Russkii iazyk i literatura ν uchebnykh zavedeniiakh Estonii XVIII-XIX stoletii (Russian Language and Literature in the Educational Establishments of Estonia in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries). 2 vols. Tartu, 1973. Istoricheskii obzor deiatel'nosti Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshheniia 1802-1902 (Historical Overview of the Activitity of the Ministry of Education from 1802-1902). Ed. S. V. ROZHDESTVENSKII. SPb., 1902. Istoricheskii obzor deiatel'nosti Komiteta ministrov i dopolnenie k I i II tomam (Historical Overview of the Activity of the Committee of Ministers and Supplement to the First and Second Volumes). Ed. SERGEI MIKHAILOVICH SEREDONIN. 4 vols. SPb., 1902.

Istoricheskii obzor mer pravitel'stva dlia usileniia ν ostzeiskom krae sposobov k izucheniiu russkago iazyka (Historical Overview of Govermental Measures for the Strengthening of the Means to Teach the Russian Language in the Baltic Region). SPb., 1866. Istoriia Estonskoi SSR (History of the Estonian Soviet Republic). Ed. ARTUR VASSAR and GUSTAV NAAN. 3 vols. Tallinn, 1961-1974.

Jagd im Baltikum. Mit Beiträgen von Fred Baron Buchholtz u. a., ed. EDGAR BARON KRUEDENER. H a n n o v e r - D ö h r e n , 1970.

JANNAU, HEINRICH JOHANN. Geschichte

der Sklaverey,

und Charakter

der

Bauern in Lief- und Ehstland: Ein Beytrag zur Verbesserung der Leibeigenschaft. Nebst der genauesten Beschreibung eines liefländischen Hakens. Riga, 1786. Sitten und Zeit. Ein Memorial an Lief- und Esthlands Väter. Riga, 1781. Jahresbericht der Felliner Gesellschaft für das Jahr 1888. Fellin, 1889. JÄRVESOO, ELMAR. "Early Agricultural Education at Tartu University "Journal of Baltic Studies 11 (1980):341-355. JORDAN, A[MELIE] VON. "AUS dem Tagebuch einer Gouvernante. 1840." Β Μ 68 (1909):385—415.

JUNG-STILLING, FRIEDRICH VON. Ein Beitrag zur livländischen Riga, 1881. 338

Agrarstatistik.

Material zu einer allgemeinen Statistik Livlands und Ösels. Riga, 1864. KAHK, JUHAN. Die Krise der feudalen Landwirtschaft in Estland (Das zweite Viertel des 19. Jahrhunderts). Tallinn, 1969. Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie i krest'ianskii vopros ν Estonii ν kontse XVIII i ν pervoi chetverti XIX veka (The Peasant Movement and the Peasant Question in Estonia at the End of the Eighteenth Century and in the First Quarter of the Nineteenth Century). Tallinn, 1962. Ostzeiskii put' perekhoda ot feodalizma k kapitalizmu (The Baltic Path of Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism). Tallinn, 1988. KARJAHÄRM, TOOMAS. Estonskaia burzhuaziia, samoderzhavie i dvorianstvo ν 1905-1917 gg. (The Estonian Bourgeoisie, Autocracy, and Nobility in the Period from 1905-1917). Tallinn, 1987. KASTNER, JULIE. "Eine Rigaer Mädchenschule vor 70 Jahren." BM (1935):612621. KAUZMANN, M[ORITZ GEORG]. "Ein Wort über das Ehegesetz." BM 6 ( 1 8 6 2 ) : 449—458. K[EUSSERL], J[OHANNES].

"Ein altes Inländisches Tagebuch." BM

(1894):129-

134.

Ein Lehensbild aus seinen Briefen und Tagevols. Berlin, 1 9 0 2 . KHARUZIN, MIKHAIL NIKOLAEVICH. Ukazatel' khronologicheskii i sistematicheskii zakonov dlia Pribal'tiiskikh guhemii s 1710 g. po 1885 (A Chronological and Systematic Index of Laws for the Baltic Provinces from 1710 through 1885). Reval, 1888. KLERNAN, V. G. The Duel in European History. Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy. Oxford, 1988. Kinderstuben. Ed. JÜRGEN SCHLUMBOHM. Munich, 1983. KIWULL, ERNST. "Aus dem gesellschaftlichen Leben einer livländischen Kleinstadt um 1800." BM 54 (1902):2:432—437. KLEE, CHRISTIAN C A R L LUDWIG. Eines deutschen Hauslehrers Pilgerschaft durch Land und Leben (1792-1818). Reval, 1913. KLINGSPOR, KARL ARVID VON. Baltisches Wappenbuch. Stockholm, 1882. KLOPMANN, FRIEDRICH VON. Chronik der Majoratsgüter Postenden und Lubbessern. Mitau, 1865. KLOSE, CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED. Handbuch für junge Frauenzimmer vom Stande bei ihrem Eintritt in die Welt. Breslau, 1787. KLUCKHOLM, PAUL. Die Auffassung der Liebe in der Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts und in der Romantik. Tübingen, 1966. KOCKA, JÜRGEN. "Stand - Klasse - Organisation - Strukturen sozialer Ungleichheit in Deutschland vom späten 18. bis zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert im Aufriss." In Klassen in der europäischen Sozialgeschichte. Ed. H A N S ULRICH WEHLER. Göttingen, 1 9 7 9 . KEYSERLING, ALEXANDER GRAF.

büchern. Ed. HELENE

VON TAUBE. 2

339

KOHL, JOHANN GEORG. Die Deutsch-Russischen

Ostseeprovinzen

oder

Natur-

und Völkerleben in Kur-, Liv- und Ehstland. 2 vols. Dresden and Leipzig, 1841. KONI, A[NATOLII] F[EDOROVICH]. Sobranie sochineniiv

vos'mikh

tomakh

(The

Complete Collection of Compositions in Eight Volumes). 8 vols. Moscow, 1966-1969. KOSELLEK, REINHART. Preussen zwischen Reform und Revolution: Allgemeines Landrecht, Verwaltung und soziale Bewegung von 1791-1848. Stuttgart, 1975. KROEGER, Gert. "Die deutschen Vereine in Liv-, Est- und Kurland 1905/ 06-1914." Jahrbuch des baltischen Deutschtums 16 (1968):39^9. "Die evangelisch-lutherische Landeskirche und das griechisch orthodoxe Staatskirchentum in den Ostseeprovinzen 1840-1918." In Baltische Kirchengeschichte.

Ed. REINHARD WITTRAM, Göttingen, 1956, pp. 177-206.

"Zur Situation der baltischen Deutschen um die Jahrhundertwende." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 17 (1968):601-632. KRUSENSTJERN, GEORG VON. Die Landmarschälle und Landräte der Livländischen und Oselschen Ritterschaft in Bildnissen. Hamburg, 1963. "Ein Sommer am estländischen Strand." In Zwischen Reval und St. Petersburg. Ed. HENNING VON WISTINGHAUSEN. Weissenhorn, 1993, pp. 116—133. KÜGELGEN, MARIE HELENE VON. [ b o r n ZOEGE VON MANTEUFFEL]. Ein

Le-

bensbild in Briefen. Ed. A. and E. VON KÜGELGEN. Leipzig, 1901. KRUUS, HANS. "Petitsionnaia kampaniia estonskikh kresti'ian Ν 60-kh godakh X I X v." (The Petion Campaign of Estonian Peasants in the 1860s). Iζ istorii obshchestsvennykh otnoshenii: Sbomik statei akademika Evgeniia Viktorovicha Tarle (From the History of Social Relations: A Collection of the Articles of Academician Evgenii Viktorovich Tarle). Moscow, 1957, pp. 494-514. KÜGELGEN, SALLY VON. Stilles Tagebuch eines baltischen Fräuleins 1855/1866. Berlin, 1936. KÜGELGEN, WILHELM VON. Zwischen Jugend und Reife des Alten Mannes. Ed. JOHANNES WERNER. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1925.

Kurland und seine Ritterschaft. Ed. GEORG VON KRUSENSTJERN. Pfaffenhofen/Ilm, 1971. Kurländische Güterchroniken nach urkundlichen Quellen. Vol. 1. Ed. FRIEDRICH VON KLOPMANN, M i t a u , 1856. V o l . 2, ed. JOHANN HEINRICH W O L -

DEMAR, Mitau, 1894.

Kurländische Güterchroniken. Neue Folge. Ed. LEONID ARBUSOW. Mitau, 1890-1895. LAAKMAN, Heinrich. "Hochschulwesen und Wissenschaft." In Handwörterbuch des Grenz- und Auslandsdeutschtums. Ed. CARL PETERSEN et al. Breslau, 1936,2:219-223. 340

"Die landärztlichen Verhältnisse insbesondere in Kurland." BM 2 (1860):189-228. LEINAS AARE, I. A. "Razvitie zemledel'cheskikh orudii truda Ν Latvii Ν period razlozheniia barshchinnogo khoziaistva (Konets XVIII-Pervaia polovina XIX v.)." [The Development of Agricultural Implements in the Period of the Disintegration of the Barshchina Economy (end of 18th-First Half of 19th Centuries)]. Ezhegodnik po agrarnoi istorii Vostochnoi Evropy 1961 g. (Annual on the Agrarian History of Eastern Europe). Riga, 1963, pp. 349-355. LENZ, WILHELM. Der baltische Literatenstand. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ost-Mitteleuropas, no. 7. Marburg, 1953. "Volkstumwechsel in den baltischen Ländern." Ostdeutsche Wissenschaft 3/4 (1956-1957):181-200. "Zur Verfassungs- und Sozialgeschichte der baltischen evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche 1 7 1 0 - 1 9 1 4 . " In Baltische Kirchengeschichte. Ed. REINHARD WiTTTRAM. Göttingen, 1 9 5 6 , pp. 1 1 0 - 1 2 9 . LEROY-BEAULIEU, ANATOLE. Das Reich der Zaren und die Russen. Tr. L E O POLD PEZOLD. Sonderhausen, 1 8 8 7 . LEVICKII, GRIGORII VASIL'EVICH. Biograficheskii slovar'professorov iprepodavatelei imperatorskogo Iur'evskogo byvshego Derptskogo universiteta za sto let ego sushchestvovaniia. 1801-1902 (Biographical Dictionary of the Professors and Teachers of the Imperial Iur'ev, formerly Dorpat, University for the Hundred Years of Its Existence). Iur'ev, 1902. "Liefländische Korrespondenz." BM 6 (1862):372-586. LIEVEN, ALEXANDER BARON. Der General Baron Otto Heinr. von Lieven und seine Gemahlin, die Staatsdame Charlotte, geb. Freiin von Gangreben. Riga, 1915. Urkunden und Nachrichten zu einer Familiengeschichte der Barone, Freiherren, Grafen und Fürsten Lieven. 2 vols. Mitau, 1910-1911. LIEVEN, DOMINIC. The Aristocracy in Europe, 1815-1914. New York, 1 9 9 2 . Liv-, est- und kurländisches Privatrecht nach der Ausgabe von 1864 und der Fortsetzung von 1890 (Teil III des Privatrechts der Ostseegouvernements). Ed. H[EINRICH] VON BROECKER. Dorpat, 1902. "Das livländische adelige Frauenstift des Kaisers Paul I." In Jahresbericht der Felliner litterarischen Gesellschaft für die Jahre 1900 und 1901. Fellin, 1902, pp. 99-119. Die livländischen Landesprivilegien und deren Confirmationen. 2nd ed. Ed. OTTO MÜLLER. Leipzig, 1870. "Eine livländische Landstadt vor ca. 75 Jahren. 1834-1848." In Altlivländische Erinnerungen. Ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN, Reval, 1911, pp. 270-300. LÖFFLER, ALBERT. "Zwei Reden, gehalten zur 50jährigen Jubelfeier der Erziehungsanstalt Birkenruh." BM 24 (1875):122-133. LAURENTY, ALEXANDER]·

341

LÖWENSTERN, EDUARD VON. Mit Graf Pahlens Reiterei gegen Denkwürdigkeiten.

Napoleon.

2 vols. E d . BARON GEORGES WRANGELL. Berlin, 1902.

LÖWENSTERN, WOLDEMAR VON. Denkwürdigkeiten eines Livländers (Aus den Jahren 1790-1815). 1 vols. Ed. FRIEDRICH V. SMITT. Leipzig, Heidelberg, 1850. LUDMER, ΙΑ. I. Kurlandskaia guberniia. Svod statisticheskikh dannykh (Kurland Province. Compilation of Statistical Data). Part I. Mitau, 1888. LÜHR, F. Die Jagd im Baltikum. Riga, 1918. LUNDIN, C. LEONHARD. "The Road from Tsar to Kaiser: Changing Loyalties of the Baltic Germans, 1905-1914." Journal of Central European Affairs 10, no. 3 (1950):223-255. LUTHER, CHARLOTTE. Brief über die Erziehung junger Töchter aus den gebildeten Ständen. Rostock and Leipzig, 1809. LUTZAU, HERMANN VON. "Ein Beitrag zur Lehre von den Eheverträgen." BM 72 (1911):145—171. "Das Recht am adeligen Güterfideikommiss nach Liv-, Est- und Curländischem Privatrecht." Dorpater Juristische Studien 4 (1896):143—185. MARQUART, BENNO. Die landwirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse Kurlands. 2 parts. Berlin, 1916-1917. MASCHMANN, INGEBORG. "Zur Geschichte und Bildungstheorie der Mädchenbildung - sozialgeschichtliche und bildungspolitische Aspekte." Die deutsche Schule 59, no. 1 (1967):2-11. Materially dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii, sobrannye ofitserami general'nogo shtaba. (Materials for the Geography and Statistics of Russia, Collected by Officers of the General Staff). Vol. 13: Kurlandskaia guberniia (Kurland Province), ed. A. ORANOVSKII. SPb., 1862; vol. 14: Lifliandskaia guberniia (Livland Province), ed. F. WEYMARN. SPb., 1864. MAYDELL, BOGDAN BARON. Das freiherrliche

Geschlecht von May dell. Reval,

1895. MAYDELL, ERNST BARON. " D e r bürgliche G u t s b e s i t z in Alt-Estland." B M

(1937):215-228. MCCLELLAND, CHARLES. State, Society, and University in Germany 17001914. London, 1980. MEDER, BENITA. Der Strukturwandel in der baltischen Lebensart um die Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts. Veröffentlichungen der ostdeutschen Forschungsstelle im Lande Nordrhein-Westfalen, no. 3. Dortmund, 1961. MENSENKAMPFF, ERNST VON. Menschen und Schicksale aus dem alten Livland. Riga, 1943. MERKEL, GARLIEB. Die Letten vorzüglich in Livland am Ende des philosophischen Jahrhunderts. Leipzig, 1797. MEYENDORFF, PETER VON. Peter von Meyendorff. Ein russischer Diplomat an den Höfen von Berlin und Wien. Politischer und privater Briefwechsel. Ed. OTTO HOETZSCH. 3 vols. Berlin, 1923.

342

MICHELSON, ALEXANDER Μ . , APOSTOL, PAUL, BERNATZKY, MICHAEL.

Russian

Public Finance during the War. New Haven, 1928. MILIUTIN, DMITRII ALEKSEEVICH. Dnevnik D. A. Miliutina ( The Diary of D. A. Miliutin). Ed. PETR ANDREEVICH ZAIONCHKOVSKII, 2 vols. Moscow,

1947-1951. MÜHLEN, HEINRICH VON ZUR. Die Familie von zur Mühlen. Privately printed, Bonn, 1981. Library, Herder-Institut, Marburg. MÜHLENDAHL, ERNST VON, HOYNINGEN-HUENE, HEINER BARON. Die

balti-

schen Ritterschaften. Übersicht über die in den Matrikeln der Ritterschaften von Livland, Estland, Kurland, und Oesel verzeichneten Geschlechter. 2nd ed. Limburg/Lahn, 1973. MÜLLER, ADAM. Die Elemente der Staatskunst. 2 vols. Berlin, 1809. MUSKAT, HELMUT. Bismarck und die Balten. Berlin, 1934. Nachrichten über das adeliche und freiherrliche Geschlecht Stael von Holstein, estländische Linie. Urkunden und Regesten. Ed. C[ARL] RUSSWURM. Reval, 1877. Nachrichten über das Geschlecht Ungern-Sternberg aus authentischen Quellen gesammelt von Rudolf von Ungern-Sternberg. Ed. C[ARL] RUSSWURM. 2 vols. Breslau and Reval, 1875,1877. NEANDER, IRENE. "Die Aufklärung in den Ostseeprovinzen." In Baltische Kirchengeschichte.

Ed. REINHARD WITTRAM. Göttingen, 1956, pp. 130-149.

Neue Nordische Miscellaneen. Ed. AUGUST WILHELM HUPEL. Vols. 1-18. Riga and Leipzig, 1792-1798.

NEUMANN, C. "Rückblicke auf die Entwickelung der kurländischen bäuerlichen und Güterverhältnisse seit 1817." BM 2 (1860):508-517. NEUSCHÄFFER, HUBERTUS. "Die Anfänge der livländischen ökonomischen Sozietät (1792-1939)." Journal of Baltic Studies 10 (1979):337-344. "Die Geschichtsschreibung im Zeitalter der Aufklärung." In Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung. Ed. GEORG VON RAUCH. Cologne, 1986, pp. 63-85. Noblesse, etat et societe en Russie XVIe-debut du XIXe siecle. Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique. X X X I V , nos. 1-2 (January-June 1993). NOL'DE, Α. E. Ocherkipo istorii kodifikatsii mestnykh grazhdanskikh zakonov pri grafe Speranskim. (Essays on the History of the Codification of Local Civil Laws under Count Speranskiy. 2 vols. SPb., 1906-1914. Ocherki russkogo gosudarstvennogo prava. (Essays on Russian Public Law). SPb., 1911. NOLLE, ANNELISE. Zur Wirksamkeit des baltischen Adels in Russland unter Alexander I. und Nikolaus. Dissertation. Munich, 1939. Munich, 1940. Nordische Miscellaneen. Ed. AUGUST WILHELM HUPEL. Vols. 1-28. Riga, 1781-1791. Ocherki ekonomicheskoi istorii Latvii, 1860-1900. (Essays on the Economic History of Latvia, 1860-1900). Ed. Μ. Ν. ΚοζίΝ. Riga, 1972. 343

(DETTINGEN, ALEXANDER VON. "Haus und Heimat." Heimatstimmen 2 (1906): (DETTINGEN, GEORG VON. "Kinderjahre." In Baltische Lebenserinnerungen. Ed. ALEXANDER EGGERS. Heilbronn, 1926, pp. 131-155.

OSENBRÜGGEN, EDUARD. Nordische Bilder. 1st ed. Leipzig, 1853; 2nd ed. Leipzig, 1864. OTTO, GUSTAV. "Kur-, Liv- und Estländer auf der Universität Königsberg i. Pr. Th. II: 1719-1800." Mitteilungen aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte Liv-, Estund Kurlands. Vol. 16. Riga, 1896, pp. 337-514. PANTENIUS, LUISE. Jugenderinnerungen aus dem alten Riga. HannoverDöhren, 1959. PANTENIUS, THEODOR HERMANN. "In Riga. Aus den Erinnerungen eines baltischen Journalisten." In Baltische Lebenserinnerungen. Ed. ALEXANDER EGGERS. Heilbronn, 1926, pp. 88-129. Aus den Jugendjahren eines alten Kurländers. 2nd ed. Leipzig, 1915. Im Gottesländchen. Erzählungen aus dem kurländischen Leben. Mitau, 1885. Kurländische Geschichten. Stuttgart and Berlin, n.d. PARMING, TÖNU. "Population and Ethnicity as Intervening Variables in the 1905-1917 Revolutions in the Russian Baltic Provinces." In Die Baltischen Provinzen Russlands zwischen den Revolutionen von 1905 und 1917. Ed. ANDREW EZERGAILIS and GERT VON PISTOHLKORS. Q u e l l e n und Studien

zur baltischen Geschichte, no. 4. Cologne, Vienna, 1982, pp. 1-19. PAULSEN, FRIEDRICH. Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitäten. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1897. PEDLOW, GREGORY W. "Marriage, Family Size, and Inheritance among Hessian Nobility, 1650-1900." Journal of Social History (Winter, 1982), pp. 333352. The Survival of the Hessian Nobility 1770-1870. Princeton, 1988. PETERSEN, OTTO VON. Goethe und der baltische Osten. Reval, 1930. PETRI, JOHANN CHRISTOPH. Ehstland

und die Ehsten, oder

historisch-geogra-

phisch-statistisches Gemähide von Ehstland. Ein Seitenstück zu Merkel über die Letten. 3 vols. Gotha, 1802. Neuestes Gemähide von Lief- und Ehstland, unter Katharina II. und Alexander I. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1809. Neue Pittoresken aus dem Norden oder statist.-histor. Darstellungen aus Lief-, Ehst- und Russland. Erfurt, 1809. Reisebeschreibung, das heisst Schilderung der Sitten und Gebräuche von Riga 1809. Reprint. Hamburg-Rahlstedt, 1960. PETSCHAUER, PETER. "Improving Education Opportunities for Girls in Eighteenth Century Germany." Eighteenth-Century Life 3, No. 2 (1976):56-62. PEZOLD, LEOPOLD. Tante Gustchen und ihre Leute. Erinnerungen aus Schule, Universität und Leben der Heimat. Reval, 1896. 344

"Vor fünfzig Jahren. Erinnerungen aus der Schmidtschen Knabenpension in Fellin." BM 58 (1905):1-16. PHILIPP, GUNTRAM. Die 'Wirksamkeit der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine unter den Esten und Letten zur Zeit der Bauernbefreiung. Forschungen zur Internationalen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, no. 5. Cologne, Vienna, 1974. PLNTNER, WALTER. "The Russian Higher Civil Service on the Eve of the 'Great Reforms'. "Journal of Social History (Spring, 1975), pp. 55-68. "The Social Characteristics of the Early Nineteenth Century Russian Bureaucracy." Slavic Review 29, no. 3 (1970):429^t43. PIRANG, HEINZ. Das baltische Herrenhaus. 3 vols. Riga, 1926-1930. PISTOHLKORS, GERT VON. "Führende Schicht oder nationale Minderheit? Die Revolution von 1905/06 und die Kennzeichnung der politischen Situation." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 21 (1972):601-618. "Das Urteil Alexander Wäbers über das Scheitern der lettischen nationalen Bewegung und die Ursachen der lettischen Revolution von 1905-1906." In Das Vergangene und die Geschichte. Festschrift für Reinhard Wittram zum 70. Geburtstag. Ed. RUDOLPH VON THADDEN, GERT VON PISTOHLKORS and HELLMUTH WEISS. Göttingen, 1973, pp. 232-271. "Die historischen Voraussetzungen für die Entstehung der drei baltischen Staaten." In Die Baltischen Nationen Estland, Lettland, Litauen. Ed. BORIS MEISSNER. Cologne, 1990, pp. 11-^9. "Die Ostseeprovinzen unter russischer Herrschaft ( 1 7 1 0 / 9 5 - 1 9 1 4 ) , " in Deutsche Geschichte im Osten Europas. Baltische Länder. Ed. GERT VON PISTOHLKORS. Berlin, 1 9 9 4 , pp. 2 6 6 ^ 5 1 . "Historische Einführung zum Problem der Eigenstaatlichkeit der baltischen Länder." In Die Unabhängigkeit der Baltischen Länder. Geschichte-Probleme-Perspektiven. Wirtschafts- und sozialwissenschaftliche Ostmitteleuropa-Studien, no. 18, Marburg/Lahn, 1993, pp. 1-21. "Geschichtsschreibung und Politik: Die Agrar- und Verfassungsproblematik in der deutschbaltischen Historiographie und Publizistik 1 8 0 0 - 1 9 1 8 . " In Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung. Ed. GEORG VON R A U C H . Cologne, 1 9 8 6 , pp. 2 7 3 - 3 3 8 . "Inversion of Ethnic Group Status in the Baltic Region: Governments and Rural Ethnic Conflicts in Russia's Baltic Provinces and in the Independent States of Estonia and Latvia, 1 8 5 0 - 1 9 4 0 . " In Roots of Rural Ethnic Mobilization. Comparative Studies on Governments and Non-dominant Ethnic Groups in Europe, 1 8 5 0 - 1 9 4 0 , no. 7. Ed. DAVID HOWELL in collaboration with GERT VON PISTOHLKORS and ELLEN WIEGANDT. Aldershot, 1 9 9 3 , PEZOLD, THEODOR.

pp. 169-219.

