Re: A drive through western Livonia


Peteris Cedrin? (Peteris Cedrins) wrote:
> Vello -- and your contention that "locals had private property" was
> affected how by the Czar's reforms? Freed from serfdom, many lost
> everything -- "bird's freedom," in Latvian; in effect, their stolen
> land was stolen a second time. There are indeed similarities to
> sharecropping in the Southern states. The Capitulations were something
> the Germans emphasized. There were extreme and major changes in the
> 19th C.
>
> /P

Mostly same for Estonia. Well a bit later starts campain to buy land
out from barons and it was quite successful, expecially in mid-Estonia.
Same, I think, happens in Latvia. For freedom war, layer on what
national movement was build up, were estonian landowners, controlling
most part of land for that time.
For capitulations - they don't make us free from foreign dominition -
but they keep Estonia and Latvia european, secures Lutheran faith with
his demand to be literate - and with his basic idea that there is
somebody up here in heaven, but down on Earth all men are equal - no
popes or cardinals in halfway on ladder between Earth and Heaven.
Estonians, living up to 1920 on Russian territory in Petseri area were
really on low cultural level with high illiteracy %, close to as high
as in Russia.
This way, despite we have no ground to say thank you to crusader
barons, also much worse alternative was possible.

Also, we must not look baltic germans as one ideological group.
Barons-landlords yes, nothing to remember, but in cities german and
artesans, merchants etc keep touch contacts with other Europe - and
estonians were welcome in cities. Not only as labour - say, in Tallinn
there was guild of "mündrichs" - they organized cargo from/to ships in
international trade. Just estonians and swedes are allowed to join, but
not germans. It was less powerful then Grossguilde of germans, but city
life wasn't about lords and serfs at all. In time rural areas lost
folks to cities all the time, creating more and more really free
estonians. And this way it went.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A drive through western Livonia
    ... Freed from serfdom, many lost ... Well a bit later starts campain to buy land ... Estonians, living up to 1920 on Russian territory in Petseri area were ... we must not look baltic germans as one ideological group. ...
    (soc.culture.baltics)
  • Re: The Geneva Conventions & Terrorists
    ... along with a Free French escort fighting a Vichy ... >> Norweigan exiles fought the SS Viking Division, ... > Estonians fought for or against other Estonians, ... The Estonians, for example, fought both Germans ...
    (sci.military.naval)
  • Re: The Geneva Conventions & Terrorists
    ... > Estonians fought for or against other Estonians, Germans or Russians. ... The Estonians, for example, fought both Germans ... survivors among the eventual victors might chose to wreak substantial ...
    (sci.military.naval)