Baltic Konseil

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In 1905 and 1906, the Baltic Konseil was an attempt to establish a political and economic council between the three Baltic Sea Governments . After trilateral consultations between the governorates of Estonia , Livonia and Courland , the first meeting of the council took place on July 12, 1906 in Riga . The council should have an advisory role and support the governor general in his political and economic activities. But at the end of 1906, after the assumption of office and the reform efforts of the Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Arkadjewitsch Stolypin , he had to stop his activity.

  • Coat of arms of the Estonia Governorate

  • Coat of arms of the Livonia Governorate

  • Coat of arms of the Courland Governorate

background

After the Russian Revolution of 1905 , the three knights of Estonia , Livonia and Courland pushed ahead with the expansion of self- government in the three Baltic Sea Governments . In addition, they called for a "Baltic General Government".

  • Estonia was the northernmost Baltic Sea governorate until 1918, it had the Estonian Knighthood and its own state parliament , which was composed of landowners and which met every three years.
  • In Livonia there was the liberation of the peasants in 1819 , with which the Baltic Governments played a pioneering role within Russia. In 1835 the Russian code was introduced and the Russian official language was given priority. Serious Russification was not practiced until the 1880s, in particular, Russian was declared the sole official language in 1884 .
  • On March 18, 1795, Kurland's state parliament decided to submit to the Russian scepter . Politically, the Baltic German knighthood was able to assert a dominant role.

The years 1905 to 1917 marked a particularly political, intellectual and social upheaval for the Baltic States. With the increasing settlement of Russian officials, merchants, industrialists and workers, the German-Baltic knighthoods felt their influence waning. From this a national and economic consciousness developed in the rural population and continued in the peasantry through the purchase of land . In the summer of 1905 riots broke out in the course of which German landowners and officials were murdered and their houses destroyed. The uprisings of 1905 were put down and the tsarist authorities carried out drastic punitive expeditions against the "revolution" in Latvia and Estonia from December 1905 to 1908 . In the meantime, German parties and political associations had emerged that had activated the political, social and cultural life of the Baltic Germans in a very short time. During this time the knighthoods tried to found a state body , which was to receive the designation "Baltic Konseil".

The Konseil

The "Baltic General Government" to be founded was to be assigned a total of 18 representatives from large landowners, city representatives and the peasantry to support it. The task of this new body, which was discussed from different perspectives, was supposed to work out reform proposals and propose them to the Governor General. Finally, the 1st Baltic Konseil held on July 12, 1906 consisted of two representatives from each of the four state parliaments (Estonia, Livonia, Courland and Ösel), three representatives from the governorate cities of Riga, Reval and Mitau, and eight delegates from the rural communities.

Baltic Assembly

Plenary session of the Baltic Assembly in the meeting room of the Riigikogu in Tallinn 2011

Almost 90 years later, the first idea of ​​a “Baltic Council” could be put into practice, albeit in a politically changed situation. The Baltic Assembly is an organization established in 1991 for closer cooperation between the parliaments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It was founded in Tallinn on November 8, 1991, shortly after the three Baltic states regained their independence from the Soviet Union . On June 13, 1994, the parliaments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania adopted the structures and principles of the Baltic Assembly.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The name Konseil is derived from the French word "conseil" and means advice. [1]
  2. ↑ Dietmar Willoweit / Hans Lemberg , Reiche und Territorien in Ostmitteleuropa: Historical relationships and political legitimation of rule, Volume 2 of Peoples, States and Cultures in East Central Europe, Verlag Walter de Gruyter , 2006, ISBN 3486838644 [2] , page 306
  3. ↑ The Oeselsche knighthood was from the second half of the 16th century until 1920, the political and legal merger of the predominantly German-Baltic nobility on the island Oesel in today's Estonia.