"Regionalismus als Konzept der baltischen Geschichte: Überlegungen zum Stand der Geschichtsschreibung über die Baltischen Provinzen Russlands im 19. Jahrhundert." Journal of Baltic Studies 15 (1984):100-114. 345

"Regionalism as a Concept of Baltic Historiography. Some Introductory Remarks ."Journal of Baltic Studies 18 (1987):125-132. Ritterschaftliche Reformpolitik zwischen Russifizierung und Revolution: Historische Studien der deutschen Oberschicht in den Ostseeprovinzen Russlands im Knsenjahr 1905. Göttinger Bausteine zur Geschichtswissenschaft, no. 48. Göttingen, 1978. "'Russifizierung' in den Baltischen Provinzen und in Finnland im 19. und beginnenden 20. Jahrhundert: Neue westliche Darstellungen." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 33 (1984):592-606. "'Russifizierung' und die Grundlage der baltischen Russophobie." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 25 (1976):618-631. Vom Geist der Autonomie. Aufsätze zur baltischen Geschichte. Cologne, 1995. PLAKANS, ANDREJS. The Latvians. Α Short History. Stanford, 1995. "The Latvians." In Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland. Ed. EDWARD C. THADEN. Princeton, 1981, pp. 207-274. "Plaudereien eines Heimgekehrten." BM 21 (1872):69-83, 181-188, 285-291, 382-400,471—488, 514-518, 573-587. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, 3 series. SPb., 1830-1916. POLOVTSOV, A[LEKSANDR] A[LEKSANDROVICH]. Dnevnik gosudarstvennogo sekretaria A. A. Polovtsova (The Diary of State Secretary A. A. Polovtsov). Ed. PETR A. ZAIONCHKOVSKII. 2 vols. Moscow, 1966. PÖNICKE, HERBERT. "Ländliche Industrieunternehmungen in den baltischen Provinzen Russlands im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert." Vierteljahresschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 60 (1973):459-489. Powis, JONATHAN. Aristocracy. New York, 1 9 9 2 . "Die Praerogative des Frauengeschlechts. Ein Beitrag zur modernen Frauenfrage." BM 21 (1872):97-132. Provinzialrecht der Ostseegouvernements. Vol. 1: Behördenverfassung. SPb., 1845; Vol. 2: Ständerecht. SPb., 1845; vol. 3: Privatrecht. SPb., 1864. RÄDER, WILHELM. Curonen an Universitäten Deutschlands. Riga, 1935. Kurländische Akademikerfamilien. Manuscript. Library Herder-Institut. Marburg, 1953. RADTSIG, A . Vliiane zheleznykh dorog na sel'skoe khoziaistvo, promyshlennost' i torgovliu (The Influence of the Railroads on Agriculture, Industry, and Trade). SPb., 1896. RAMM, CLAS VON. "Eine estländische Jugend." In Zwischen Reval und St. Petersburg. Ed. HENNING VON WISTINGHAUSEN. Weissenhorn, 1 9 9 3 , pp. 8 3 - 1 1 5 . RATHLEF-TAMMIST, G . VON. Wirtschaftsgeschichte eines livländischen Gutes (1880-1914). Riga, 1914. RAUCH, GEORG VON. "Der russische Reichsgedanke im Spiegel des politischen Bewusstseins der baltischen Provinzen." In Aus baltischer Geschichte. Beiträge zur baltischen Geschichte, no. 9. Hannover-Döhren, 1980, pp. 487-518. 346

"Die baltische Frage im 18. Jahrhundert." In Aus baltischer Geschichte, pp. 253329. "Die nationale Frage im 19. Jahrundert." In Aus baltischer Geschichte, pp. 569588. "Dorpat: Stadt und Universität." In Aus baltischer Geschichte, pp. 390—425. RAUN, TOIVO, U. Estonia and the Estonians. Studies of Nationalities in the USSR Series. Stanford, 1987. "The Estonians." In Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland. Ed. EDWARD C. THADEN. Princeton, 1981, pp. 287-356.

Die Rechte der baltischen Frau. Riga, 1893. RECKE, ELISA VON DER. Aufzeichnungen und Briefe aus ihren Jugendtagen. Tagebücher und Briefe aus ihren Wanderjahren. Ed. PAUL RACHEL. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1901 and 1902. Herzensgeschichte einer baltischen Edelfrau. Erinnerungen und Briefe. Stuttgart, 1921. REDLICH, CLARA. "'Literaten' in Riga und Reval im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert." In Reval und die baltischen Länder. Festschrift für Hellmuth Weiss. Ed. JÜRGEN VON HEHN and CSABA J . KEN£Z. M a r b u r g , 1980, pp. 2 9 5 - 3 1 2 .

REIF, HEINZ. "Erhaltung adligen Stamms und Namens - Adelsfamilie und Statussicherung im Münsterland, 1770-1914." In Studien zur Geschichte der Familie in Deutschland und Frankreich vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. E d . NEIDHART BULST, JOSEPH G O Y and JOCHEN HOOKS. G ö t t i n g e n , 1981,

pp. 275-307. Westfälischer Adel, 1770-1860: Vom Herrschaftsstand zur Regionalen Elite. Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft, no. 35. Göttingen, 1979. REISCH VON WAGNER, SIGRID. Baltisch-ostpreussische

Erinnerungen.

Baden-

Baden, 1979. "Reminiszenzen aus der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts." In Altlivländische Erinnerungen. Ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN. Reval, 1911, pp. 301-344. RENNENKAMPFF, ALEXANDER VON. "Ein Sommerritt durch Livland. Aus den Erinnerungen von A. von Rennenkampff vom Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts." In Aus Vergangenen Tagen. Der "Altlivländischen Erinnerungen" neue Folge. Ed. FRIEDRICH BLENEMANN. Reval, 1913, pp. 1-44. Reval und die baltischen Länder. Festschrift für Hellmuth Weiss zum 80. G e b u r t s t a g . E d . JÜRGEN VON HEHN, CSABA JANOS KEN£Z. M a r b u r g /

Lahn, 1980. RICHTER, ADOLF. Richter's baltische Verkehrs- und Addressbücher. Riga, 1909. RIEHL, WILHELM HEINRICH. Die Naturgeschichte

3 vols.

des Volkes als Grundlage

ei-

ner deutschen Sozialpolitik. Vol. 3: Die Familie. Stuttgart, 1855. RIGBY, ELIZABETH [LADY EASTLAKE]. Letters from

the Shores of the Baltic. 2

vols. London, 1842. 347

"Higher Education in Germany in the Nineteenth Century." Education and Social Structure in the Twentieth Century: Journal of Contemporary History. New York, 1967, pp. 123-138. R O H R , JULIUS BERNHARD VON. Einleitung zur Ceremonial-Wissenschaft der Privat-Person. Berlin, 1730. ROOSEVELT, PRISCILLA. Life on the Russian Country Estate. New Haven, 1 9 9 5 . ROSEN, EUGENIUS BARON. Die sechs Decennien meines Lebens oder mein 61. Geburtstag. Riga, 1877. ROSEN, WOLDEMAR, FABIAN and INGEBORG VON. Familiengeschichte der Freiherren und Grafen von Rosen. 2 parts. Privately printed. Flensburg, 1971. Library, Herder-Institut, Marburg. ROTHFELS, HANS. Reich, Staat und Nation im deutsch-baltischen Denken. Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, no. 7. Halle, 1930. RUSSOW, EDMUND. "Alexander Graf Keyserling. Ein Gedenkblatt." BM 3 9 RINGER, FRITZ

(1892):249-272.

"Über Kleinkinderschulen." BM 6 6 ( 1 9 0 9 ) : 2 : 1 3 1 - 1 4 8 . Α Social History of Germany 1648-1914. New York, 1977. Tradition and Revolution. German Literature and Society 1830-1890. New York, 1971. SAMSON , H[ERMANN] VON. "Ad Deliberandum 4 2 des Livländischen Landtags RUSSWURM, CARL. SAGARRA, EDA.

v o n 1 8 6 4 . " B M 11 ( 1 8 6 5 ) : 2 8 5 - 3 4 5 , 3 5 1 - 3 8 9 .

L. VON. "Audienz der livländischen Deputirten beim Kaiser Nicolai I. am 28. Februar 1846. (Aus den Aufzeichnungen des weil. Landraths R. J. L. von Samson)." BM 42 (1895): 177-187. "Tagebuch."Jahrbuch derFelliner litterarischen Gesellschaft 1904. Fellin, 1905. SAMSON-HIMMELSTJERNA, ERNST VON. "Güterfideikommisse und Familienstiftungen." BM 71 (1911):175—191. SCHAUDINN, HERMANN. Das baltische Deutschtum und Bismarcks Reichsgründung. Königsberger historische Forschungen, no. 1. Leipzig, 1932. SCHILLING, ERICH VON. Der Grossgrundbesitz der Barone Schilling in Estland. Cologne, 1962. "Der Rittergutbesitz in Estland zur Zeit der Enteignung 1919." Baltische Hefte 4 (1962):l-7. SCHIRREN, CARL. Livländische Antwort an Herrn Juri Samarin. Leipzig, 1 8 6 9 . SCHISSLER, HANNA. "Die Junker. Zur Sozialgeschichte und historischen Bedeutung der agrarischen Elite in Preussen." In Preussen im Rückblick. Ed. HANS-JÜRGEN PUHLE and H A N S - U L R I C H WEHLER. Göttingen, 1980, pp. 89-122. "The Junkers: Notes on the Social and Historical Significance of the Agrarian Elite in Prussia." In Peasants and Lords in Modern Germany. Recent Studies in Agricultural History. Ed. ROBERT G. MOELLER. London, 1 9 8 6 , pp. 2 4 4 - 5 1 . SAMSON VON HIMMELSTJERNA, REINHOLD JOHANN

348

Mitau im 19. Jahrhundert. Leben und Wirken des Bürgermeisters Franz von Zuccalmaglio (1800-1873). Beiträge zur baltischen Geschichte, vol. 15. Wedemark-Elze, 1995. Als Gouvernante auf kurländischen Gütern (1846-1850). Beiträge zur baltischen Geschichte, vol. 16. Wedemark-Elze, 1996. SCHLINGENSIEPEN, GEORG HERMANN. Der Strukturwandel des haltischen Adels in der Zeit vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ost-Mitteleuropas, no. 41, Marburg, 1959. SCHLIPPENBACH, ULRICH VON. Malerische Wanderungen durch Kurland. Riga and Leipzig, 1809. SCHÖNFELDT, A . "Geistiges Leben der Deutschen." Handwörterbuch des Grenz- und Auslandsdeutschtums. Ed. C A R L PETERSEN et al. Vol. 2 . Breslau, 1936, pp. 211-230. SCHROEDER, L. VON. "Aus den Tagen der Empfindsamkeit." BM 38 (1891): 570-588. SCHUBERT, FRIEDRICH VON. Unter dem Doppeladler. Erinnerungen eines Deutschen im russsischen Offiziersdienst 1789 bis 1814. Ed. ERIK AMBURGER. Stuttgart, 1962. "Schulgeschichte Fellins ."Jahresbericht der Felliner litterarischen Gesellschaft für das Jahr 1888. Fellin, 1889, pp. 35-57. SCHULTZ, JAMES. The Knowledge of Childhood in the German Middle Ages 1100-1350. Philadelphia, 1995. "Das Schulwesen in den russischen Ostseeprovinzen." In Encyklopädie des gesamten Erziehungs-und Unterrichtswesens. 2nd. ed. Ed. Κ. A. SCHMIDT. Vol. 7, Part 1, Leipzig, 1886, pp. 715-754. SCHWARTZ, Α. "Über Liberalität in der Jugenderziehung." BM 2 (1860):84-97. SCHWEDER, GOTTHARD. "Das deutsche Schulwesen in den Städten." In Baltische Bürgerkunde. Ed. C A R L VON SCHILLING and BURCHARD VON SCHRENCK. Riga, 1908, pp. 255-269. SCHWEINITZ, H A N S LOTHAR VON. Denkwürdigkeiten des Botschafters General von Schweinitz. 2 vols. Berlin, 1927. SCHWEITZER, ROBERT. Autonomie und Autokratie. Die Stellung des Grossfürstentums Finnland im russischen Reich in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (1863-1899). Abhandlungen zur Geschichte und Kultur Osteuropas, no. 19. Glessen, 1978. SEEBERG, PAUL. AUS alten Zeiten. Lebensbilder aus Kurland. Reprint of the 1885 edition. Hannover-Döhren, 1972. SEEBERG-ELVERFELDT, ROLAND. "Baltische Gesellschaftsstruktur am Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts." BM (1936):465-477. "Die baltische Genealogie." In Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung. Ed. GEORG VON R A U C H . Cologne, 1 9 8 6 , pp. 1 4 1 - 1 7 2 . SCHLAU, KARL-OTTO.

349

"Die kurländische Ritterschaft im Jahre 1631." Ostdeutsche Familienkunde 13 (1965):97-102. SEESEMANN, HEINRICH. "Die Anfänge von Krümmers Knabenerziehungsanstalt." Jahrbuch des Baltischen Deutschtums 26 (1979):53-70. Dorothea (Doris) von Ungern-Sternberg 1787-1828. Ein Lebensbild, nach Briefen und anderen Unterlagen. Baltische Erinnerungen und Biographien, no. 4. Hannover-Döhren, 1979. "Nachtrag zur Arbeit 'Aus dem Leben unserer Urgrossmutter Dorothea (Doris) von Ungern-Sternberg'. Die ersten Jahre nach ihrem Tode 1829-1837." Nassau, 1977. Xerox copy of manuscript, library, Herder-Institut, Marburg. "Die Kindheits-, Jugend- und Ehejahre von Henriette Seesemann." Nassau, 1980. Privately printed. Copy in library, Herder-Institut, Marburg. "Theologische und literarische Bildungsinteressen in Dorpat und Estland zwischen 1815-1835." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 4 (1979):577-587. SEESEMANN, HEINRICH. "Die Programme der baltischen Gymnasien im Jahre 1880." BM 28 (1881):245-261; 311-329; 441-444. SERAPHIM, ERNST. AUS der Arbeit eines baltischen Journalisten. Riga, 1911. Baltische Schicksale. Im Spiegel der Geschichte einer kurländischen Familie 1756-1899. Berlin, 1935. Der Krieg Napoleons gegen Russland 1812. Riga, 1912. Im neuen Jahrhundert. Baltische Rückblicke und Ausblicke. Riga, 1902. SERING, MAX. Die agrarischen Umwälzungen im ausserrussischen Osteuropa. Berlin and Leipzig, 1930. SIMMEL, MONIKA. Erziehung zum Weibe. Mädchenbildung im 19. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt, 1980. SINOWJEW, Μ. A. "Über die livländische Landschafts-Organisation. Eine Studie." BM 42 (1895):1-103. SINTENIUS, F. "Über Frauenlitteratur. Warum dichten Frauen." BM 43 (1896): 463—484; 5 5 1 - 5 7 7 .

Sozialgeschichte der Familie in der Neuzeit Europas. Ed. WERNER CONZE. Neue Forschungen, no. 21. Stuttgart, 1976. SIVERS, JEGOR VON. Das Buch der Güter Livlands und Oeseis. Riga, 1863. SPRANGER, EDUARD. Kultur und Erziehung. Leipzig, 1925. STACH, REINHARD. Robinson der Jüngere als pädagogisch-didaktisches Modell des philantropischen Erziehungsdenken. Ratingen, 1970. Die Stackelberg im Wandel der Jahrhunderte. Ed. CONSTANTIN and ANDR£ VON STACKELBERG. Limburg, 1968.

STACKELBERG, CAMILLA VON. Verwehte Blätter: Erinnerungen aus dem alten Baltikum. Berlin, 1992. STACKELBERG, EDUARD FREIHERR VON. Ein Leben

Munich, 1927. 350

im baltischen

Kampf.

STACKELBERG, HANS FREIHERR VON. Gutsherren,

Buschwächter,

Jungjäger

und

Wilddiebe. Baltische Jagdepisoden vergangener Tage. Wedemark-Elze, 1994. STAEL VON HOLSTEIN, BARON R[EINHOLD], " D i e Freigebung des Rittergüter-

Besitzrechts." BM 63 (1907):180-208,276-301. Die Kodifizierung des baltischen Provinzialrechts." BM 52 (1901):185-208, 249-280, 305-358. "Reformbewegungen in den 60ger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts." BM 62341; 63 (1907):2:66-76,111-130. "Zur Geschichte der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche." BM 52 (1901):128-176. Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Gouvernement Kurland. Mitau, 1863. Statuten des adeligen Fräuleinstifts zu Dorpat von S. Κ. M. dem Kayser Paul dem Ersten errichtet. 2nd ed- Dorpat 1818. Statuten des evangelisch-weltlichen adelichen Fräuleinstifts, Johann- Dietrichsstein zu Finn genannt, in Ehstland gestiftet von J. D. von Rennenkampf. Reval, 1784. STEGMANN, HELMUTH. " D e r Landgüterbesitz in den Ostseeprovinzen um die

Mitte des XIX. Jahrhunderts." Baltische Hefte 15 (1969):61-74. STEGMANN VON PRITZWALD, KURT. "Das baltische Deutsch als Standesspra-

che." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 1 (1952):407-422. STEINWAND, MARIE. Meine Schulerinnerungen

aus Dorpat.

Ed. GEORG VON

RAUCH. Hamburg, 1968. STERN, FRITZ. The Failure of Iiiiberalism. London, 1972. "Prussia." In European Landed Elites in the Nineteenth Century. Ed. DAVID SPRING with an introduction. Baltimore and London, 1977, pp. 45-67. STILLMARK, FRIEDRICH. Die estländische adelige Kreditkasse, 1802-1902. Riga, 1903. STILLMARK, M. "Beitrag zur Lehre vom Jagdrecht unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des russischen Jagdgesetzes vom 3. Februar 1893." BM 45 (1898): 333-358, 485-519. STONE, LAWRENCE. The Family, Sex und Marriage in England 1500-1800. New York, 1977. STRODS, HENRIHS. "Merinosovoe ovtsevodstvo ν Latvii ν pervoi polovine X I X v." (Merino Sheep-breeding in Latvia in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century). Ezhegodnik po agramoi istorii Vostochnoi Evropy 1960 g. (Annual of Agrarian History of East Europe for 1960). Kiev, 1962, pp. 378-389. "K voprosu ο vremeni pobedy kapitalicheskogo sposoba proizvodstva ν sel'skom khoziaistve Latvii." (On the Question about the Period of the Victory of the Capitalist Method of Production in Agriculture in Latvia). Ezhegodnik po agrarnoi istorii Vostochnoi Evropy 1963 g. Vilnus, 1964, pp. 535-549. STRÜMPELL, L[UDWIG]. "Κ. E. von Baer's Ansichten über Schule und Schulbildung. Aus dessen Selbstbiographie." BM 12 (1865):305-319. 351

"Zur Finanzstatistik des Schulwesens in den Städten der Ostseeprovinzen." BM 13 (1866):420—429. STRYK, LEONHARD VON. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Rittergüter Livland. 2 vols. Dorpat, 1877, Dresden, 1885. Svod statisticheskikh svedenii po sel'skomu khoziaistvu Rossii k kontsu XIX veka (Collection of Statistical Information on Agriculture in Russia toward the End of the Nineteenth Century). SPb., 1902. TAUBE, OTTO VON. Im alten Estland. Kindheitserinnerungen. Stuttgart, 1949. THADEN, EDWARD C. "The Russian Government." In Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1853-1914. Ed. EDWARD C. THADEN. Princeton, 1981, pp. 15-110. "Samarin's 'Okrainy Rossii' and Official Policy in the Baltic Provinces." Russian Review 33, no. 3 (1974): 405-415. T H A D E N , EDWARD C . , MARIANNA FORSTER-THADEN. Russia's

Western

Bor-

derlands, 1710-1870. Princeton, 1984. THOMSON, ERIK a n d MANTEUFFEL-SZOEGE, G E O R G VON. Schlösser

und

Her-

rensitze im Baltikum. 2nd ed. Frankfurt, 1959. TIESENHAUSEN, CARL VON. Erste Fortsetzung von des Herrn Hofraths von Hagemeister Materialen zur Gütergeschichte Livlands. Riga, 1843. TOBIEN, ALEXANDER VON. Die Agrargesetzgebung Livlands im 19. Jahrhundert. 2 vols. Berlin and Riga, 1899, 1911. Die Livländische Ritterschaft in ihrem Verhältnis zum Zarismus und russischen Nationalismus. 2 vols. Riga and Berlin, 1925, 1930. TOLL, HARALD BARON. Estlands Landbücher

und Landrollen.

