History Of Estonia 101: Part Seven

Continuing from the last post...'

Of Palaces and Emancipation


So, from 1721 for sure, Estonia was a part of Peter the Great's Russian Empire, and continued to be so long after Peter. It was during this time that the Kadriorg Palace was built outside (then) Tallinn; named after his wife, Catherine I, it was not quite on the same scale as St Petersburg but employed an architect, Zemtsov, who'd been involved in the construction of the new city on the Neva. After Peter died in 1725 his wife showed little interest in visiting her summer home (which was still unfinished) and the palace we have today in fact dates from about a hundred years later, when Tsar Nicholas I ordered a drastic renovation in 1827. The palace gives its name to the surrounding district today.

Though the good old Swedish times were definitely over, many aspects of life continued as they had been. The two Duchies (Estonia and Livonia) enjoyed a relatively high degree of autonomy, in the same way that the Duchy of Finland to the North (a Russian acquisition after the Napoleonic wars) also did. A relatively progressive part of the empire, a trend that was to continue in the twentieth century, Estonia saw the abolition of serfdom in 1819, far earlier than in Russia proper, enabling the former peasants to own their own land or move to Tallinn or the other cities.

Nevertheless it was not all rosy. A disastrous series of crop failures in the early 1840s saw famine and epidemic (curiously almost concurrent with the Irish potato famine). Russian rule also brought a new religious denomination, Orthodoxy. There had long been orthodox people of Russian descent living in Estonia, most notably old believers descended from refugees who had refused to accept the reforms of Patriarch Nikon in 1666-1667. Now native Estonians could convert to Orthodoxy following the establishment of a bishopric at Riga. In a manner which only really resonates if you know anything of the Estonian character, mass conversions started in part due to the fact that the Orthodox church taxes were lower than the Lutheran ones, and upon the (no doubt intentionally spread) rumours that converts would be rewarded lands in return. Many disappointed peasants re-converted to Lutheranism when it became clear that this benefit was not to materialize! In this respect it could be argued that there was more freedom in Estonia at the time than there was in Sweden, surprisingly enough, where it was illegal for a citizen to convert to any denomination other than the state Lutheran church until 1860.

Unfortunately for Estonia's occupying powers, however, in a pattern which was to be repeated later on in Estonia (and in many places around the world) granting greater freedoms, far from placating demands for freedom, often has the reverse effect, and leads to more and more demands...

Kadriorg Palace in winter, believe it or not.