Reval, 1902.

TOVROV, JESSICA. The Russian Noble Family. New York and London, 1987. TRANSEHE-ROSENECK, ASTAF VON. " A g r a r g e s c h i c h t e L i v - , E s t - u n d

Kur-

lands." Baltische Bürgerkunde. Riga, 1908, pp. 277-300. Gutsherr und Bauer in Livland im 18. Jahrhundert. Strassburg, 1890. UEXKÜLL, BERNHARD VON. "Als Schüler im Lyzeum von Zarskoje Sjelo, Staatsbeamter in St. Petersburg." In Zwischen Reval und St. Petersburg. Ed. HENNING VON WISTINGHAUSEN. Weissenhorn, 1993, pp. 27-82.

"Erinnerungen an Iwan Turgenev." BM 31 (1884): 1-11. UEXKÜLL, JAKOB VON. Niegeschaute Welten. Die Umwelten meiner Freunde. Ein Erinnerungsbuch. Berlin, 1936. UNGERN-STERNBERG, EDUARD OTTO ERNST. Erinnerungen

eines alten

Livlän-

ders. Berlin, 1904. UNGERN-STERNBERG, WALTHER FREIHERR VON. Geschichte

der Baltischen

Rit-

terschaften. Limburg/Lahn, 1960. VALUEV, PETR. A. Dnevnik P. A. Valueva (The Diary of P. A. Valuev). Ed. PETR A. ZAIONCHKOVSKII. 2 vols. Moscow, 1961. Verkehrs- und Adressbuch der baltischen Provinzen. Vol. 2: Livland; 3: Kurland, 4: Ehstland. Riga 1892-1894. 352

WACHTSMUTH, WOLFGANG. "Adel und Literatentum, ihre Struktur und ihre gegenseitigen Beziehungen." BM 59 (1928):101-114. "Zur baltischen Standesgeschichte." BM 61 (1930):115-120. WAGNER, WILLIAM. Marriage, Property, and Law in Late Imperial Russia. Oxford, 1994. WALDMANN, F[RANZ]. "Schulgeschichte Fellins ."Jahresbericht der Fe Iiiner litterarischen Gesellschaft für das Jahr 1888. Fellin, 1889, pp. 35-57. WEBER-KELLERMANN, INGEBORG. Die deutsche Familie. Frankfurt, 1974. WEBER, MAX. Wirtschaft

und Gesellschaft.

E d . JOHANNES WINCKELMANN. 4 t h

ed. 2 vols. Tübingen, 1956. WEDEL, HASSO VON. Die Estländische Ritterschaft und ihre Institutionen. Berlin, 1930. Die Estländische Ritterschaft vornehmlich zwischen 1710 und 1783. Osteuropäische Forschungen, no. 18. Königsberg und Berlin, 1935. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. Die deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte 1815-1845/49. 2 vols. Munich, 1987. WEISS, HELLMUTH. "Die historischen Gesellschaften." In Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung. Ed. GEORG VON RAUCH. Cologne, 1986, pp. 121-141. WELDING, OLAF. "Das baltische genealogische Schrifttum 1700-1939." Ostdeutsche Familienkunde 6 (1958):49-53; 90-94; 109-113; 137-139. WHELAN, HEIDE W. Alexander III and the State Council. Bureaucracy and Counter-Reform in Late Imperial Russia. New Brunswick, 1982. "Balthasar Baron Campenhausen (1745-1800): Portrait of a Baltic Civil Servant." Journal of Baltic Studies 8, No. 1 (1987):45-62. "The Debate on Women's Education in the Baltic Provinces, 1850-1905." In Bevölkerungsverschiebungen und sozialer Wandel in den Baltischen Provinzen Russlands

1850-1914.

E d . GERT VON PISTOHLKORS, ANDREJS PLAKANS,

PAUL KAEGBEIN. L ü n e b u r g , 1995, pp. 163-180.

WINCKLER, ALEXANDER. "AUS Dr. A. Wincklers Erinnerungen an Dorpat 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 0 3 . " I n Altlivländische

Erinnerungen.

E d . FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN.

Reval, 1911, pp. 76-89.

WISTINGHAUSEN, HENNING VON. Quellen zur Geschichte der Rittergüter Estlands im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert 1772-1889. Hannover-Döhren, 1975. WITTRAM, J. F. "Über den Conservatismus auf dem Felde der Pädagogik." BM 8 (1863):245-263. WITTRAM, REINHARD. "1870/71 im Erlebnis der baltischen Deutschen."

Deut-

sches Archiv für Landes- und Volkskunde 4 (1940), 1:30-35. Baltische Geschichte. Die Ostseelande Livland, Estland, Kurland 1180 bis 1918. Munich, 1954. Das Nationale als europäisches Problem: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalitätsprinzips vornehmlich im 19. Jahrhundert. Göttingen, 1954. 353

"Die Universität Dorpat im 19. Jahrhundert." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 1 (1951):195—219. "Die Entdeutschung der russischen Staatsführung seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. "Jahrbuch der Akademie der Wissenschaften. Göttingen, (1943):30-67. Drei Generationen. Deutschland - Livland - Russland 1830-1914. Gesinnungen und Lebensformen baltisch-deutscher Familien. Göttingen, 1949. Liberalismus baltischer Literaten. Abhandlungen der Herdergesellschaft 4, no. 9, Riga, 1931. Meinungskämpfe im baltischen Deutschtum während der Reformepoche des 19. Jahrhunderts. Riga, 1934. "Methodologische und geschichtstheoretische Überlegungen zu den Problemen der baltischen Geschichtsforschung." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 20 (1971):601-640. "Vormärzlicher Freisinn und ständische Reformpolitik. Zur Erinnerung an den livländischen Landmarschall Hamilkar von Foelkersahm." Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 5 (1956):481^99. WITTRAM-HOFFMANN, RENATE. Baltische Monatschrift (Baltische Monatshefte). Register 1859-1939. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ostmitteleuropas, no. 92, Marburg, 1973. WLTTROCK, HUGO. Vom Burschenknecht bis zum Farbenstudenten. Werden und Entwicklung des deutschen Burschenwesens auf den baltischen Hochschulen. Riga, 1924. WITTROCK, VIKTOR. "Eine Fusswanderung mit Schülern durch Livland." Heimatstimmen 1 (1904):55-154. WOLFF, NICOLAS FREIHERR VON. Livlands

Landräte

und Landmarschälle.

Tar-

tu, 1932. Die Reichsfreiherren von Wolff in Livland 1670-1892. Tartu, 1936. WRANGELL, GEORG BARON VON. Baltische

Offiziere

im Feldzug

von

1812.

Reval, 1912. WRANGELL, MARGARETHE VON. Das Leben einer Frau, 1876-1932. Aus Tagebüchern, Briefen und Erinnerungen. Ed. WLADIMIR ANDRONIKOV. Munich, 1935. WRANGELL, WILHELM BARON VON. Baron Wilhelm von Rossillon: Ein

Lebens-

bild. Dorpat, 1934. WRANGELL, WILHELM BARON VON, KRUSENSTJERN, GEORG VON. Die

estländische

Ritterschaft, ihre Ritterhauptmänner und Landräte. Limburg/Lahn, 1967. ZAIONCHKOVSKII, PETR ANDREEVICH. Pravitel'stvennyi

apparat

samoderzhav-

noi Rossii ν XIX v. (The Governmental Apparatus of Autocratic Russia in the Nineteenth Century). Moscow, 1978. ZAITSEV, F. Ocherkipo istorii zhelesnodorozhnikh tarifof SSSR (Essays on the History of Railroad Tariffs in the USSR). Part I: Khlebnye tarify (Grain Tariffs). Moscow, 1925. 354

ZEIDS, TEODORS. Kharakteristika izdanii pis'mennykh istochnikovedcheskikh problem istorii narodov Pribaltiki (Characterization of the Written Editions of the Problems of Source Materials of the History of the Peoples of the Baltic Lands). Riga, 1970. ZEMTSEV, V. Κ agrarnomu voprosu ν Lifliandii (Concerning the Agrarian Question in Livland). Riga, 1907. Ο kvotnoi zemle ν Lifliandii (About Quota Land in Livland). Riga, 1913. ZINNECKER, JÜRGEN. Sozialgeschichte der Mädchenbildung. Weinheim, 1973. ZOEGE VON MANTEUFFEL, WERNER. Ein Lebensbild

in Briefen,

Erinnerungen

und Worten seiner Freunde und Schüler. Ed. ANNA VON KÜGELGEN. Reval, 1931. "Zur Erziehungsfrage." B M I (1860):335-348. Zur Geschichte der Familie von Brevem. Ed. GEORG VON BREVERN. 4 vols. Berlin, 1878-1885. Zur Geschichte der Ritterschaften von Livland und Ösel. Ed. GEORG VON KRUSENSTJERN. P f a f f e n h o f e n / I l m , 1974.

ZUTIS, JÄNIS. Ocherkipo istoriografii Latvii (Essays on the Historiography of Latvia). Part I: Pribaltiiskaia nemetskaia istoriografiia (Baltic German Historiography). Riga, 1949. Zweite Fortsetzung von des Herrn Hofrath von Hagemeister Materialen zur Gütergeschichte Livlands. Ed. F. VON BUXHOEVEDEN. Riga, 1851. Zwischen Reval und St. Petersburg. Ed. HENNING VON WISTINGHAUSEN. Weissenborn, 1993. 1812. Baltische Erinnerungesblätter. Ed. FRIEDRICH BIENEMANN. Riga, 1912.

355

ABBREVIATIONS BM

Baltische Monatsschrift, Riga, 1859-1913, vols. 1-76. Volumes for 1914-1915 and 1927-1931 only have year of publication. The BM was continued as the Baltische Monatshefte between 1931 and 1939. EAA Tartu, Estonia. Eesti Ajalooarhiiv. GH Estl. Genealogisches Handbuch der baltischen Ritterschaften, Teil Estland. 3 vols. Görlitz, 1929-1935. GH Kurl. Genealogisches Handbuch der baltischen Ritterschaften. Teil Kurland. 2 vols, (incomplete) Görlitz, 1930-1942. GH Livl. Genealogisches Handbuch der baltischen Ritterschaften. Teil Livland. 2 vols, (incomplete) Görlitz, 1929-1942. GH Oesel Genealogisches Handbuch der baltischen Ritterschaften. Teil Oesel. Tartu, 1935. HI Marburg, Germany. Archiv der Familie von Campenhausen, Baltikum 400. Herder-Institut. HSA Marburg, Germany. Hessisches Staatsarchiv. LVA Riga. Latvia. Latvijas Valsts Vestures Arhlvs. PRA/Solms Marburg. Privatarchiv Gräfin Solms, b. Gersdorff. PRO Provinzialrecht der Ostseegouvernements. Vol. 1: Behördenverfassung. St. Petersburg, 1845; vol. 2: Ständerecht. St. Petersburg, 1945; vol. 3: Privatrecht. St. Petersburg, 1864. PSZRI Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, 3 series, St. Petersburg, 1830-1916. SPb. St. Petersburg

357

LIST OF TABLES Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table

358

1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: 9: 10: 11: 12: 13: 14: 15:

Number of Registered Livland Families Private Manors Livland 1841 Private Manors Estland 1841 Account Book of Berendt von Behr Remarriage of Widowers Remarriage of Widows Number of Children Who Married Marriage Age of Men (first marriage) Composite Life Expectancy of Married Women Composite Life Expectancy of Married Men Composite Number of Children per Marriage Composite Number of Children who reached Age 20 Age of Women at Birth of Last Child Marriage Age of Women (first marriage) Number of Estates According to Nationality of Owner: Livland

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Orellen (Livl. 1738), Campenhausen Family. H. Pirang, Das baltische Herrenhaus, Vol. 1: No. 129 (Riga, 1926-1930). 2. Elley (Kurl. 1800); Medem Family. Pirang, Vol. 2: No. 85 3. Asuppen (Kurl. 1820-23); Hahn Family. Pirang, Vol. 2: No. 30. 4. Jensel (Livl., 1840's); Oettingen Family. Pirang, Vol. 2: No. 40. 5. Neu-Riesenberg (Estl.); Dining Room. Pirang, Vol. 2: No. 169. 6. Alt-Anzen (Livl., 1860). Pirang, Vol. 2: p. 8. 7. Max and Leocadie Barclay de Tolly, 1848. Campenhausen Archiv, HerderInstitut, Marburg. 8. Carl Axel Baron Bruiningk (1782-1848) with wife. Photo Marburg, No. 1.279.123.9. Leocadie von Campenhausen (1825). Campenhausen Archiv, Herder-Institut, Marburg. 10. Magnus (Max) Prince Barclay de Tolly and Leocadie, b. von Campenhausen. Campenhausen Archiv, Herder-Institut, Marburg. 11. Lorenz von Campenhausen (1781-1830). Photo Marburg: Nr. 1.279.122. 12 Ottomar Baron Buxhövden of Padel. (1801-1861). Photo Marburg: Nr. 153.882. 13. Helene Baroness Buxhövden, b. Freytag-Loringhoven (1807-1877), wife of Ottomar. Photo Marburg: No. 153.880. 14. Eveline von Kotzebue, b. von Staal (1824—1871) and her children. (Nina, b. 1844, Ernestine, b. 1845, Konstantin, b. 1846, Molly, b. 1847, Louise, b. 1848, Alexander, b. 1854, Lucie, b. 1859). Photo Marburg: No. 1.279.124. 15. Wilhelmine von Krusenstjern, b. von Kotzebue (1812-1851). Photo Marburg: No. 1.279.125. 16. Adam, Wilhelmine and Paul von Krusenstjern. Children of Wilhelmine. Photo Marburg: No. 1.279.126. 17. Family of Ο. Rembert von Campenhausen. Campenhausen Archiv: No. 527. Herder-Institut, Marburg. 18. Elisabeth von Campenhausen with Leopold, May 1903. Campenhausen Archiv: No. 526. 19. Ernestine Baroness Schoultz-Ascheraden, b. von Campenhausen with her foster children, Ernst Sr. Campenhausen (Loddiger) and his sister Leonie von Campenhausen. Campenhausen Archiv: No. 523. 20. Theophil von Campenhausen (Wesselshof) with his four sons. Campenhausen Archiv: No. 524. 359

21. Leon von Campenhausen with Herr Krüger, his tutor, and Rudolf von Campenhausen. Campenhausen Archiv: No. 525. 22. Neu-Schwanenburg (Livl., 1878). Transehe Family. Frontal View. Pirang, Vol. 3: No. 53 23. Allatzkiwi (Livl., 1870's). Nolcken Family. Rear View. Pirang, Vol. 3: No. 54. 24. Lustifer (Livl., 1890's). Wahl Family. Salon. Pirang, Vol. 3: No. 76. 25. Kockora (Livl., 1890's). Rathlef Family. Pirang, Vol. 3: No. 81.

360

INDEX Abitur, 186,190,256«, 258,261 academic careers, 156, 160, 183, 269, 272, 273; social status of, 152,161, 281«, 282»; for women, 277 accommodation, 163; between estates, 32, 62, 182, 183, 192, 193«, 214-215, 281; to professionalism, 267, 269, 282; to Russification, 214, 221, 227«, 229. See also adaptation accounting, 40, 95, 95«; as career for women, 278; careers in, 294 adaptation: to capitalism, 11, 308; to independent Baltic, 315; to modern era, 2, 5, 269, 273, 282 address, forms of, 34, 54, 192-193, 215« Aderkas, L. von, 173» Adlerberg, W. von, 69«, 99η administration, 17, 121, 195; integration of (nobility's loss of control), 210, 216-217, 219-228, 230-232; nobility's control of, 14,15, 25-28, 70, 71, 207; service careers in, 5, 39-40, 78,159, 228, 271, 273. See also cameral sciences; centralization; manors, professional management of adultery, 122,123«, 128« affection, 163; importance to marriage, 119-120,123-124,139,142,143«. See also emotion; love agrarian. See agriculture Agricultural Leagues, 84,297 agriculture, 5, 6, 39-40, 70, 98, 99«, 232, 286, 290, 292«; and capitalism, 55, 88«, 243, 255,263, 273, 296, 308; careers in, 149, 269, 271; and climate, 85-86; crisis in, 10,11, 78, 82, 92, 210«, 284, 289«, 298-299; innovations and modernization, 83-84, 100-102,283-285,294301, 304; reform of, 49«, 57, 65-67, 78-81, 82, 91-92, 96, 102, 214-215, 218; study of, 159, 191«, 256«, 267«, 268, 270, 272; traditional systems of, 85, 102,135«; women's role in, 122, 129. See also cattle industry; crops; farming; field-system; grain; harvests; liquor industry Agthe, Adolph, 292«, 294«

aid. See subsidies Akkordknechte (contract workers), 294 Albanus, Adolf, 188 Albertus Thaler: value of, 89«, 91« alcohol. See liquor Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, 17, 56«, 71, 73n, 83, 90, 98; and Baltic noble service, 37«, 38, 155, 156; closeness to Baltic nobility, 68-69, 70; and manor ownership, 75, 76« Alexander II, Emperor of Russia, 7, 80, 223, 226«, 254, 286; and Russification, 212«, 217,219-222 Alexander III, Emperor of Russia, 56«, 61«, 225; integration/nationalism, 7, 216, 219-220,222-223, 224,226« Allgemeine Pädagogik (Herbart), 246 allodia, 16, 73-74 Amburger, Erik, 38 anachronism, 7, 28 ancestry. See family, ancestral pride of; genealogy ancient languages. See classical languages Andersen, Hans Christian, 175 Anderson, Michael, 139« Anerbenrecht, 285, 291, 292 Annen school (St. Petersburg), 259 Anrep, Fanny von, 56«, 228, 264«, 280, 310«; adjustment to modern era, 242-243,268, 281, 284«, 296, 300, 301, 303, 304; careers, 271, 277; childrearing, 250«, 253, 254, 260«; national consciousness, 229, 256 anthropology, 105«, 134« antiquity. See classical antiquity architecture: careers in, 31, 269« Archiv für die Geschichte Liv-, Est- und Kurlands, 238« Arensburg, 152«; gymnasium in, 259 Aries, Philippe, 164«, 174 aristocracy. See Baltic German nobility Armstrong, John Α., 60, 182«, 193« army. See military service Arnold, Karl, 236« art, 181«; as career for women, 202«, 277, 278; careers in, 269«, 272; study of, 155«, 185,194«, 200«, 201,277 361

artisans, 33, 72, 119, 193; new social mobility of, 273; position in social order, 15«, 29, 154, 266?; artists: social acceptance of, 281; social unacceptability of, 145,149,154 assemblies. See deliberating assemblies; parish assembly Augsburger Zeitung, 194« aunts, 108, 187»; household role of, 152, 205, 276; as pathetic figure, 106. See also women Austen, Jane, 168« Australia, 101 Austria, 8, 22, 100. See also Holy Roman Empire authority, 210; importance to family, 111, 128, 129», 166, 170, 179, 234, 245, 253 autocracy, 69, 129«, 222», 309; collapse of, 313; nobility's link to, 6, 17, 309», 310; usage of term, 66» autonomy, 2, 164, 212», 310», 313; of Baltic, 10,11, 15, 18, 104«; loss of, 16, 58, 79, 216, 254, 262, 271, 311; threats to, 82,181,210«, 222«, 226« Backfisch period, 201 Baer, Karl E. von, 158 Baggehufwudt family, 281» Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, 192» balls, 61, 120,189-190, 193, 260-261, 264»; and courtship, 139-140,143, 204. See also dancing Bait, usage of term, 217-218, 218» Baltica fraternity, 193« Baltic Committee, 80, 219, 286«; loss of function, 221« Baltic German nobility: agriculture and economy, 83-88, 92, 98-102, 284-286, 294-302, 304-306; and Baltic natives, 1-2, 9, 34,46-50, 54-55, 66-67, 70-71, 79-80,211-214, 218-219,223-224,232, 294, 308, 309-310; careers, 154-161, 268-270,271-273, 276-278; childrearing, 127, 131-134,139,141-149, 164-180, 242-243, 245-255; concept of family, 3 ^ , 10-11, 103-105,107-110, 113, 115, 124-125, 163, 233-234, 238-243; during revolution and aftermath, 1-2, 309-315; education, 172-174, 180-188, 190-198, 199-203, 255-268, 270-271, 273-276; exclusive membership, 19-23, 77-78; finances and debt, 87-96, 302-303; gender roles, 60-62,111-112, 116-119, 173-180, 189-190, 203-207, 236, 274-275; histo-

362

riography, 4-6, 65-67; image and identity, 2—4, 8-9, 29-30, 34-37, 41, 43, 49, 55-57, 59, 62-63, 207, 304; inheritance law, 134-139; land monopoly, 23-25, 44-46, 72-77; loss of land monopoly, 286-293; marriage, 106-107,119-124, 128-131, 132,139-153, 198-199, 278-282; national consciousness, 228-229, 235-238; origins, 2, 7, 13-14; and Russian government, 7, 9, 14-18, 58-60, 68-70, 81-82, 96-99,208, 209-210, 214-222, 224-231; selfgovernment, 25-28; social order, 32-34, 37—41. See also Baltic German noncorporate nobility; children; corporations; family; men; Stand; women; youths Baltic German non-corporate nobility, 26, 33, 48«, 202«, 239»; and landholding, 67, 73-74, 76», 77, 80, 287; and matriculation, 22«, 24—25. See also Baltic German nobility; Landsassen Baltic Germans, non-noble, 1-2, 23, 195, 214, 281-282; and family, 233-234, 236; and landholding, 24, 74, 76; and social order, 7, 13,15», 29-34, 77». See also artisans; burghers; Kleindeutsche; literati; merchants Baltic native languages, 40», 71», 252; restrictions on, 227, 313; study of, 194«, 211; taught to Baltic German children, 54, 167; use of, 98», 212», 230» Baltic natives, 23, 70, 123, 228, 298«; conversion, 78-79, 82, 221, 225; demands for change, 214, 218, 219, 223-224, 231; education, 215«, 226«, 245», 255, 263-264, 266«-267«; Germanized (Halhdeutsche), 33; historiography, 65-67; improved position of, 227, 232, 263, 266, 269, 283, 284, 287; national consciousness, 9, 35,211-212,213-214, 227, 231, 233, 242, 283; as nursemaids, 167, 252; Revolution and Independence, 309-314; as rural laborers, 292-293; subjugation, 13-14; subservience to nobility, 2, 3, 4, 6—7, 11, 15«, 17«, 28, 29, 33-34, 48, 82, 223, 308; unhappiness, 48», 66, 209«. See also peasantry Baltic provinces: agriculture and economy, 78-80, 82, 83-96, 100-102, 284-286, 292, 294-308; careers, 154-161, 268-273; character and values, 34-37, 55-63; childrearing, 164-180,189-190,

242-243, 245-255; climate and geography, 35, 85-86; concept of family, 3-4,103-110,124-125,163,233-234, 238-242; education, 180-188, 190-198, 256-258; family law, 127-139; hierarchical social order, 7-9, 18-23, 29-34, 37-41, 43, 77-78; historiography, 4-6, 65-67, 216; history, 2, 6-7, 13-14; idea of commonality, 217-218, 218«; independence, 313-315; land monopoly, 23-25, 44-46, 72-77, 286-291; loss of autonomy and privileges, 81-82,96-97,209-211,215, 217-228,230-232; marriage, 119-124, 139-153,198-202,205,278-282; modernization, 10-11,211,214,283; national consciousness, 228-229, 235-238; peasantry-nobility relations, 9, 46-50, 54-55, 70-71,211-214, 292-294; privileged position within Empire, 14-18, 68-70, 76-78, 98-99, 207-208; revolution and aftermath, 1-2, 309-313; role of women, 111-118, 203-207, 273-278; self-government, 25-28. See also Estland; Kurland; Livland; Osel Baltic Sea (Ostsee), 7, 17, 70, 168«, 299 Baltic states. See Estonia; Latvia Baltische Landeswehr, 313 Baltische Monatsschrift, 195«, 217, 233, 257η,287η Baltische Wochenschrift für Landwirtschaft, Gewerhefleiss und Handel, 45n, 297 Baltischer Molkereiverhand, 297 banking, 220«, 290«; and burghers, 283, 303; careers in, 269«, 271, 272, 281; and industry, 285, 297«-298« bankruptcy, 24«, 50«, 89, 95,150; and economic crisis, 83, 87; and family law, 130-131,136 baptism, 82,108, 182« Baranoff family, 22, 89,157 Barclay de Tolly family, 69, 113illus., 116, 142-143,144illus., U5illus. baron (Freiherr), use of title, 30, 30«, 239« Basedow, Johann Bernhard, 164, 175« bathing, 168, 189« Bauernland, 79, 80, 286 Becker, R., 166« Becker, Seymour, 5-6 Behr family, 94-96, 124«, 130, 289 Belgium, 298 Bellingshausen, Fabian von, 158« "belongingness," 240, 241,260, 263

Belorussia, 70 Benckendorff, A. von, 69«, 99« Berg family, 170, 205« Bergmann, E. von, 188 Berkholtz, Georg, 287« Berlin, 59«, 191-192,263, 267« Bertram, Dr. G. (Georg von Schultz), 250 Bible, 118«, 140, 141,182 Biedermeier, 65; and cult of family, 109, 113, 115; satire of, 196« Bielenstein, August, 246«, 275 Bienemann, Friedrich, 68, 88, 179«, 196« Bildung, 31, 32, 43, 243, 264; and childrearing/education, 181-183,187,192, 201, 245-246,256,275,279; and family pride, 240, 241 Bildungsroman, 181« Birkenruh, 254«; gymnasium, 226, 227«, 245-246, 258, 259«; Hollander Institution, 188 birth control, 252, 280 birthrate, 213, 280 birthright, 8, 20, 43, 56, 154, 230«, 236; in contrast to merit and service, 17,18, 27, 44,57 Bismarck, Otto von, 221«, 222«, 263« Black Sea, 299 Blaese, Max von, 292« Blanckenhagen family, 46, 108, 242«, 243 blood. See birthright; privilege Bludov, D. N., 72-73 boarding schools. See schools Bock family, 218,223,224« Bolsheviks, 310«, 313 Bonn, 191« bookkeeping. See accounting books. See children's books; classical antiquity; German literature; reading borrowing. See credit associations; debt; loans Bötticher, Theodor, 195«, 234 bourgeoisie. See burghers Boye (Boije) family, 30«, 166« boys. See youths bravery. See courage breastfeeding, 167, 250«, 252 Brevem family, 57«, 84, 100« brickyards, 86, 87«; and modernization, 295,297, 300 brothers. See siblings Bruiningk family, 30«, 49«, 89, 93, 114 illus., 142, 238«, 239«; and agriculture, 84, 100«, 101« Brunner, Otto, 56, 227 Brustacker, 85« 363

brutality. Sec corporal punishment; tyranny Budberg family, 30«, 118, 145, 154-155, 172«,187« Buddeus, Aurelio, 61-62, 66«, 120, 149, 151,194« Buhrmeister family, 149« Bulmerincq, August, 129«, 217 Bunge, Ν. C. (Minister of Finance), 222 burghers, 3«, 23, 44, 62, 109, 111, 209», 306«; careers for women, 200, 273; economic and social power, 14, 15«, 90«, 213-214,217«, 270,272,273, 283, 298, 303, 304«; education, 182-183, 192«, 200,275; land-leasing, 39, 97-98, 98«, 284«; and manor ownership, 10, 22«, 24, 72-77, 80, 286-288,289«, 292; marriage to nobility, 128, 153, 281-282; position in social order, 7, 19, 22, 29, 32, 33,34,159,266« Buschland, 85« business: careers for women, 278«; careers in, 269, 271, 272 Buxhoeveden family, \47illus., 148illus., 155; marriage, 141,142,149«, 281« cameral sciences: study of, 159, 270, 271 Campe, Joachim Heinrich, 164, 175, 205« Campenhausen family, 30«, 47«, 50«, 51:7/«i., millus., U4illns., H5illus., Ubillus., 235J7/«J., 247illus„ 24%illus., 261i7/«s., 262illus., 304«; careers, 154, 156, 158,160, 269-270,278; childrearing/education, 107, 166, 167-168, 170-171,185«, 192,197,249, 253«, 260, 265, 275«; family pride, 109, 110, 115, 238, 241; finances, 88, 89, 95«, 101, 301, 302; girlhood, 199, 202; inheritance, 94, 135«, 289«; loyalty to Russia, 57, 58, 60, 254; marriage, 119, 122«, 129, 132, 140, 142-143, 150, 280-281; motherhood, 116,118,174«, 203, 204«, 205«, 207,250«, 252«, 253,254«; and peasantry, 49«, 54, 219 capital, 85, 91, 94,141, 240-241, 292«; and agriculture, 92, 290, 292, 296, 297, 299, 302; and burghers, 90«, 283, 289«; and debt, 88-89; and inheritance, 93, 291«; and investment, 84«, 290 capitalism, 135«, 174, 212«, 298; and agriculture, 55, 87, 263, 296; nobility adapts to, 11, 88«, 242-243, 273, 282; nobility dislikes, 44—45,234«, 236,246,304, 307-308; offers new career options, 255, 269

364

capitulation agreements, 14, 15«, 16, 32«, 82, 209, 210«; and landholding, 24-25, 76, 83, 97 careers, 194«; and choice of spouse, 105, 143, 145,149, 152-153, 280; and family tradition, 104,127-128, 131,134, 137, 139, 154-156, 158-161,163; and modernization, 5, 11,109, 268-270, 271-273; and rank, 43, 4 5 ^ 6 ; and Russification, 156-158, 186«, 228, 304; for women, 152, 273-274, 276-278. See also professionalism carriages, 191«; expense of, 94, 302, 303; and status, 50, 96,204, 304 Cartell agreement, 20, 21 cash settlement. See settlement caste, 4, 46, 110, 213; and privilege, 44, 56, 210, 227, 237. See also Herrschaftsstand; social order; Stand "Cathedral Question," 221 Cathedral School (Reval), 180, 187«, 188, 198,242; curriculum of, 186-187, 256«; popularity of, 259; and Russification, 226, 227« Catherine II, the Great, Empress of Russia, 16, 17,22«, 71,73«, 309« Catholicism, 13, 23, 38«, 149«. See also Westphalian Catholic nobility cattle industry, 129; and agrarian innovation, 286«, 295, 297; emergence of, 84, 87; replaces grain, 86, 284, 285, 299-300 Caucasus, 38,116«, 299« cement factories. See factories cemeteries, 31«, 94; as sign of family pride, 240,241-242 censorship: relaxation of, 217 centralization, 8, 65, 70«, 222«, 284; Baltic Germans' response to, 210, 229, 233, 263, 297; of Russian government, 9, 10, 16, 66, 69, 219-220, 221, 224. See also administration, integration of; Russian Imperial government; Russification Chancery, His Majesty's Second, 21«, 72, 73«, 77«, 78 chaperones, 139, 140 characterization of the sexes. See sexes, ideology of charity, 26«, 49; institutions of, 73, 74, 152«, 231, 259; as women's domain, 121,204 Charles XI, King of Sweden, 14 Charles XII, King of Sweden, 14 Charlottenburg, 267« Charter of the Nobility (1785), 16, 231

chemistry: careers in, 269, 271, 272, 273, 281«, 298; study of, 268», 270, 271, 273«, 277 childbirth, 117«, 199,205-207,250», 252table childcare. See governesses; nannies; nursemaids; tutors; wetnurses childhood: as special phase in life, 115«, 179, 180; theories of, 164-166, 175. See also children Childhood (Tolstoy), 115« children, 3, 22, 40, 44, 48«, 54, 124, 251 table, 308; caretaking/tutoring of, 108,122, 167-169, 171,172-174, 252-253, 259; and childrearing theories, 164-166, 245-246; expenses of, 94-96, 302; and family pride, 109, 238-239, 242-243, 254; gender roles of, 111-112, 173-180,249-250; illegitimate, 122-123; as image for peasantry, 47, 49; and inheritance, 105-106, 134-139; and mothers, 116-118,121,163-164, 170, 246, 275; and parental control over career and spouse, 127-128,131-133, 142, 143,150, 151, 155, 161; and religion, 149«, 221, 225. See also clothing; discipline; education; exercise; fathers; games; love; play; role training; women; youths children's books, 175, 179«, 250 Christianity, 32, 47», 49, 182«; and education, 131, 185, 187, 257; and women, 118«, 119, 199, 276«. See also Catholicism; Lutheran Church; Protestantism; religion; Russian Orthodox Church church. See Lutheran Church; religion cities. See towns; urbanization civil service, 91,136«, 226; careers in, 105«, 152-153, 155«, 156, 157,186«, 194«, 272, 273; social status of, 33, 37-38, 68, 109«, 110,152, 154, 158,161, 200«, 269, 281« Civil War (1918-1921), 9, 313 Ciapier de Colongue family, 22 class, 5, 19«, 72, 152, 292; definition of, 2, 8; emergence of, 6, 9, 212«, 312. See also social order classical antiquity, 54, 56; importance to education, 31, 155«, 169«, 181,186«, 187, 194«, 255-257, 279; Roman law, 35», 128,129«, 133,157« classical languages, 187; not taught to girls, 201, 274; taught at school, 185,186«, 255-257

clergy, 23, 24, 28, 79, 99, 111, 182», 183, 213, 217», 224; careers in, 136«, 172, 269,272; and confirmation, 190«, 261«; and cult of family, 109«, 234, 235«; and ethnic consciousness, 211, 257; and Imperial religious restrictions, 82, 221, 225; marriage to nobility, 281», 282«; position in social order, 31, 32, 54, 281; and role of women, 112, 274, 275; social contacts with nobility, 141,152, 202, 280«; as teachers, 180, 188; theories of childrearing, 165, 169, 245-246, 249 climate: and agriculture, 85-86, 101; effect on status and identity, 35, 37, 59 clothing, 40, 132«; of children, 170, 175, 249; cost of, 94, 95, 96, 303«; of young women, 201, 204 codification. See law, codification of colonialism, 3, 4, 29, 34, 36, 59, 209«, 314 colonization. See settlement movement commerce. See industry; trade commonality, 217-218; debates over, 214, 215«,256» communications, 27«, 28, 35-36, 231, 313; and modernization, 283-284, 300 competition: for careers, 229, 263-264,269, 277; effect on Baltic economy, 92, 99, 100,101,285,296,298-299; lack of, 36, 196; nobility's response to, 233, 252, 282 confessionalism (in Lutheran Church), 47«,112« confirmation, 108; of boys, 189-190, 260-261; of girls, 203, 205, 278 Conradi, Johanna, 115, 303« conservatives, 6, 31», 183, 219, 227, 266«, 269», 293, 309, 313; and family, 111», 128, 234,236; and land, 44, 80; and loyalty to Russia, 70, 81; and role of women, 274, 275; and Russian nationalism, 215, 220 Constantine, Grand Duke, 222 constitutionalism, 6, 269», 312 construction: careers in, 272; industry in, 283 consumption, 50», 84, 299; leads to debt, 83, 87 conversion movement (1840s), 48«, 78-79, 82,212« Cooper, James Fenimore, 175 cooperatives, 285, 295, 297, 298« Copenhagen, 297 corporal punishment: of children, 170-171, 184, 249; in military, 171«; of peasantry, 48, 49», 71, 219», 310«

365

corporations, nobiliar, 9, 11, 13, 16, 26η, 67, 91, 143*, 215, 283«, 291, 304; and agriculture, 65, 82, 297; and diets, 28, 210; and education, 186, 193, 245«, 256«, 258«, 259; exclusiveness of, 19-22, 78, 83; as extended families, 103-104; and family, 10,102,106«, 149, 163, 207; lobbying for Baltic interests, 17«, 27, 96-97, 98-99,101,285,299, 301; and manor ownership, 37«, 72-75, 76, 80, 286, 287«, 290; nobility's loyalty to, 39, 57, 158-159; and peasantry, 71, 219; revolution and aftermath, 213«, 309, 313-314; and Russification, 220-221, 223, 225, 226, 227, 230-231; and self-image, 41, 63; special relation with Russia, 14—15, 68, 69. See also Baltic German nobility; Estland; Kurland; Livland; Osel corvee, 40«, 85, 100«; abolition of, 219«, 292, 294; after emancipation, 71, 78, 88; change to money rents, 79, 80. See also rents Council of the Diets, 14,27-28, 30«, 171« counselors of the nobility (Landräte), 39^10, 91, 184«, 238; functions of, 26-28

count (Graf), use of title, 30, 30« countryside, 121, 159, 180, 201, 215«, 226; agriculture and industry, 296, 297, 308; isolation of, 35, 172, 184«; nobility's control of, 15,17,26,28,29, 79, 82, 92, 102, 217, 218«, 271, 285-286; nobility's decreased control of, 213, 225, 292, 304; revolution and unrest, 1, 9,10,49, 55, 65-66, 67, 80, 81, 213«, 218-219, 223, 287, 305-306, 308, 309; social activities in, 32, 61, 108, 141, 152; social order of, 7,33, 39,47, 50, 79. See also Baltic provinces courage, 207; as noble virtue, 60, 187, 189, 193 court. See judicial system courtship, 139, 280 cousins, 188, 189, 202; intermarriage, 140, 141«; role in family, 107, 108 credit associations (Landschaften), 11, 89, 93, 98, 230«, 232, 302«; and agrarian innovation, 285, 297; careers in, 272, 290; creation and role of, 83, 90-92, 96. See also debt Crimean War, 58, 283 crops, 78, 87, 90«; emergence of new, 10, 84; improved rotation of, 84«, 102, 285, 366

294. See also agriculture; field-system; grain; harvests; potatoes crown estates (Domäne), 73, 74, 76«, 83, 98«, 101, 117«, 220«, 288«, 292«; loss of preferential right, 96-98, 286 crown patriots, 214« cruelty. See corporal punishment; tyranny Crusades, 7 Curonia fraternity, 172, 188, 265; degrees, 194, 267«, 268; marriage, 152,153, 281, 282»; subjects studied, 155«, 158», 159, 160, 271. See also fraternities currency. See Albertus Thaler; ruble curriculum: classical, 185-187, 256-257; at girls' schools, 201, 274-275; modernized, 255; Russified, 259-260 Dahlmann, Friedrich Christoph, 111« Dahn, Felix, 257 dairy industry, 121,129, 297; replaces grain, 284, 285, 299-300 dancing, 55, 140, 193, 250, 280«; as manly virtue, 62; taught to boys, 189-190, 260-261; taught to girls, 202, 204. See also balls daughters. See fathers; mothers; parents death notices, 117, 118, 118« debt, 24«, 75, 130», 141, 192,193«; and credit associations, 90-92; and economic crisis, 83, 87-89, 284, 295-296; and inheritance, 92-95, 137, 289, 290, 291, 302. See also bankruptcy; expenses; income; loans; mortgages Decembrist revolt (1825), 69, 99 degrees, 194, 195», 267-268, 271 Dehn family, 22,190,281« Delianov, Count I. D. (Minister of Education), 278« deliberating assemblies, 73, 99, 231«, 291; functions of, 27-28 Dellingshausen family, 22, 141, 249, 260, 297«; university life, 263, 264, 265, 266« Demme, F., 259-260 democracy, 8, 60, 309, 313, 314 Denmark, 14», 36, 298 Deputatknechte, 294 Derschau family, 190 Deutschtum, 236, 311, 314 diets, 13, 56, 61«, 110,121, 149, 210, 217», 231«, 291, 300, 304; and debt, 87«, 90; functions of, 25-28; and land, 286-287; participation rights, 17, 24, 78, 219; and reform, 78, 79, 80, 218, 223, 310-311; and registers, 19, 20; and Russification,

227, 230-231. See also Council of the Diets Digest of the Laws, Tin diplomacy: careers in, 38, 153, 155, 157», 230«; study of, 270, 271 discipline, 48«, 49,122«, 187,192«, 265; and children, 131,164, 166, 169, 171, 173«, 179; in military, 197-198 disease, 23«, 117«, 122-123, 130, 132, 140«; and childbirth, 206, 207«. See also medicine disinheritance, 127, 132, 134,137 distilleries. See liquor industry Ditmar family, 117,149«, 155, 158, 160« divorce, 122-123, 128«, 132 doctors, 26«, 213; scarcity of, 117«; social status of, 31,109«, 152, 154,160, 281«, 282«; working conditions of, 231«. See also medicine Doederlein, Chr., 165« domesticity, 115, 117, 118, 120, 139,142, 145,163,203,204,234,278 Dorpat, 13,101, 150, 258; schools in, 180«, 188,200«, 259,278. See also Dorpat University Dorpat University (later Iur'ev), 35, 39-40, 152, 182«; and agrarian innovation, 84, 285; careers at, 160, 272; and concept of family, 163«, 234; enrollment and degrees at, 182-183,194,256,262-263, 268«; establishment/reopening of, 14, 31«, 32; and ethnic consciousness, 211, 229«; prestige of, 72«, 190-191; provides tutors, 172, 253«; Russification of, 81,186, 224, 226-227, 266267; social life at, 188,192«, 193«, 195, 258, 280; subjects studied at, 117«, 155«, 241, 270; tuition at, 95, 302, 303« Dorpat-Werro district, 98«, 99 Douglas family, 22 dowry, 105, 127, 130,132, 137«, 149,150«, 153,156 Drachenfels, Peter Philipp von, 189«, 193« Dresden, 191«, 259 duels, 40«, 55-56,192«-193«, 193 dues. See corvee; rents Duma, 312 Düna-Zeitung, 269n, 278« duty, 46, 69, 120, 185, 265; and children, 165, 170, 246«, 249, 254; to family, 104, 111, 238-239, 240; and honor, 57, 58, 227-228; and marriage, 121, 129; to Russia, 154, 169, 197«, 229; and selfimage of nobility, 62,104, 196-197;

and Stand, 3,43-44; and women, 117, 118«, 119, 121 Dvina river, 18 Eberswalde (forest academy), 267« Eckardt, Julius, 34, 61, 193«, 263; idea of family, 103, 109, 110; and Russification, 65, 66« economy: crisis in, 10, 18, 83-96, 98-102, 284-285, 297-299; effect on careers and education, 3, 154, 158, 160, 255-256, 261, 263, 270, 275, 278, 302; and ethnic consciousness, 211, 213«, 218«; and family, 104, 111, 127,128,139,141, 149, 151-152, 155, 166,182, 196, 198, 252, 302-304; and landholding, 24«, 74, 76«; modernization of, 8, 11, 263, 283, 285-286, 292-297, 299-302, 304, 308; and peasantry, 9, 33«, 66, 67, 71, 79, 219«, 223, 294; recovery of, 18, 50«, 151; and status, 35, 183, 302; theories of, 70, 83; undermines nobility, 4, 8, 9, 210, 233-234, 236, 312. See also manor economy; market economy; money economy; political economy education: of Baltic natives, 49, 71, 215«, 224; and Bildung and pedagogy, 31, 164-166,181-183, 245-246, 256; of children at home, 117,122, 131,169, 170-174, 204, 252-254; cost of, 94, 95, 105«, 134, 139, 171, 261, 302-303; and ethnic consciousness, 211, 255-257, 278«, 311; and family, 3, 11, 104, 127, 238, 240-243, 308; of girls and women, 111-112, 152, 166«, 171,199-203, 235«, 273-276, 277-278; at gymnasia, 180, 184-188, 255-261; increased importance of, 180«, 255-256, 262-263, 267-268; nobility's control of, 16, 26, 28; and Russification, 10, 67-68, 81-82, 156-157, 212, 224, 226-227,229, 231, 259-260, 266-267; and status, 17, 33, 37—40, 38-39, 44, 56, 132, 163, 269,280, 289«; at universities, 83,158«, 180, 190-198, 262-268, 270-271. See also Germany; gymnasia; home schooling; schools; universities; women; youths Edwahlen (manor), 289 Ehrendienst (honor service), 58,158 Eisenschmidt, Heinrich, 184« Ekesparre family, 149«, 155 Ekkehard (Scheffel), 257 Eldema (agricultural academy), 191« Elias, Otto-Heinrich, 88« elite. See Baltic German nobility; seigneurs

367

emancipation of peasantry, 76, 80, 97,102, 211, 218; debates over, 47, 70, 80; lack of improvement for peasants, 46, 48, 49, 66-67, 71, 78, 88,208 emancipation of women, 280 embourgeoisement, 11, 270, 272, 273 emigration, 33«, 143«, 257«, 293; after revolution, 310, 314; after Russification, 213,229,230,266,273 Emile, ou de l'education (Rousseau), 164, 165,166« emotion, 107,110,117n, 118«, 127-128, 164; as female realm, 112, 175«, 274; importance to family, 104, 108, 109, 113,115-116, 124, 163, 234; in marriage, 120, 142,153. See also affection; love emperor. See Russian Imperial government; and names of Russian emperors Empire. See Russian Empire; Russian Imperial government employment. See careers enfranchisement, 31«, 214«, 311, 312, 314 Engelhardt family, 30«, 36, 40,135«, 160, 298«; education, 184«, 190; family life, 116, 169«, 240 engineering: careers in, 31, 269,271, 272, 273, 281, 282«, 300; degrees in, 268«; study of, 198 England, 5, 22, 37«, 56«, 61, 92«, 197, 221«; family, 115, 120, 123«, 139, 168«, 245«; industry, 283, 298; market for Baltic products, 84, 101«, 297, 298, 299«; nannies from, 168« Enlightenment, 10, 24«, 112«; and childhood, 164,184; and merit, 8,44, 56, 57, 62, 196; and peasantry, 48, 70 enrollment. See universities entailment, 11,26«, 41, 98«, 136, 230«, 269, 285,289-291,292 enterprise. See industry entertainment. See balls; dancing; gambling; games; social activities; theater epidemics: of sheep, 85, 92, 101 Erbgut (alienation of inherited manors), 136 Erdmann, Bruno, 29«, 236« Erdmann, Carl, 35«, 163«, 234, 237, 265 Erlangen, 191«, 267« Essen family, 141 estate. See Herrschaftsstand; inheritance; manors; social order; Stand Estland, 16, 36, 54, 56, 61, 72«, 306«; agriculture, 83, 84, 87, 98-100, 101, 297; careers, 155, 156, 158, 195, 198, 272; 368

debt and finances, 90-91, 92-93, 304; education, 166«, 171, 180«, 186, 188, 191,193«, 201,231«, 245«, 259, 265, 267, 275-276; family, 103, 106«, 113, 115«, 121, 168«; government, 13,17«, 25-27, 39—40; history and geography, 7, 14, 35, 37, 86; industry, 283, 300-301; inheritance, 134,135, 136, 137«, 291; loyalty to Russia, 57, 68-69, 69; manor ownership, 25, 74, 74table, 75, 76, 77, 88«, 284, 286, 287, 289-290; marriage, 127,130«, 132,133,140,141,143,149, 151,153, 281; peasants, 47, 70, 218«, 292-293; population, 213; reform, 215, 217, 219«; registers, 19-20, 21«, 22, 23, 24; revolution and aftermath, 310«, 314«; Russification, 39, 221, 223, 224«, 226,230«. See also poverty Estonia, 6, 310«; foundation and independence of, 11, 308, 313, 315. See also Baltic provinces Estonia fraternity, 152, 188, 259, 272; degrees, 194, 268; study abroad, 191, 197, 267«; subjects studied, 155«, 158«, 159, 160, 270«, 271. See also fraternities Estonian Farmer, 298« Estonian language. See Baltic native languages Estonians. See Baltic natives ethnic consciousness. See Germanness; national consciousness ethnography: study of, 270, 271 Europe, 62, 158, 197, 217, 222, 263; agriculture, 83, 86, 92; economy, 297, 298; family, 109, 115, 123«, 130, 136, 164«, 239«, 252; nationalism, 67-68,236«; position of nobility, 4—5, 7-8,18«, 58-59, 69, 273, 283, 304; position of women, 175« exams, 173«, 187«, 275, 277; at gymnasia, 186, 258; and Russian requirement, 81, 157; at university, 194, 268 exclusiveness, 15,18, 59, 73,191,208,286, 304; after Russification, 228, 232; and masculinity, 61; of registers, 19-20, 23, 77 exercise, 168«, 187«, 189« expenses, 134, 204; for education, 94, 95, 105«, 127, 133, 139, 172, 261, 302; and status, 96, 303. See also debt; fees; income explorers, 158«, 272 exports, 283; cement, 86, 295; crops, 84, 299 expropriation, 11, 282, 308, 312, 313, 314

extended family. See family, composition of factories: careers in, 271-272, 298; for cement, 86, 295, 297 fairy tales, 175, 179« Fallois de Floville, Marie Clementine de, 119« family, 30«, 55, 90», 220, 282, 292«; ancestral pride of, 23, 109, 188, 238-242; central role of, 2, 3 , 1 0 , 1 1 , 63, 102, 110,124-125, 207, 233; and childrearing, 127,131-134,164-171, 245-250,252-255; and children's careers, 154-161,269-273,276-278; and children's education, 172-174, 190-191,195-198, 200-201, 243, 255-261, 265-268, 274-275, 278; composition and size of, 104-108, 250-252, 251 table; cult of, 103-104,109,113, 115, 124, 142, 234-235; finances and inheritance, 93, 94«, 98, 105-106, 134-139,289-291, 302-303, 304; gender roles of, 111-112, 116-119, 173-180, 189, 199-207, 236, 246, 249-250, 253-255,260, 273-275, 278-279; and marriage, 119-124, 128-131, 139-153, 280-282; and membership registers, 19, 20-21, 22; national consciousness of, 229, 235-238, 254, 256, 260; as private sphere, 66«, 109,163,228,232. See also emotion; fathers; love; mothers; parents; private sphere; siblings; social activities; women; youths family foundations (Familienlegate): as sign of family pride, 11, 109, 234, 239-241 family histories, 127; as sign of family pride, 109, 238-239 famine, 49, 71, 78, 85 fantasy. See play farming: as favorite occupation of Baltic nobility, 39, 45, 156, 158-159,160-161, 198, 270, 271, 306; requires new skills, 296. See also agriculture farmsteads, 54«, 71, 79, 293, 297« fatherland, 36; no longer Russia, 228; Russian Empire as, 43, 58, 59, 60, 68, 70, 157,196 fathers, 105, 107, 172, 175, 202; as authority figure, 121, 131, 169,170, 249; and daughter's marriage and career, 131-132, 143,145, 149, 276-277, 281; as educators of children, 165-166, 173; and family pride, 109, 238; guardian-

ship rights of, 133-134; and illegitimate children, 122-123; and inheritance, 9 3 94,138-139; as provider, 192,197,198«, 205«, 288; as role model for son, 180, 189, 253-254; and son's marriage and career, 127,134, 143-145,154-161, 280 feelings. See affection; emotion; love fees: for Fräuleinstifte, 152η; and family foundations, 240-241; for girls' schools, 274«, 276; for membership registration, 20«, 22; for tuition, 95, 200 Fellin, 99, 152«; gymnasium in, 226,258, 259« Feoktistov, Evgenii Mikhailovich, 220« Fersen family, 30» fertility, 252, 266, 273, 280 fertilizer, 84«, 86; improves productivity, 294-295, 297«, 299; tariffs hurt industry, 284,285,298-299, 302« feudalism: of Baltic nobility, 2, 6 , 1 1 , 1 4 , 48«, 60,232, 294, 312; critique of, 214, 218«,222 field-system, 295«; change to multi-, 84, 102, 285, 294, 299; definition of, 85» finances. See debt; expenses; income; profits; wealth Finland, 10«, 216», 217«; Baltic exports to, 86, 295 Finn: school for girls, 275-276 Fircks family, 190, 217», 239» Foelkersahm family, 63, 122«, 302; and peasantry, 46«, 54«, 78«; and reform, 49«, 57, 7 9 - 8 0 , 1 1 0 , 2 1 5 folklore, 194«, 211 foreclosure, 90, 92-93, 95. See also bankruptcy; credit associations; debt foreigners, 20, 22, 83, 153; observations of Baltic life, 7, 36-37, 37«, 50,113, 120 foreign policy, 17, 70« forestry, 86, 213; association of, 297«; careers in, 31, 33,153, 269, 271, 272, 282«, 294, 296, 300, 303; study of, 187«, 267«, 268, 270 forests, 45«, 85«, 86, 88 forms of address. See address, forms of France, 9, 22, 84«, 136«, 183, 197; family life in, 115,120; governesses from, 167; literature of, 115, 203«; Revolution in, 8, 111. See also intermarriage franchise. See enfranchisement fraternities, 35, 141, 152, 159, 184«, 227, 280; as center of student life, 264-266; drinking and duelling, 183, 192-193; and government sanctions, 182«, 191«. See also under name of fraternity

369

Fräuleinstifte, 152 η Frederick, Crown Prince of Germany, 222 Frederick II, the Great, of Prussia, 90« freedom, 184, 189, 192, 229; in childrearing, 245-246; for girls, 202«, 250; in marital choice, 141, 142, 143 freeholders, 219, 308 Freiburg, 267« French language, 68, 69,157«, 168«; taught to Baltic children, 167,185«, 187, 199, 201,202«, 253,274 Freytag, Gustav, 257 Freytag-Loringhoven family, X4Sillus., 149«, 155,160«, 249 friendship, 3, 183, 189; between siblings, 202; of boys at school and university, 107, 180, 187-188, 192, 258,260, 264, 265; cult of, 115,181«, 192; of girls, 276, 279; in marriage, 119-120, 124 Führerschaft (leadership), 213 Gaethgens, Eva, 249« Gagarin family, 220 gambling, 192,196, 197, 264«; as male realm, 120; as sign of indolence, 40, 196 games, 189«, 202, 249«, 280«; encouraged for boys, 175, 179, 254«. See also play Geliert, Christian, 112« gender roles. See manly virtues; sexes; womanly virtues; women; youths Genealogical Commission, 239« Genealogical Society of the Baltic Provinces, 239« genealogy, 3, 40«, 45«, 104; family pride in, 109,188,234,238-240 Geneva, 267« geography, 98«, 191«, 218«; and agriculture, 85-86, 87«, 101; effect on status and identity, 34-36, 37, 59; study of, 81,157«, 173,179,185,186, 187«, 201, 227, 270, 271 Georgian nobility, 20 German classicism. See German literature German idealism, 9, 192; and education, 184-185, 187, 246; and individuality, 56, 181; and national consciousness, 256-257. See also German literature Germanization, 22, 81«, 311; of Baltic natives, 33, 211-212, 213; in German Empire, 226«, 228 German language: allowed in schools after 1905, 260, 278, 310; dialects of, 34; during WWI, 313; nobility's use of, 54, 167, 202«; and Russified schools, 81,

370

215, 227, 259; spoken by natives, 33, 211; use in government, 15, 16, 207, 230 German literature, 203«; and Bildung, 31, 181; and cult of family, 104, 111-112, 115; and education, 164-165, 185, 201, 274; and national consciousness, 229, 256. See also German idealism; Romanticism; sentimentalism Germanness, 11, 82«, 260, 277; and cult of family, 115, 235-236, 237. See also historical consciousness; national consciousness German party, 226« German Union (1905), 215« Germany, 4,18, 30«, 41, 56«, 70, 95«, 200, 222«, 253«, 283, 292«, 303; Baltic disconnection from, 59, 228-229; Baltic exports to, 101«, 284,298,299«; Baltic German careers in, 149, 160«, 243, 272-273; Baltic German education in, 17, 72, 83,101, 111, 159,171«, 174«, 182«, 191,192«-193«, 197, 259, 267, 268«, 270, 277, 300; Baltic German emigration to, 33«, 213, 257«, 266, 273, 314; and Baltic German national consciousness, 226«, 229-230,256-257; childrearing and pedagogy in, 164-165, 182-183, 185«, 256; as cultural model, 31, 47, 56, 181, 185, 187, 192, 203«, 237, 264; family life in, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112-113,115,136«, 151, 175«, 205«, 234, 236«; laws of, 35«, 128, 129«; as model for Baltic agrarian innovation, 92«, 96, 100«; nationalism and unification of, 59, 215, 219, 226«, 237«, 257«; position of nobility in, 4-5, 7-8, 23, 28, 32«, 210; and WWI, 58, 311, 312-313. See also German idealism; German literature; intermarriage; Junkers; Prussia Gernet family, 22 Gersdorff family, 249, 278, 290 girlhood. See under women Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 56, 181, 203, 229, 246 golden age, 82, 89,181 Goldenes Heldenbuch, 175 Goldingen Gymnasium, 226, 227«, 259 Golitsyn, Prince S. F., 91 Golitsyn family, 220, 298« Golovin, Evgenii (Governor-General), 81 Goody, Jack, 134« Gorchakov, Prince (Foreign Minister), 221«

Goremykin, I. L. (Minister of Interior), 309« Göttingen, 155«, 191, 195,238«, 267« governesses, 68, 122,180, 202, 250; as career for w o m e n , 152,200«, 201, 273-274, 276; difficult life of, 184«-185«; role in family, 107-108, 167,171,172-173,189,200-201,203, 253, 275; salary of, 95, 302 government (local), 31«, 32, 81, 296»; nobility controls, 11,14,15, 25-28, 35, 207, 221, 224-225, 230-231, 269«, 311; nobility loses control of, 227, 232; peasantry participates in, 71, 219, 223, 224. See also administration; diets; Russian Imperial government governor-general, 27«, 38, 81, 91, 97, 98, 220«; establishment of, 17 grain, 40,49, 101, 292«; and liquor industry, 84, 87, 88; low prices lead to crisis, 85, 90, 92, 284, 297, 298-299; replaced by cattle industry, 86, 284, 285, 299-300. See also agriculture; crops; harvests; liquor industry grandparents: role in family, 105, 108,173 Grave, K. L., 112 "Great Action," 221 Great Reforms, 10, 38«, 158, 211, 217, 220, 222, 223«, 263,264« Greece. See classical antiquity Greek. See classical languages G r i m m , Jacob and Wilhelm, 175 Gross-Roop (manor), 290 Grote, Marie von, 131, 145 Grotthuss family, 171«, 190, 237« Gruenewaldt family, 36, 40, 96, 99«, 105, 109, 135, 137-138, 303; agriculture, 84, 100«, 101«; careers, 154-155, 158, 160; education, 173,188, 190, 192, 195-196, 264«, 276; role of women, 115-116, 202,280 guardianship, 128«, 129, 131, 133, 135 guilds, 163, 266«, 286; abolition of, 214«, 283; power and exclusiveness of, 15«, 29, 32, 72 Güldenhoff family, 30« Güldenstubbe family, 140, 149« gymnasia, 157«, 254; curriculum, 185-187, 255-258; enrollment statistics, 258-259; friendships, 187-188; Russification of, 226-227, 252, 259-260; values taught, 182, 184, 187, 256-257. See also education; schools Gymnasium Illustre (Mitau), 187«, 188

H a b s b u r g dynasty, 215-216 Hagemeister family, 24«, 95«, 132« H a h n family, 30«, 40, 48, blillus., 56«, 84«, 174, 215«, 217«, 281; education, 190, 191; finances, 89, 303«; role of w o m e n , 119, 122,203 Haken, 79, 90-91, 97, 230«; definition of, 88«; price of, 88, 92-93 Halbdeutsche, 33 Halle, 191,193«, 267«, 302 Haller, Karl Ludwig, 44 Haltzel, Michael, 215-216, 221«, 223« H a m b u r g , 35«, 295, 297 handbooks. See manuals Hanseatic League, 35« happiness, 172«, 174,192; and family life, 113,115, 145,164,234 harvests, 40«, 85, 87, 90, 292«; failure of, 49«, 85, 86, 91«, 92 Hasselblatt, Arnold, 39, 190, 191«, 192«, 194« Hätschelperiode, 167 haughtiness, 29, 34, 104, 149, 183, 237, 264; discouraged in w o m e n , 118«, 199; of literati, 32, 265; of young nobles, 184, 193«, 195, 263, 265 Hausen, Karin, 111 Hausväterliteratur, 47, 111, 120 Haxthausen, Baron August von, 107 health. See childbirth; disease; doctors; mortality Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 192« H e h n , Viktor von, 34, 50, 66«, 107, 108«, 194« Heidelberg, 191, 228, 263, 267« Heimat, 59, 229, 233, 234,260, 311; and history, 238, 257; usage of term, 237 Heimatstimmen, 237« heirs. See inheritance; medicine Helmersen family, 158,160« heraldry department, 30,171« Herbart, J. H., 185«, 246 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 164, 181, 211 hereditary mortgage ownership. See under mortgages hereditary privilege. See birthright; privilege hereditary tenure, 16. See also allodia H e r m a n n , K. Th., 47« Herrschaftsstand (ruling estate), 28, 210, 213 H e y k i n g family, 190, 191 hierarchy. See social order 371

Himmelstjerna family. See Samson von Himmelstjerna family historical consciousness, 237-239, 257; and family pride, 109, 234 historiography: of Baltic Germans, 4-6,11, 65-67, 212», 216 history: and identity, 34-35; and national consciousness, 211, 212, 237-239, 257; required study of Russian, 81; study of, 157«, 160, 172«, 173, 179, 185-186, 187«, 194«, 227,270, 271; study of at girls' schools, 201, 274 Hitler, Adolf, 314« Hoerner, Rudolf von, 231« Hofmutterei, 121 Hofsland, 24«, 286 Hoheisel, Carl, 112, 174 Hohenheim (agricultural academy), 191«, 267« Holland, 298 Hollander, Bernhard, 215« Hollander Institution, 184«, 188 Hollmann, Franz, 235«, 255 Hollmann, Friedrich, 245-246 Holstein family. See Stael von Holstein family Holy Roman Empire, 19, 22, 30«, 59 home. See family Homer, 54, 56 home schooling, 31«, 107, 188, 245; to avoid Russification, 215«, 227, 259; by governesses/tutors, 171-174, 200-203, 253-254; by mother, 170, 252-253 honor, 8, 21, 142, 154,172, 183, 184, 193, 209-210, 265; and ancestral pride, 238, 239-240; and Bildung, 181,187; and nobility's self-image, 3, 44, 55-58, 60, 234; from service, 158, 196-197, 228 honor service (Ehrendienst), 58, 158 Hörschelmann family, 188«, 190 horseback-riding, 41, 169, 189; permitted to girls, 202«, 250; as symbol of manliness, 61-62,180, 253-254 hospitality, 41, 50, 260 housebooks, 234, 234«-235«. See also manuals household. See family; household management household management, 50, 96, 106, 129, 173«; taught to girls, 203, 204, 275, 278; as wife's domain, 121, 130-131, 167, 200«, 202. See also manors Howen, Baroness Elise von: school for girls, 275, 276« Hueck family, 48«, 86«, 93, 95«, 100«

372

humanities: study of, 31«, 271«; taught to girls, 200« Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 181, 203,246 Hungary, 215 Hunnius, Monika, 59«, 277« hunting, 24,107, 179«; permitted to women, 250«; as symbol of indolence, 40, 196; as symbol of manliness, 61-62, 169,180, 189, 253-254, 260 Hupel, August Wilhelm, 66«, 149, 194« husbands. See marriage; men idealism. See German idealism identity, 59, 183, 270; from career, 154, 161; and ethnicity, 211, 212-213; and family, 2-3, 11, 104, 108,139,207, 236; from land, 13, 45—46, 159; and national consciousness, 215, 227, 229, 256; and Stand, 29, 41, 43-44, 62. See also selfimage ideology. See sexes, ideology of idleness. See indolence Igelström family, 22, 30«, 122, 141, 165-166, 189 Ignat'ev (Minister of Interior), 223-224 illegitimate children, 122-123 immigration: from Germany to Baltic, 23«, 31, 48, 266 Imperial guards, 96, 134, 241, 263 Imperial Provincial Reform Act of 1775, 16 Imperial Russia. See Russian Empire; Russian Imperial government Imperial Towns Charter, 16 imports, 101«, 283; and protective tariffs, 284, 285 income, 5, 85, 107,187«, 231«; from agriculture and industry, 86, 101, 285, 300; and debt, 94-96, 197; from land, 62, 97, 230«, 290, 302; from liquor sales, 87, 98, 99-100, 295-296, 301; nobility's scorn for, 45«, 57, 159, 160; from service, 18, 26, 27«, 57, 89, 134, 156, 157«, 158; and status, 43, 55,303. See also expenses; profits; wealth individual: relation to corporation/family, 3, 29, 56, 63, 124-125, 159, 163, 166, 180, 210; rights of, 56, 164, 181-182 indolence, 36, 57, 66«, 102, 159, 179, 185, 195-196, 296; and colonialism, 29; of Krippenreiter, 41; of Landjunkers, 40; of peasantry, 47, 48«, 100« industrialization, 8, 293; brings new opportunities, 109, 255; brings political change, 309, 312, 313; and ethnic consciousness, 211, 212«; helps

burghers, 214, 283, 303; innovations and productivity of, 294-295, 299-301, 302; nobility adapts to, 5,11, 297-298; undermines noble privilege, 9, 210, 283 industry: brickyards and sawmills, 86, 87«, 295, 297, 300, 301; careers in, 269, 271-272; cement, 86, 295, 297; dairy and timber, 270, 284, 285, 297, 297«, 299-300; and modernization, 295, 297, 299-300; paper, 272, 283, 301; peat, 300; textiles, 101, 283, 295«, 298; wool, 83, 85, 92,100-102,179. See also agriculture; cattle industry; industrialization; liquor industry; manor economy infants, 167, 168« inheritance, 97, 240, 276, 302; and children, 169, 189; laws and practices of, 41, 93-94, 105-106,127, 133«; and manor ownership, 24», 77«, 287, 289-291, 297 Inland, Das, 46, 76«, 168«; and education, 159«, 180,184«, 186-187,190«, 195, 200« innovation. See agriculture; industrialization; technology inns. See taverns Innsbruck, 267« insecurity. See security institutions. See administration; corporations; diets; government (local); judicial system; police system instruction. See education insurance companies: and agrarian innovation, 297; careers in, 272, 273 insurrection. See Poland; unrest integration. See administration, integration of; centralization; Russification intelligentsia, 310«; and ethnic consciousness, 211, 227 intermarriage, 149; between estates, 128, 141, 152,153, 281-282; between nationalities, 23«, 37«, 39, 59«, 68,115, 143,145, 153,156,281-282; between religions, 82,115«, 149«, 221, 225. See also marriage investment, 84«, 87, 290; in industry, 5, 298, 303 inwardness, 181 Ireland, 7 Italy, 197, 303 Iur'ev University. See Dorpat University Iusupov family, 220 Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig, 184«

Jahrbuch für Genealogie, Heraldik und Sphragistik, 239 Jannau, Heinrich Johann von, 24«, 48, 70 Jean Paul. See Richter, Johann Paul Friedrich Jena, 95«, 184«, 191,267« Jensei (manor), 52illus., 242« Jerwakant (manor), 230« Jews, 44-45, 213, 266, 312« joint-stock companies: and agrarian innovation, 297-298; careers in, 272 judicial system, 26«, 195; and debt, 89, 94; and family, 128«, 131,132,133,135, 240; nobility loses control of, 214, 216, 218, 219«, 224, 227; nobility's control of, 14,15,17«, 27-28,48, 71,207. See also law, careers in Jung-Stilling, Friedrich von, 292« Junkers, 4, 41, 289« Kahk, Juhan, 67«, 98-99, 99«, 100«, 101-102 Kahlen family, 190 Kankrin, E. F. (Minister of Finance), 93«, 101, 156, 168« Kant, Immanuel, 164, 181, 246 Keyserling family, 45«, 46, 54, 57, 60, 62, 108, 135«, 204, 226«, 229, 304-305; careers, 155-156, 157, 158, 160, 260; childrearing, 167, 168«, 169«, 189; education, 172,173, 202«; marriage, 124,141«, 143,280 Kiselev, P. D., 101« Klee, Christian Carl Ludwig, 184« Kleindeutsche, 33-34, 267« Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 116« Klot family, 56«, 115«, 190 Knorring family, 124, 135«, 204 Kohl, Johann Georg, 7, 36, 50, 54, 66«, 115, 120, 194« Koik, 138, 188 Kollmann gymnasium, 259« Königsberg, 191«, 267« konstantinovstsy, 222η Korff family, 150«, 217« Körner, Christian Gottfried, 203 Kotzebue family, 45-46, Mbillus., \77illus.; careers, 154, 158«, 159-160; loyalty to Russia, 58, 60 Kraus, Theodor, 281 Krautjunker, 40 Krippenreiter, 41, 136, 156« Kroeger, Gert, 66n, 237« Krüdener family, 30«, 190 Krümmer Institution, 95, 184«, 187, 188 373

Krusenstern (Krusenstjern) family, 158», \77illus., YHillus., 281 η Kuettis, 85η Kügelgen family, 58, 59», 118,149, 202» Kulturland, 292 Kurland, 30, 36, 40, 54, 56«, 61, 117», 306»; agriculture, 87, 101, 295, 297, 300, 301»; careers, 57», 110, 155-156,158, 159, 160,195, 269, 272; debt, 90-91, 93»; defense of privileges, 72», 96-97, 98»; education, 32», 180», 182», 188, 190, 191,193», 201, 227», 231», 257, 259, 265, 267; family, 103, 134, 171», 239; geography, 14», 86; government, 13, 25-27; history, 7,14, 17, 35; inheritance, 41,134,135,136,137,138, 291; literati, 31; loyalty to Russia, 69, 70; manor ownership, 25, 50», 74, 75, 76«, 77, 88», 287, 288, 289-290; marriage, 132, 133, 141«, 143,145, 150», 152, 280, 281; nobility's selfimage, 46», 63; peasants, 48, 70, 292-293; population, 23, 213; reform, 215, 217, 219», 223»; registers, 19-20, 21»; revolution and aftermath, 309, 311, 312», 314; Russification, 221, 226, 230η Laakmann, Heinrich, 266 laborers, 48», 88», 297; dissatisfaction of, 1-2, 9, 293; hired, 84», 100, 292, 299; kinds of, 294; provided by tenants, 71, 78». See also peasantry labor movement, 212» labor rents. See corvee; rents Laitzen (manor), 242» land, 6,14, 16,100, 218, 224, 226, 291, 298; as basis of status and identity, 5, 11, 37, 39-40, 43, 44-46, 55, 62, 154,159, 169, 189,196, 228, 229, 253-254, 270; division and measurement of, 71, 85», 88», 286; exclusive ownership of, 10, 15, 25, 67, 71, 72, 75, 76-77, 80, 83, 89, 208; expropriated, 312, 313»-314»; ownership statistics, 73table, 74table; peasant ownership of, 66, 79-80, 219, 284, 292-294; sale of for profit, 290, 296, 302; taxation of, 230-231, 294». See also Heimat; manors; prices Land (country), 44, 45; usage of term, 59, 237 Landadel (landed nobility, " Landscbe"), 39-40,159,189 landischer Mittelstand. See middle class Landjunker, 40, 194», 196, 263

374

Landknechte, 294 Landräte. See counselors of the nobility Landsassen, 33; and diets, 26, 287; and registers, 22», 24, 25. See also Baltic German non-corporate nobility Landtag. See diets language. See under name of language Lantinghausen family, 22 Latin. See classical languages Latvia, 6; foundation and independence of, 11, 308, 313-315. See also Baltic provinces Latvian language. See Baltic native languages Latvians. See Baltic natives law, 3, 14, 28, 35, 55», 61, 67,184, 231», 294, 300; careers in, 5, 78,109», 110, 154, 155, 159, 269, 271, 272, 273; codification of, 20, 21», 25, 69, 72, 73», 77, 78, 83; and debt, 87», 89, 91; and duelling, 56»; electoral (1907), 312; and family, 82, 104-105, 122-123,127-134, 141, 234», 240, 280; and inheritance, 41, 93, 94», 105», 134-139, 290, 291; and manors, 76-77, 80, 88», 287, 288; and noble titles, 30»; and peasantry, 218», 219, 286; and rank, 26; and recruitment, 17»; Roman, 35», 128, 129», 133, 157»; and Russification, 220-221, 227, 230; study of, 157», 159,172«, 192», 195, 268», 270. See also judicial system; legislation; Ständerecht lawsuits, 89 lawyers: social status of, 152, 154, 281», 282». See also law, careers in League of Nations, 313 lease, 39, 40, 172; of crown estates, 83, 96-97; of land to peasantry, 6, 71, 78, 100, 284, 286; of manors by young noblemen, 105, 159, 196, 198; of manors for income, 94, 95, 296, 306 legal training. See law: careers in legislation, 14, 30», 31», 72, 81, 87», 226; on peasantry, 80, 88», 218»-219w, 286, 293. See also law Leipzig, 191, 203», 210», 267» leisure, 36, 203; as aristocratic value, 256; critique of, 242 Lermontov, Mikhail, 56» Leroy-Beaulieu, Α., 7 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 156», 181, 246 lethargy. See indolence letter-writing, style of, 280; and sentimentalism, 112», 116» Lettgallia, 14»

Levana (Jean Paul), 112, 164-165 levitas animi, 128«, 133 Leyden, 191« Libau, 18, 283 liberals, 313; and reform, 79, 214-215, 217«, 312« Lienhard und Gertrud (Pestalozzi), 164 Lieven, Dominic, 4-5, 312 Lieven family, 56, 68, 116«, 124, 187», 197, 200, 217«, 240«; pietism, 143-145, 145«,182« life expectancy, 105,198«, 206table, 207 Lilienbach (manor), 133« Liphardt family, 150 liquor: consumption of, 48«, 55, 99, 132, 192-193,197 liquor industry, 10, 24, 40, 92, 232«, 302«, 304«; and economic crisis, 83-84, 87-88; and guaranteed government purchases, 96, 98-99; Imperial monopoly on, 284-285; increased competition in, 100, 299, 301; modernization of, 295, 297; producers' association of, 297« literacy, 14,157,211 literati, 37; careers of, 194«, 195, 200, 269, 274, 303; definition of, 30-31; education and values of, 96,182-183, 184, 187, 190, 256, 258, 264, 267, 278; and family, 113, 234, 238; haughtiness of, 32-34, 263, 265; interactions with nobility, 182,192, 193«, 214, 216«, 255; marriage to nobility, 152,153, 281-282; and reform, 214-215, 217, 219; and Russification, 213, 228-230, 304. See also Bildung literature. See children's books; classical antiquity; France, literature of; German literature; manners; reading; Romanticism Lithuania, 14«, 20, 70, 314« Lithuanians, 213, 218« livestock. See cattle industry; sheepbreeding Livland, 30, 36, 40, 61, 65, 78-79, 110, 306«; agriculture, 80, 83, 84, 87, 98-99, 100-101, 285, 286«, 295«, 296, 297, 300; careers, 156, 195, 272; debt and finances, 88, 90-91, 92-93, 303«; defense of privileges, 15-16, 72«, 96-97; education, 157, 172,191, 193«, 201, 258, 264«, 265, 267«, 276; ethnic and family pride, 238, 239«, 241; family, 103, 106«, 113, 115,119«, 171«, 245; geography, 14«; government, 13, 17«,

25-28, 39—40; history and geography, 7, 14, 35, 86; industrialization, 283, 284«, 295, 301, 302; inheritance, 134, 135, 136, 137«, 291; loyalty to Russia, 58, 60«, 68, 69, 254; manor ownership, 25, 67, 72, 73table, 74, 75, 76-77, 208, 287, 288, 289-290; marriage, 129,130«, 132, 133, 149, 150, 280, 281; peasants, 48«, 70, 211, 292-293, 294«; population, 23, 213; reform, 214-215, 217, 218, 219, 219«; registers, 19-22, 24; revolution and aftermath, 213«, 309, 310«, 311, 312, 314«; Russification, 221, 223, 226, 227«, 230 Livländisches Jahrbuch der Landwirtschaft, 101« Livland Public Benefit and Economic Society, 84, 297, 298«, 301-302 Livonia fraternity, 188, 192«, 236, 258; admission requirements, 265-266; careers, 272, 273; degrees, 194, 268; marriage, 152, 153, 281; study abroad, 191, 197, 267; subjects studied, 155«, 158«, 159, 160, 270, 271«. See also fraternities Livonian Confederation, 13, 19, 23, 35, 59, 76, 290« loans, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94; for agriculture, 92«, 101. See also credit associations; debt Locke, John, 166, 197 Löffler, Albert, 245-246 London, 295 love, 109, 115«, 138, 180, 181«, 240, 258«; in childrearing, 131, 164-165, 170, 179, 245; in marriage, 123-124, 280; motherly, 116-117,169,174«; and womanly virtues, 118«, 199 Löwenstern family, 37«, 99«, 100«, 150, 155,170, 190 Löwenwolde family, 30« Löwis of Menar family, 22, 154—155, 250«, 269-270, 276η loyalty, 13, 35, 170,187; and family pride, 154, 238, 240; to Heimat, 237; as noble virtue, 183, 257; to Russian Empire, 6, 7, 14, 43—44, 58-60, 68-70, 81, 99, 222, 253-254 Lübeck, 35« Luther, Martin, 181 Lutheran Church, 36, 38«, 47«, 79, 99«, 189, 211, 219, 241, 253, 259, 278; and birth control, 252; and childrearing, 164«, 170; and divorce, 122-123, 128»; establishment of, 13-14; Imperial

375

restrictions on, 81-82, 221-222, 224-225; landholding of, 73, 74; and marriage, 132,198; nobility's control of, 15, 26, 27«, 28, 207, 230; and pietism, 112«, 118«, 145«, 182»; segregration at services, 54,120. See also clergy; parish assembly; pietism; rationalism; religion machinery: and agricultural productivity, 285,294-295,297,298,299; industry in, 283, 284, 302« Magna Carta: symbolic usage of term, 77 Magnus, Prince of Denmark, 14« Mahtra (Machters) war, 218« management. See household management; manors Manasein, N . A. (Senator), 49«, 223-224 manly virtues, 60-62, 187, 189,192-193, 198, 257 Mann, Thomas, 181, 182 manners, 163; literature of, 61; taught to children, 172-173, 179, 189, 250, 253; taught to girls, 199, 201, 204 manor economy, 85, 95«, 121, 122, 129, 135«, 202, 289«-290«; crisis and difficulties, 284-285, 303«, 304-305; effect of climate, 86; innovations, 84«, 294-296; liquor sales, 87-88, 98, 232«; modernization, 292-294, 296, 297-298, 299-301, 302, 308; wool, 100-103. See also agriculture; industry manors, 16, 32, 34, 37«, 40, 97«; and debt, 83, 88-89, 90-91, 92-95; destroyed in revolution, 1-2, 55, 218«, 309-310; division of land, 71, 79, 293-294; exclusive ownership of, 10,15,22,25, 26«, 66-67, 72-77, 80; expenses and accounting of, 95«, 96, 303«; expropriated, 11, 313»-314n; family life at, 110, 117«, 254«, 260; and family pride, 109, 240, 241-242, 289; inheritance of, 105,127,133«, 135,136-139, 159,269, 289-291; leased for income, 296, 302, 306-308; loss of exclusive ownership of, 136«, 215«, 218, 284,286-288; ownership statistics, 7itable, Utable; and peasants, 47, 49«, 54, 294; professional management of, 39, 40«, 153, 159, 268, 272, 273, 282«, 294, 306, 306«; provide status and power, 13, 27«, 28, 39, 45«, 103,141,145,149,152,155, 156, 230, 258; required for registration, 20, 23-24, 77; size of, 79, 88«, 288, 292«; social activities at, 55, 196, 280«;

376

style of, 50, 304; women's management of, 121-122,129,130-131,134,202,204 Manteuffel family, 59«, 122-123, 179«, 202, 266«, 289«, 314; careers, 160«, 272; education, 190, 201; marriage, 122«, 131, 141«, 149 manuals: on manor management, 47,121«; for shepherds, 101«. See also housebooks manufacturing: emergence of in Baltic, 109, 295 Marburg, 267« market economy, 8,10, 286«, 308. See also economy marketing, 295, 297; becomes professional, 285 markets, 295, 300; for liquor, 83, 85, 87, 100; for wool, 85, 100, 101»; widened by railroads, 283 marriage, 17, 20, 108, 113, 115; and choice of spouse, 127-128, 131-132,139-150, 152-153,161,258,265,278,280-282; and concept of family, 3, 104, 163; contracts of, 130«; and dissolution of social barriers, 11, 281-282; and expectations of women, 111, 112, 118-119,174, 199, 203-204, 207, 276,277; and inheritance, 105, 134-138; and spousal relations, 119-122, 123-124, 128-131; statistics of, 107table, \5\ table, 151-152,153, 198table, 198-199, 205, 20btable, 251 table, 252table, 279table, 281-282. See also affection; divorce; emotion; intermarriage; love; men; remarriage; sex; women; youths marshal of the nobility, 25«, 39-^0, 57, 68, 69-70, 91,99,171», 213«, 231«, 239», 265; abolition of, 14; function and rank, 26», 27; and Russification, 221, 223, 224« masterdom, 29, 45, 46, 102,196; and colonialism, 59 materialism, 311; nobility's critique of, 57, 234«, 246, 304 mathematics: not taught to girls, 201, 274; study of, 173,185,186«, 187,259-260, 270 matriculation. See registers of corporate membership Matthews, Ralph, 218« Maydell family, 23, 30», 40«, 241,280,290; education, 188, 190; girls' school, 274», 276« Medem family, 5h7/«j., 119, 171« medicine, 26«, 145«, 168, 231, 231«; careers for women in, 277, 278; careers in,

5,153,155,156,159,160, 161,269,272, 273, 281; and children, 117», 251; study of, 194, 241, 268», 270, 271; women's knowledge of, 49, 119,121. See also disease; doctors medievalism: of Baltic nobility, 7, 18, 233-234 Mellin Institute (Dorpat), 278 membership. See registers of corporate membership men: legal rights as husbands, 128-131, 133-134, 135; relationship with wives, 120, 121-122, 192»; society's expectations of, 60-62,111-112. See also fathers; manly virtues; sexes; widowers; youths Mengden family, 1, 30« Mensenkampff, Ernst von, 55, 59», 228», 267»,296» merchants, 24», 72, 75, 101», 200», 238», 278; position in social order, 15», 22, 29, 32, 35, 153, 154, 265», 266», 281; provide capital and loans, 88-89, 297, 298 merino sheep. See sheep-breeding merit, 56, 57; emphasized in Enlightenment, 8, 62, 196 Merkel, Garlieb, 48, 66η, 70 metals: industry in, 283 Meyendorff family, 30», 58», 213», 311», 312»; careers, 155,157»; marriage, 150»,281» Mickwitz, Ch., 237» Middendorff, Alexander Th. von, 158 Middle Ages, 61, 75, 128», 164». See also medievalism middle class (Mittelstand), 33, 211, 266», 303»; and Bildung, 182; role of women, 273, 275 midsummer: celebrations of, 54-55; time of courtship, 139; travels, 40 midwives, 117» military service, 5, 8,17,17», 26», 56», 79, 136», 169, 171, 226; careers in, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158», 190, 272; decreased interest in, 262», 263; education for, 186-187; expenses of, 105», 241; as impediment to marriage, 145,151, 152, 153; lifestyle in, 197-198; mandatory, 252, 256, 259, 263; as sign of loyalty to Empire, 68-69; and status, 37-38, 39, 281 Miliutin, Dmitrii Alekseevich (Minister of War), 81», 222, 224-225 mills, 22, 86, 87», 295, 301

minerals, 86; in fertilizer, 295; industry in, 299» mining: as career choice, 158; study of, 267» Minna von Bamhelm (Lessing), 156» Mirbach family, 124», 156» Mitau, 31», 32», 72», 117», 135», 152», 191, 280»; schools in, 180, 184-185, 188, 259 modernization, 17», 18, 216», 220, 264»; and agriculture, 215, 285«, 297; brings new careers, 255, 269, 272; brings social change, 267«, 313; effect on women, 275; and ethnic consciousness, 211, 212»; nobility's response to, 4-5, 10, 96; undermines noble privileges, 210, 283. See also industrialization; technology Mohrenschildt family, 22, 281» monarchy. See Russian Imperial government money: nobility's disapproval of, 44, 154, 182, 183, 296. See also expenses; fees; income; rents; wealth money economy: emergence of, 292; transition to, 100, 102, 284» monopolies. See land; liquor industry; manors morality, 26», 56, 57», 112», 189, 233; as basis for family, 111», 234»; taught to children, 170, 182, 187, 245-246 Moravian Brotherhood, 49», 112 Morgengabe, 130 Morgenopfer (Witschel), 112» mortality rates, 206, 251; of children, 117; of infants, 168» mortgages, 10, 134, 292; and credit associations, 90-91, 93; and debt, 83, 284, 290, 296; hereditary mortgage ownership, 73-76, 89, 288; and manor ownership, 24», 67, 92», 291. See also bankruptcy; debt Mortimer, J., 184» Moscow, 191», 267» Moskovskie Vedomosti, 220» mothers, 106, 142; childbirth, 205-207; childrearing, 112, 167, 168», 170, 173, 180, 249, 250, 275; cult of, 115-119, 163-164, 234, 246; guardianship rights, 133-134; relation to daughters, 140, 143, 173-174,175, 199-200, 202-205, 277; relation to sons, 105, 174, 180, 252-254; subordinate to fathers, 131, 169. See also women Mühlen family, 22,149», 190, 288, 290, 297»,298»

377

Mühlendahl family, 170, 258« Müller, Adam, 44, 45«, 111 η Müller, Otto, 210η Munich, 59η, 191«, 267« Munnales (manor), 95« music, 139, 155«, 185, 211; careers in, 106«, 272, 273, 277«; taught to girls, 199, 201, 202«,203,274 names: meaning of "von," 30«; as sign of loyalty to Russia, 169« nannies, 167-168, 180, 250; Russian, 252, 253«, 259. See also nursemaids; wetnurses Napoleon, 58« Napoleonic wars, 58, 65, 67, 68, 91«, 156, 238« Nasackin family, 22 national consciousness, 60, 218«; of Baltic Germans, 229, 234-239, 254, 278; of Baltic natives, 9, 33«, 35, 211, 212«, 227, 231, 233, 283, 309; and education, 181, 256-257, 259, 265-266, 278«. See also Heimat; historical consciousness; nationalism nationalism, 4,17«, 65, 68, 257«; Baltic German embrace of, 215«, 236«, 311; Baltic German rejection of, 59-60; of Russians, 82«, 215-216, 218, 219220, 222, 225, 242. See also national consciousness native Baits. See Baltic natives native land. See Heimat native languages. See Baltic native languages natural sciences: avoided at girls' schools, 274; careers in, 109«, 155-156,158, 160«, 161; study of, 31«, 157«, 185, 196, 255-256, 270,271, 272 Nazism, 4, 314« Neobaltica, 266« net proceeds, 95«, 100, 101. See also profits Nevskii, Aleksandr, 7 Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia, 56«, 77, 115«, 186«, 192«; and agrarian reform, 79, 80; anxiety after 1848, 80-81; Baltic nobility's closeness to, 59, 68, 69-70, 99; and Baltic noble service, 37«, 38, 155; codification of law, 73«, 78; and landholding, 72, 75, 76« Niederer, Rosette, 166« Nikolai gymnasium, 259 nobility. See under ethnic group or nationality 378

nobility, patents of, 22, 149, 171« Nolcken family, 30«, 149«, iOSillm. Nol'de, A. E., 73« Nol'de, Boris E., 210« Nolle, Annelise, 37η Nordische Miscellaneen, 149 Northern War, 7, 14, 18, 23«, 38, 50«, 97, 151 nuclear family. See family, composition of nursemaids, 167, 250, 252; importance to childhood, 108. See also breastfeeding; nannies; wetnurses nursing: as career for women, 277, 278 Nystad. See under treaties obedience, 197«; required of children, 131, 134,166, 170, 179, 184,249; required of women, 117, 128, 129, 132 obligations. See duty Obolenskii family, 298« ohrok (quitrent), 48« occupation. See careers (Dettingen family, 22, 49«, 50, blillus., 104, 131,133, 140, 159, 160,182«, 189«, 190; education, 173, 184«, 186«, 188, 190, 192, 265«; family/ethnic pride, 229«, 236, 242«; role of women, 116, 118«, 119, 121,205 order. See social order; Stand Order of the Knights of Christ, 13 Orellen (manor), 50«, Slillus., 135«, 289«, 302; and family pride, 241-242 orphan court, 132, 133, 138 Orrisaar (manor), 137-138 Orthodoxy. See Russian Orthodox Church Osel, 16, 61, 72«, 90-91, 215, 259,291«, 314«; careers, 155, 156, 158; crown estates, 96-97, 98«; family, 106«, 129«, 149; geography, 37; government, 13, 19-21, 25-27; history, 7, 13, 14«; industry, 300; manor ownership, 25, 74, 77, 88«, 288, 290, 292«; national consciousness, 238 Osenbrüggen, Eduard, 40«, 48«, 194 Osten-Sacken family, 190 Otto, Gustav, 39, 190,191«, 192«, 194« Oubril (Russian ambassador), 221« outmigration. See emigration overlord. See Baltic German nobility overseers, 1, 40 ownership. See land; manors Pahlen family, 30«, 150, 217«, 272, 277-278, 280«; and Russification, 221«, 224«,226«

Pantenius, Theodor Hermann, 184, 209« paper industry, 283, 301; careers in, 272 parents, 106, 130, 196, 205, 207, 221, 225, 288; and children's choice of spouse, 127-128,131-132,139, 141-151,258, 280-282; and children's education, 95-96,122,171«, 172-173,184«-185», 253», 256», 259, 260, 302, 303«; and daughter's education, 273-276, 278; and family pride, 242-243; inheritance practices, 134-139; legal control over children, 127-128,133-134; methods of childrearing, 167-170, 175, 189, 250, 252; and son's career, 154-155, 158-159, 161; theories of childrearing, 165-166, 245-246. See also fathers; mothers; paternalism Paris, 191,26 7« parish assembly, 14, 26«, 28, 32, 219, 223, 228, 230, 294», 296« Parrot, G. F., 200» particularism, 28, 34-36, 217 passport regulations, 293-294 pastors. See clergy paternalism, 60; of nobility toward lower estates, 33, 44,46-47, 49, 55, 108 Patkull family, 123 patriarchy, 32, 54, 65,123«, 128, 129; and family, 103, 111, 119-120,166, 234, 279 patricians, 19«, 22, 24, 75,113, 143»; domination of towns, 7,16, 29 patrilineage, 104,136, 136«, 138, 238, 289 patriotism, 4 3 ^ 4 , 58», 60, 154,183, 209«, 214», 229. See also loyalty Paul I, Emperor of Russia, 17, 22», 32«, 71 Paulucci, Marquis Fillipo O., 97, 98 peasantry, 6, 32, 33», 40, 91, 97, 99, 123, 167, 297«, 300; and agriculture, 78, 85, 135», 298»; "grey barons," 9», 293; improved status of, 9, 304, 308; landholding, 66, 74, 79, 98«, 100, 224, 231, 284-285, 286, 288«, 289«, 292-294; participation in government, 28, 217«, 219, 230; revolution and unrest, 1-2, 16, 80, 213«, 218«-219w, 309-310; subservience to nobility, 2-3, 10, 24», 39, 46-50, 54-55, 61, 87-88, 102, 108. See also Baltic natives; laborers; tenants peat industry: emergence of, 300 pedagogy, 164, 165«, 185«, 275; and childplay, 175; and clothing, 175»; and cult of family, 234, 235«; and education of women, 112, 274; and ethnic consciousness, 256, 257; and freedom, 184, 250;

and gender roles, 174, 249, 253; and love, 245-246 Pedlow, Gregory W., 4 Penza: distilleries in, 99 Pernau: gymnasium in, 259 Pernau-Fellin district, 98«, 101« Perovskii, L. A. (Minister of Interior), 81

Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich, 164, 165-166, 184 Peter I, the Great, Emperor of Russia, 7, 30», 32», 38, 73», 76, 97; and capitulation agreements, 14,17-18, 24—25, 209 Petersen, Karl, 196» Petersen, Otto von, 66», 194« Petri, Johann Christoph, 48, 70, 151, 189«; rejection of birthright, 56, 62 Petri school (St. Petersburg), 259 Pfandbriefe (mortgage notes), 90 Pfandrecht, 286« philanthropists (eighteenth century educators), 175« philology, 238», 270 philosophy, 31; study of, 159, 160, 172«, 194 physicians. See doctors; medicine physiocracy, 70, 84« Pictures of the German Past (Frey tag), 257 pietism, 49«, 56, 145», 246, 280; and Bildung, 181, 182«, 187; and freedom, 184«; and love, 164-165,165«; and parent-child interaction, 166,168-169; and women, 112,118«, 167 Pilar von Pilchau family, 30«, 149», 150, 203», 258, 277-278, 288 Pilten, 14», 19,137» Pintner, Walter, 38 Pirang, Heinz, 50« Pistohlkors, Gert von, 210-211,212», 216, 218«-219»; and reform, 66-67; and Russification, 65, 213« plague, 23» Plakans, Andrejs, 225», 310« play (children's), 175,179,179», 249-250. See also games Plessen, Sophie von, 93, 116, 202 poetry, 149-150, 196«, 236; and nationalism, 237« Poland, 15«, 30«, 41«, 76, 210, 313, 314«; control over Baltic, 7, 14, 19, 21, 35; rebellions, 70», 197, 219, 220; relation to Kurland, 17, 36 Poles, 38«, 213, 266, 281, 287

379

police system: nobility loses control of, 219, 224, 227; nobility's control of, 14, 15, 24«, 27, 28, 71, 230 political economy: study of, 268«, 270, 271, 272 Poll family, 149« poll tax, 17«, 24« Polovtsov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 226« Popen (manor), 230« Poppelsdorf, 267« population, 151, 294; changed by Russification, 266, 273; ethnic composition of, 7, 213-214, 218»; statistics of, 23,182 potatoes, 102, 297«; and improved production, 84,100, 295, 301 poverty, 40«, 97, 109, 274, 276; from debt, 89; of Estlanders, 37, 76, 143, 155, 158, 171, 267«, 288 Prague, 191 press, 194«, 211, 277-278, 286; and agriculture, 100, 293, 297; and reform, 217, 218; and Russian nationalism, 215-216, 218, 220; and Russification, 209, 222« prestige. See status prices, 122, 289«, 292«, 294, 303«; depression of (grain), 90, 284, 297, 298-299; depression of (liquor), 98, 99,100, 299; fluctuation of, 78, 83, 85, 92, 300; of land, 88, 92, 286, 292«, 301; of wool, 100-101 pride. See family; haughtiness primogeniture, 136, 137, 289 private schools. See schools private sphere, 103, 109,110, 111, 113; withdrawal to, 163, 228, 230, 232 privilege, 2, 8, 26, 30, 35, 37, 58, 62, 110, 128,136, 237; after revolution, 310, 312; confirmation of, 7 , 1 0 , 1 4 , 1 5 , 1 7 , 67-68, 69,127; from corporate membership, 3, 78; critiques of, 56, 62, 222; defense of, 13, 29, 68, 72«, 96, 97, 207-208, 209-211, 212, 215«, 218, 302«; feudalism of, 6, 11, 218«, 294; hereditary, 6, 31«, 43-44; loss of, 6, 9, 16, 35, 50, 60, 79, 102, 223, 228, 254, 284; and manor ownership, 24, 45«, 66, 286; and service, 18, 57; threatened by centralization, 70«, 226«, 227, 230, 232. See also status Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti (1562), 15« productivity: and technological innovation, 285, 294-295, 298, 299

380

professionalism, 3, 173«, 226, 300; of manor economy, 268,285, 296; as response to modernization, 264, 267, 268-269 professions. See careers professors. See academic careers profitability, 290, 302; nobility's disapproval of, 45,296; usage of term, 297 profits, 84, 87, 98«, 101, 297«. See also net proceeds proletariat: emergence of, 309 property. See inheritance; land; manors property rights, 6, 73; of children, 132, 133, 138; in marriage, 127, 128«, 129-130, 133, 134-135. See also expropriation protectionism, 301; emergence of, 298; hurts Baltic industry, 284, 299«, 302« Protestantism, 149«, 179, 181-182, 182«. See also Lutheran Church; religion provinces. See Baltic provinces Provincial Charter, 16, 17« Provincial Gymnasium (Riga), 188 provincialism, 28, 29, 34-36, 40«, 183«, 197; liberal critique of, 217 Prussia, 7, 41,100, 123«, 128, 200«, 221«, 226; Baltic German education and service in, 155, 156«, 192«, 193«; as model, 70, 90; position of nobility in, 8, 40«, 90«, 289«; as symbol of discipline, 249. See also Germany; Junkers public schools. See schools punishment. See corporal punishment Pushkin, Alexander, 56« quitrent (obrok), 48« quota land, 286,293 Rahden family, 239« railroads, 18, 27«, 28, 36, 231; careers in, 272; and modernization, 283, 293, 298, 300; shipping rates, 284, 299 rank, 8, 27, 91, 143, 153,157; in civil service, 38«; in diets, 26«; in military, 155, 156, 171«; and nobility's selfimage, 43, 45, 57, 111. See also privilege; status; Table of Ranks Rathlef family, 307illus. rationalism (in Lutheran Church), 112«, 181-182, 182« Rauch, Georg von, 182« Raun, Toivo, 82, 310« Rautenberg family, 201 reading: as activity for women, 203, 204; as family activity, 122, 169, 179, 254«. See also children's books; classical antiqui-

ty; France, literature of; German literature Realgymnasium, 255, 256« Realschule, 186-187 rebellion. See Poland; unrest Recke, Elisa von der, 123 recruitment, 17«, 27, 28, 231 reform, 11, 14,17, 25, 31», 49«, 71, 72«, 75, 91,223-224,232«, 286«, 291; after revolution, 286«, 310-311,312; agrarian (1840s), 57, 78-82, 96,102; agrarian and political (1860s), 209, 214-220, 227; and ethnic consciousness, 211, 212-213; historiography of, 65-67 Reformation, 164« reform pany, 66-67, 80,110 regionalism: usage of term, 218« registers of corporate membership, 16«, 77-78, 286; emergence of, 19-24 Reif, Heinz, 4 Reiher, Ε., 275« religion, 15, 16, 28, 66, 67«, 79, 81, 182«, 211; and children, 166,179, 246«; and family, 107, 111«, 169, 229; and marriage, 132,140; and Russification, 10, 67-68, 81, 82,212,221-222,225; taught at school, 181-182, 185,201, 274; and women, 112,119. See also Catholicism; Lutheran Church; Protestantism; Russian Orthodox Church remarriage, 128«, 133, 134, 135, 200«; statistics of, 106 table, 107table Rennenkampff family, 48«, 113, 160, 166«, 281« Renteln family, 190 rents, 290; increase after emancipation, 71, 78; shift from labor to money, 66, 79, 80, 100, 219«, 292, 294. See also corvee; lease restoration period (1815-1848): cult of family, 109«, 111 Reval, 15«, 16, 17«, 18, 22, 40, 69, 72«, 140, 152«, 231; industry, 283, 284«, 295, 297, 298«; schools, 188, 259, 274«, 275, 276«; social barriers, 29,266«. See also Cathedral School revolution, Russian. See Russian Revolution Revolution of 1830, 197 Revolution of 1848, 48«, 186, 197; and Imperial Russian anxiety, 80, 81 Revolution of 1905, 4, 6, 9«, 33, 59«, 228«, 269«, 293; aftermath of, 310-312; causes of, 67,213«, 216, 219; description of, 1-2, 55, 309-310; ends Russifi-

cation of schools, 227, 260, 277, 278; nobility's response to, 58«, 211, 212-213,232,236«, 287,305-306 Richter, Johann Paul Friedrich (pseud. Jean Paul), 112, 164, 165, 175, 245, 246 Richter family, 225, 226«, 238 Riehl, Wilhelm Heinrich, 234, 234«-235« Riesenkampff family, 22 Riga, 13, 16, 18, 22, 74,143«, 204, 214«, 220, 231, 238«, 302; agriculture and industry, 84, 92, 101«, 283, 284«, 297«, 298, 299η, 300; careers, 160, 272, 278, 303; education, 157«, 166«, 180«, 188, 192«, 227«, 257«, 258, 259, 276; government, 17, 26, 210«, 220«; manor ownership, 15«, 24,25, 72, 76,286. See also burghers; guilds Riga Polytechnical Institute (formerly Institute of Technology), 227«, 252, 264, 268«, 285 Rigasche Hausfrauenzeitschrift (Riga Housewives Journal), 277, 303«, 304« Rigby, Elizabeth, Lady Eastlake, 37«, 66«, 194«; family life, 115«, 123, 168; role of women, 120,121,175,199 rights. See individual; privilege; property rights Rittergut (knight's estate), 13, 73; legal definition of, 88«. See also manors Ritterschaft. See corporation roads, 24«, 27, 54, 272; improvement of, 293; poor quality of, 35-36, 86 Robinson the Younger (Campe), 175 Roemershof (manor), 1 Roenne family, 191 Rogger, Hans, 212« role training, 166, 167,168, 179, 245, 249-250 rolls. See registers of corporate membership Roman Empire. See classical antiquity Romanov dynasty, 58, 156«, 169«, 215-216, 219-220. See also under emperor's name Romanovich-Slavatinskii, Α., 5 Romanticism, 181, 192; and family, 104, 111-112,115«, 123-124, 164; and national consciousness, 211, 229, 238«, 256 Ropp family, 191 Rosen family, 30«, 45«, 103-104, 109, 190, 272, 281«, 290; and liquor industry, 98, 295, 297 Rosenkampff family, 30« Rossillon, Baron W., 58

381

Rostock, 191 Rothfels, Hans, 59 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 164, 165,166«, 167, 175 ruble: origin and value of, 88», 91«, 93», 95η,302« Rückert, Friedrich, 236 rural underclass. See peasantry Russian Empire, 6, 50, 55, 56«, 61«, 157«, 200«, 203«, 309«; Baltic outmigration to, 33«, 213, 266, 293; Baltic service and careers in, 37-39, 89, 105, 109, 110,113, 145, 149, 152-158, 160-161,194«, 260, 272-273; condition of peasantry in, 24«, 48«; decreased Baltic service in, 262-264, 269; as economic competitor, 99-101, 298-299, 301; family life in, 105,107,108, 115, 120«, 130, 145; as market for Baltic products, 87, 295; nationalism in, 215-216, 218, 220; position of nobility in, 2, 5,16«, 18, 77«. See also Russian Imperial government; Russian Orthodox Church Russian Imperial government, 3—4, 30, 37«, 48«, 56«, 171«, 197, 294«; and Baltic economy and industry, 87, 90-91, 96, 98-102,283-285,297-301, 302«, 308; Baltic influence at court, 27, 38, 68, 72, 156n, 222; and Baltic manor ownership, 24-25, 75, 76-77, 286-289, 291; and Baltic membership registers, 20, 21, 22«, 77; Baltic nobility's alienation from, 228-230; Baltic nobility's loyalty to, 7, 57, 58-60, 68-70, 99, 169«, 192«, 253-254; establishment of Baltic noble privilege, 7,13-18, 208; laws, 20, 55«, 73«, 78, 83, 104«, 129,130«, 136«; nationalism and integration, 9, 10, 67-68, 81-82,158,191, 209, 214, 216, 219-224, ^ 263; opulence of court, 50«, 87; reduction of Baltic noble privilege, 35, 97, 210, 283, 286-287, 292-293; reform, 65-66, 71, 79-80, 214, 217, 218-219; Revolution of 1905 and aftermath, 213«, 232, 309-313; Russification, 11, 81-82,182«, 186, 211-212, 220-222, 224-228, 231, 259; statutes on education, 32«, 81, 156, 171, 173«, 185«, 186«. See also Russian Empire; St. Petersburg Russian language, 68, 157«, 167«, 187; becomes state language, 222, 224; as inappropriate for women, 201, 277278; required for service, 157, 252, 253«; required in schools and govern382

ment, 81, 185-186, 220-221, 227, 231, 258«, 259-260, 266, 277 Russian Orthodox Church, 38«, 79, 82, 145; and conversion movement, 78—79, 82; and Russification, 221, 224-225 Russian Revolution (1917), 2, 4, 9, 11, 272, 310«,313 Russians (living in Baltic), 15«, 157«, 186«, 213, 242, 281; landholding, 287; and membership registration, 20, 21, 22; nannies, 253«, 259; at universities, 263-264, 266, 267« Russification, 39, 69, 77, 253«, 288, 297; Baltic resistance to, 209-212, 215-216, 229; causes emigration, 213, 273; of education, 224, 226-227, 259-260, 266-267, 277-278; effect on careers, 228, 234«, 269«, 271«, 272, 304; effect on family/ethnic pride, 106«, 233, 235, 237, 238,239«, 281«, 311; historiography of, 4, 11, 65-66, 216; limits of, 214«, 230-231; of military, 37«, 262«; of religion, 221, 224-225; and Russian nationalism, 219-220 Russo-Japanese War, 309 Russophobia, 67«, 216, 220 Russwurm, Carl, 246 Rutenberg, Otto von, 257 salary. See income Salzmann (educator), 175« Samarin, Iurii, 209, 212«, 222 Samson von Himmelstjerna family, 56, 72, 101«, 111-112, 207«, 289«; careers, 160, 276; education, 173,190,195,196, 197«; family pride, 239«, 241 Sass family, 149« saw mills, 86, 87«, 295, 301 Scheffel, Joseph V., 257 Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von, 56,164,181,192,203,229,246,256, 257 Schilling family, 231«, 281 Schirren, Carl, 209-210, 265 Schlegel, Friedrich von, 181 Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst, 181«,184«,246 Schlingensiepen, Georg Hermann, 4, 267«, 268«, 272«, 292«, 302«, 306 Schlippenbach family, 30«, 47 Schmidt Institution, 186«, 188, 258, 259« School of Jurisprudence, 38, 157« schools, 26«, 106«, 170,182, 186«, 207, 253«, 313; cost of, 95, 302; friendships at, 107, 188; for girls, 200-201, 200«,

274-276, 277-278; and pedagogical theories, 164-165,166«, 183; as place to socialize boys, 173-174, 180, 254; Russification of, 81, 221-222, 226-227, 259-260. See also education; gymnasia; universities Schoultz-Ascheraden family, 30«, 59«, 149,159,248illus., 277n, 303» Schulmann family, 281« Schultz, Georg von (Dr. Bertram), 250 Schultz, James Α., 164« Schwab (legends and tales), 179« Schwartz, Α., 165,169, 256 Schweitzer, Robert, 10« science, 17, 31; careers in, 40«, 109«. See also natural sciences Scotland, 143« Scott, Sir Walter, 175 security, 130, 130«, 271; from Empire, 18, 58; from family/corporation, 63, 109, 163, 236; lost with Russification, 232, 242, 304 Seesemann, Heinrich, 258« seigneurs, 37-39, 46« self-control, 61,193; as sign of masculinity, 189, 265; taught to children, 170, 181, 187,249,257 self-denial, 57, 60, 245 self-image, 4, 10, 41, 43-62, 196-197. See also identity self-sacrifice, 44,163, 166,189; and motherhood, 116, 246 Senate, Imperial, 38, 76, 225«; heraldry department, 30,171« sentiment. See affection; emotion; love sentimentalism, 112, 192, 280; and cult of emotion, 115-116; and letter-writing, 112« Seraphim, Ernst, 215«, 269 serfs, 84«; emancipation of, 70-71, 76, 80; emergence of, 13-14; ill-treatment of, 16,24«, 47-48, 87. See also Baltic natives; peasantry Sering, Max, 306« servants, 108, 109, 111, 119,121, 129; abundance of, 50, 203; expenses of, 94, 95«, 303; as status display, 304 service, 8, 89, 105«, 143, 159,186«, 272, 289«; in contrast to birthright, 27, 43; and family pride, 109, 110; and honor, 57, 58,196-197, 265; impedes marriage, 145,151, 152, 153; nobility's enthusiasm for, 18, 68,154-156,196; nobility's loss of enthusiasm for, 156158,226,227-228,254,262-264,269;

and status, 20, 26, 30«, 31«, 37-39, 44, 104, 160-161. See also administration, service in; civil service; military service settlement, in inheritance law, 130«, 133, 135, 136«, 137-138, 139 settlement movement (of population), 226«, 311, 314 Sevastopol, 58 Seven Years' War, 156« sex, 122-123,137, 205 sexes: ideology of, 4, 104, 109, 111-112, 117,118«, 119,174,187,199,234,236, 274, 277; opportunities to intermingle, 108, 142, 189,202, 280, 280«; separation of, 120, 140, 172-180, 253-255. See also manly virtues; men; womanly virtues; women; youths Seydlitz family, 118«, 197-198, 303 Shakhovskoi family, 298« sharecroppers (Halbkörner), 294 shareholders: emergence of, 298 Shcherbatov family, 298« sheep-breeding, 10, 83-85, 92, 96,100-102, 297« Shuvalov, P. A. (Governor-General), 220«, 222 Siberia, 225«, 283; competition for Baltic grain markets, 299«; exile to, 309«, 310 siblings, 133; and choice of spouse, 141, 142, 152; elder educate younger, 173, 204, 279; and inheritance, 93-94, 136-138, 290; interrelations, 89,106, 152,156,168,169«, 175,188,189, 201-202, 260 Sievers family, 30« Silesia, 90« sinecures, 26« Sintenius, F., 188« sisters. See siblings; women Sivers family, 1-2, 68,124, 249; education, 190, 268; role of women, 250«, 276-277 size. See family; land; manors slavery. See peasantry; serfdom Slavophiles, 209, 220 Smitten family, 116«, 120, 199, 204 social activities, 28,29, 90«, 110, 280; and courtship, 139-140, 141,142, 143, 151, 152, 280«; and family life, 108,122,168, 169, 179, 189«, 240, 241, 260-261; and gender roles, 120,175, 189-190, 202, 204; midsummer, 54—55; as sign of frivolity, 40, 196, 304; at universities, 192-193, 264«. See also balls; gambling; games; hunting; reading; theater social democrats, 213«, 309 383

social graces. See manners socialism, 60, 313 social mobility: of Baltic natives, 33«, 211, 283; of burghers, 200; nobility's response to, 264, 269, 304; and women's careers, 273 social order, 2-3, 7, 79, 266n-267n; challenges to, 67, 210, 212, 217, 233234, 236, 308; changes in, 6, 8, 9, 152, 153, 212«, 282, 304; and family, 138, 163; hierarchy of, 29-34, 37-41, 61, 139; and nobility's self-image, 10, 44, 46-47,62,183 Society for History and Antiquity, 238, 239« Society for Literature and the Arts, 239 soil, 88; and agrarian innovation, 84»; as symbol of Heimat, 237; uneven quality of, 35, 37, 85-86, 101» Sokolowski, Paul, 228 Sombart, Werner, 8 Sondergut, 130, 134«, 135 Sonntag, Κ. G., 112 sons. See fathers; mothers; parents; youths soslovniki, 6 Soviet Union, 231, 313, 314« Spain, 299« Speckter (fables), 179« speculation, 44, 45, 88, 296 Speransky, Count Mikhail Mikhailovich, 20, 72, 73«, 76η spouses. See marriage; men; women; youths Staal family, 176illus. Stackelberg family, 23, 30«, 133«, 155,199, 240, 254, 298»; education, 190, 201; marriage, 149», 189», 281 Stael von Holstein family, 36«, 59«, 61«, 81«, 132-133, 174, 197, 215«; agriculture, 86», 296«; industry, 283«, 297«-298»; marriage, 106«, 134,142, 145,150,281« Stand, 66, 230«, 311»; as basis of society, 30, 31«, 34,163; decreasing importance of, 212«, 236«, 273; definition of, 2, 8; duties and privileges of, 3, 18, 43—45, 58, 75; emergence of, 7, 13; and honor, 55-56, 62, 187-188; and identity, 28, 29, 46,63,104,154 standard of living, 87, 139 Ständeherrschaft (domination based on status), 7, 9 Ständerecht (corporate law), 20, 30«, 77, 230. See also law Ständestaat (corporate order of estates), 7, 232

384

state. See Russian Imperial government State Council, 76«, 77«, 225«, 226; Baltic service in, 38 status, 9,17, 29-30, 33«, 34, 56, 62, 96, 127; and birthright, 43; and corporate membership, 41, 77, 83; decreased importance of, 111, 235; displays of, 50,204, 264, 303, 304; and dissolving social barriers, 268-269, 272, 273, 278, 281; and education, 159,171, 190, 191, 200, 256, 265-266, 289»; and family, 2-3, 11, 104,109,139,163,166,207-208,234, 236,239-240,242; and land, 46,136, 159; and marriage, 140, 141, 153, 280; nobility's defense of, 66, 102,209-211, 297; and service, 154,156, 158,161; threats to, 216, 220, 228, 230, 232, 255; and women, 275, 276. See also birthright; privilege statutes. See law; Russian Imperial government Stenbock family, 22, 297 Stern, Fritz, 210 Stolypin, Petr Α., 286«, 298« Stone, Lawrence, 111«, 139 St. Petersburg, 18, 30,171«, 203«, 221, 263», 277-278, 287; Baltic Committee in, 80, 219, 286«; Baltic lobbying in, 27, 91, 99; Baltic Lutheran Church in, 82; careers in, 89,149; education in, 117«, 187«, 191», 198,259,265-266,267»; as market for Baltic products, 87, 295; modernization of, 283, 284»; opulence of, 50», 87,141. See also Russian Imperial government Straelborn family, 22 Strandmann, Arved von, 215» Strassburg, 267« stratification. See social order stripfarming, 286« Struggle for Rome (Dahn), 257 Stryk family, 190, 249, 250«, 291, 298«; family pride, 240, 241; marriage, 140, 280 Stunden der Andacht (Zschokkes), 112» Sturm und Drang, 9, 56 Stuttgart, 259 subsidies, 10, 83, 298; and agrarian innovation, 96, 100 suitors, 132, 145,149, 150 Suvorov, Prince Aleksandr S., 81, 222 Sweden, 8, 30», 36, 70», 76, 87, 97«, 128; Baltic exports to, 86, 295; control over Baltic, 14, 15, 18, 35; and registers, 21, 22

Switzerland, 197, 303; governesses from, 167,200,253 Sword Brethren, 13 Szoege von Manteuffel family. See Manteuffel family Table of Ranks, 16», 17, 26, 27, 73 tariffs, 284, 285,298-299, 302« Tatar nobility, 20, 220« Taube family, 30«, 54, 90, 117«, 230«, 304; childhood, 170, 172, 250, 253, 254« taverns, 33, 87, 99«, 196; income from, 295, 301, 302; nobility's right to build, 24, 232«,285 taxation, 11, 30, 31«, 87«, 214«, 224, 301«, 302; decided by diets, 26,287; of land, 24«, 88«, 230; of liquor, 284, 295; of manor sales, 75, 76«; of peasantry, 79, 231, 294«; poll tax, 17«; reform of, 232« teachers, 180, 184,186«, 274-275; bring ideas from Germany, 111, 183; quality of, 157, 184»-185«, 258«; and Russification, 227, 259-260; social status of, 31,282« teaching: as career, 159,160, 173«, 194«, 228, 269, 272; as career for women, 152, 201, 273-274, 276, 277, 278. See also academic careers technology, 17, 100; and agrarian innovation, 284,286«, 294-296,297 telegraph, 27«, 283 telephones: as sign of modernization, 284 tenants (Bauemwirthe), 9, 71, 78, 79 testators. See inheritance Teutonic Order, 13 textile industry, 101, 283, 295«, 298 Thaden, Edward C., 10,17, 70«, 91«, 216«, 219«,220 Thaer, Α., 83-84, 84«, 100 Tharandt (forest academy), 267« theater: and ethnic consciousness, 211; as family activity, 189«, 202, 260, 280« theology, 182«; careers in, 159, 160; study of, 31«, 172«, 270, 271,273« Tiesenhausen family, 30«, 46, 118«, 190, 254«,298« Till Eulenspiegel, 179« timber industry, 270; and modernization, 297«, 299-300; replaces grain, 284, 285 titles of nobility, 30, 239« Tobien, Alexander von, 81«, 83«, 223«; and peasantry, 79, 292«; and Russification, 65-66, 69, 77, 226« Töchterschulen, 200«

Toll family, 99n, 149«, 272 Tolstoy, Leo, 115« tools, 85, 135«. See also machinery towns, 19, 213-214, 238; careers in, 106«, 205, 276; during revolution, 309; education in, 95,172,180, 253«, 254, 255«, 308; government of, 15«, 214«, 230; Imperial Towns Charter, 16; and industry, 101, 297«, 300; landholding, 73, 74, 286, 287; relation to countryside, 28, 35, 215«; social activities in, 90«, 193«, 202, 204; social order in, 2-3, 7, 13, 14, 15«, 29, 33, 152, 218«. See also urbanization toys, 179«. See also games trade, 130«; and modernization, 283, 297« trades. See careers tradition: and careers, 154, 155, 158,160, 269; and corporation, 18,19; and education, 190; and family pride, 11, 104, 109, 234, 238, 241 traditionalists. See conservatives training. See careers; education Transehe family, 149, 171«, 239«, 294«, 305i//«i. transportation, 27«, 28, 36, 191»; careers in, 272; modernization of, 283-284, 293, 298; shipping rates, 299. See also railroads; roads travel, 50, 83, 94, 150, 153, 172, 202, 303; difficulties of, 28, 35-36, 108, 191«; as part of education, 197, 241, 267» treaties: of Abo (1743), 15»; of Nystad (1721), 15», 209 Trikaten (manor), 101» tsar. See Russian Imperial government; see under names of Russian tsars "tsarist regime," usage of term, 65, 66» Tsarskoe Selo, 38 Tübingen, 267« tuition. See education; fees; universities Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich, 192» Turkey, 87« tutors, 111, 122,169, 180, 187«, 245«, 250, Ibhllus.; difficult life of, 184«; role in family, 107-108, 167, 170-171, 172-174, 202, 253, 280«; salary of, 95, 253« tyranny, 46, 47-48 Uexküll family, 23, 30«, 47«, 160«, 174«, 192«; finances, 197, 198»; marriage, 141,281» Ukraine, 70, 101» Ulozhenie (1649), 73« 385

underclass. See Baltic natives; peasantry Ungern-Sternberg family, 30«, 89, 104, 113, 189, 204, 242, 272; agriculture, 100«, 101; childrearing, 167,168-169, 173«, 174«, 202, 206; industry, 298«; marriage, 118«, 123, 281«; school, 188, 190, 193« unification: of Baltic provinces, 217, 219« uniforms, 91, 227 United States, 121, 130, 298 universities, 14, 31, 72, 173«, 255,256, 259; enrollment and degree statistics of, 171«, 182-183,190-191, 194, 266-267, 270-271; increased importance of, 182-183, 262-263, 267-268; social life and friendships at, 107, 180,192-193, 195-196, 264-265, 266«; tuition at, 95, 105«, 159, 261, 302. See also academic careers unrest, 16, 67,223-224; in 1840s, 10, 49, 78, 79, 80, 210«; in 1860s, 218, 218«-219«; in 1905, 309-310. See also Revolution of 1905 upbringing. See children uprisings. See Poland; Revolution of 1905; unrest urbanization: and ethnic consciousness, 211, 213-214; and family, 109, 234«; and loss of noble privilege, 8, 9, 283; and manor economy, 293,294, 298, 299-300; and political change, 309, 312, 313 Uvarov, S. S. (Minister of Education), 81 vacations, 26«, 40, 280«; as time to be with family, 168, 173, 174, 189, 253, 260 value. See Haken; prices values. See courage; domesticity; duty; honor; love; loyalty; manly virtues; self-control; self-sacrifice; virtue; womanly virtues Valuev, Petr Α., 219«, 222-223 Vaterland. See fatherland Vegesack family, 22,250« vice-royalty, 17, 310; abolition of, 221 Vienna: Baltic Germans study in, 191, 267«; court of, 19, 22, 149; University of, 190 Vietinghoff family, 30«, 140, 190 virtue, 20,182; and self-image of nobility, 56-57, 62. See also manly virtues; womanly virtues Vitebsk, 14« Volkonskii family, 298« votchina (allodia), 16 vote. See enfranchisement 386

wage system, 294 Wahl family, 306illus. Waitz, S., 238« Waldau (agricultural academy), 191« wealth, 5, 8, 43, 166, 214«; from agriculture, 70, 88; and marriage, 129, 130, 132, 141, 149-150; and status, 37, 39, 50, 159, 303 Weber, Max, 8 Welding, Olaf, 239 Wenden, 193« Western Europe. See Europe Westphalian Catholic nobility, 4, 23, 136« wetnurses, 167, 250. See also breastfeeding; nursemaids widowers, 106-107, 122,167«; and childrearing, 173«, 200«; and inheritance, 135 widows, 106-107,142, 152«; legal rights of, 130, 133, 134-135; poverty of, 89, 231, 240, 241 Wieland, Christoph Martin, 181 wills. See inheritance Winckler, Alexander, 193« Windau, 18, 283 Winkel (corner): symbol of family hearth, 234 Winkler, H . J . von, 95 Witschel (author of Morgenopfer), 112« Witte, S. (Minister of Finance), 302« Wittenberg, 191« Wittram, J. F., 257« Wittram, Reinhard, 65, 184, 193«, 262«, 311 Wittrock, Viktor, 257 wives. See marriage; women Woiseck (manor), 288 Wolff family, 30«, 101, 103, 290; careers, 156, 158; childrearing, 167, 174; education, 190, 270; family pride, 109, 241, 242«; marriage, 149, 280; role of women, 119,121,204 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 175« womanly virtues, 117-118, 142,163-164, 199, 234 women, 34, 107, 266«, 295; career options, 106«, 152, 273-274, 276-278; childbirth and nursing, 205-207, 250«, 252; childrearing, 167, 168«, 169, 170, 173-175, 180; choice of husband, 131-132,139150,152-153,265,280-282; divorce, 122-123; domestic duties, 49,106,121, 167, 202-203; education at school, 166«, 235«, 273-276, 277-278; and Germanness, 236,278; girlhood educa-

tion at home, 169, 170-173,180, 199-203, 253, 259, 302; learning of gender role in girlhood, 112, 173-180, 199-200, 201, 203, 249-250,254-255, 275; legal rights and inheritance, 93, 105,127-132,133-137, 138, 289«; marriage statistics, 151 table, 151-152, 205, 279table, 281-282; preparation for marriage, 106, 190«, 203-207, 261«, 278-279; relationship with husband, 120,121-122,124; society's expectations of, 109,111-112,115-119, 163-164, 189, 234, 274, 275, 277; u n married roles, 106, 136-137, 140, 151, 152, 187«, 205, 240, 241, 276. See also aunts; clothing; domesticity; household management; manors; medicine; mothers; sex; siblings; widows wool industry, 83, 85, 92, 100-102,179 w o r k permits, 293« W o r l d War I, 231, 239, 262«, 273«, 287, 311; and Baltic independence, 218«, 308; and Baltic loyalty to Russia, 58, 69«; and collapse of Russia, 312-313; ends noble domination, 2, 9, 11, 282 W o r l d W a r II, 2 , 1 8 3 Wrangell family, 23, 30«, 179, 224«, 246, 254; careers, 155, 158«, 277; marriage, 150«, 280,281« Wulf family, 205« W ü r z b u r g , 191, 267«

y o u n g men. See youths y o u n g women. See w o m e n youth: as special phase in life, 180,182«. youths: career options, 105,154-161, 197-198, 268-273, 296; and fathers, 121,122,169,180,189, 253-254; friendships and social life, 180, 187-188,192-193,194-196,260, 264-265, 266«; gymnasium studies, 184-188, 255-260; inheritance, 98«, 105, 127, 136-139,289; learning of gender role, 61«, 112, 169, 173-180, 189-190, 207, 249, 260-261; marriage, 113,118,131-132,139-153,I5ltable, \9Stable, 198-199, 279-282; and mothers, 170-171,174-175, 180, 2 5 2 253; university studies, 190-197, 240, 262-268, 270-271; values taught at school, 181-183, 184,187, 256-257. See also manly virtues; men; sexes; siblings ζ e m s t v o , 221,223, 224,231,294«, 309« Zinov'ev, M. A. (Governor of Livland), 288« Zoege von Manteuffel family. See Manteuffel family Zschokkes (author of Stunden der Andacht), 112« Zurich, 191«

387

Beiträge zur Geschichte Osteuropas H e r a u s g e g e b e n von Dietrich Beyrau, B e r n d B o n w e t s c h , Dietrich Geyer u n d Manfred Hildermeier. Eine Auswahl.

Bd. 23: M a r k u s W e h n e r Bauempolitik im »proletarischen Staat« Die B a u e r n f r a g e a l s z e n t r a l e s Problem der sowjetischen Innenpolitik 1921-1928. 1998. 4 9 6 S. Gb. ISBN 3-412-05897-1

B d . 18: Lutz H ä f n e r Die Partei der Linken Sozialrevolutionäre in der Russischen Revolution von 1917-18 1995. X, 816 S. Br. ISBN 3-412-11194-5

Bd. 24: N a d a B o S k o v s k a Lebenswelten russischer Frauen im 17. Jahrhundert 1998. IX. 497 S. Gb. ISBN 3-412-08297-X

B d . 19: D i t t m a r D a h l m a n n Die Provinz wählt R u ß l a n d s KonstitutionellD e m o k r a t i s c h e Partei u n d d i e D u m a w a h l e n 1906-1912. 1996. XII, 5 0 9 S. Gb. ISBN 3-412-12195-9 Bd. 20: J o a c h i m von Puttkamer Fabrikgesetzgebung in Rußland vor 1905 Regierung und Unternehm e r s c h a f t b e i m A u s g l e i c h ihr e r I n t e r e s s e n in e i n e r v o r konstitutionellen O r d n u n g . 1996. 5 2 0 S. Gb. ISBN 3-412-00296-8 B d . 21: S t e f a n P l a g g e n b o r g Revolutionskultur M e n s c h e n b i l d e r u n d kulturelle P r a x i s in S o w j e t r u ß l a n d zwischen Oktoberrevolution und Stalinismus. 1996. 4 0 4 S. 1 Abb. Gb. ISBN 3-412-09296-7 Bd. 22: Gerd B e n n o E n n k e r Die Anfänge des Leninkults in der Sowjetunion 1997. VIII, 379 S. 17 s / w Abb. Gb. ISBN 3-412-10996-7

THEODOR-HEUSS-STR.

B d . 2 5 : T h o m a s M. B o h n Russische Geschichtswissenschaft von 1880 bis1905 P a v e l N. Miljukov u n d d i e »Moskauer Schule«. 1998. XVIII, 473 S. Gb. ISBN 3-412-12897-X. Bd. 26: E c k h a r d H ü b n e r . J a n Kusber, Peter Nitsche (Hg) Rußland zur Zeit Katharinas II. Absolutismus Aufklärung — Pragmatimus. 1998. 4 3 2 S. Gb. m . SU. ISBN 3-412-13097-4 Bd. 27: T r u d e M a u r e r Hochschullehrer im Zarenreich Ein B e i t r a g z u r r u s s i s c h e n Sozial- u n d B i l d u n g s g e schichte. 1999. Ca. 972 S. Gb. 3-412-11598-3 Bd. 28: Nikolaus Katzer Die weiße Bewegung in Rußland H e r r s c h a f t s b i l d u n g , praktis c h e Politik u n d p o l i t i s c h e P r o g r a m m a t i k im B ü r g e r krieg. 1999. Ca. 6 4 8 S. Gb. 3-412-11698-X

76, D - 5 1 1 4 9 KÖLN, TELEFON

(O 22

03) 30 70

21

Ostmitteleuropa Vergangenheit

in und

Gegenwart Herausgegeben vom Herder-Institut e.V. - Nicht aufgeführte B ä n d e sind vergriffen. —

21: Ivan Pfaff Die Sowjetunion

und

die Verteidigung

der

Tschechoslowakei 1 9 3 4 — 1 0 3 8

Versuch der Revision einer Legende 1996. VII, 510 S. 6 Ktn. Gb. D M 1 3 6 . - / Ö S 9 9 3 , - / S F r 121,-

19: B i b l i o g r a p h i e z u r Geschichte und Landeskunde der böhmischen Länder von den Anfängen bis 1 9 4 8 Publikationen der Jahre 1850 bis 1975

(3-412-15493-8).

22: Heide Whelan Adapting to Modernity Family, C a s e a n d Capitalism a m o n g the Baltic G e r m a n Nobility 1999. XIV, 3 8 8 S. 2 0 s / w A b b .

Bearb. v. Heinrich Jilek

1 Kte. Gb. C a . D M 9 8 , - /

Bd I: (Nr. 1 -9599)

Ö S 715,-/SFr 8 9 , -

1986. XXVIII, 5 9 8 S. Gb.

(3-412-10198-2).

D M 1 7 6 , - / Ö S 1 2 8 5 , - / S F r 156,(3-412-01885-6).

Bd II: (Nr. 9 6 0 0 - 2 3 8 8 4 ) 1989. XV, 9 5 6 S. Ln. D M 2 4 8 . - / Ö S 1810,-/SFr 2 2 0 , (3-412-02888-6).

Bd III: Register Bearb. v. Marlis S e w e r i n g Wollanek. 1990. X, 313 S. Gb. D M 9 6 , - / Ö S 701,-/SFr 87,(3-412-03990-X).

23: Christian Lübke F r e m d e im

östlichen

Europa Von Gesellschaften o h n e Staat z u verstaatlichten Gesellschaften (9.-11. Jahrhundert) 1999. C a . 3 8 4 S. Gb. Ca. D M

9 8 . - / Ö S 715,-/SFr 89,-

(3-412-16298-1).

T H E O D O R - H E U S S - S T R . 7 6 , D - 5 1 1 4 9 K Ö L N , T E L E F O N (O 2 2 0 3 ) 3 0 7 0 2 1