Baltic governorates [SEP] inception
Baltic governorates
The Baltic governorates (), originally the Ostsee governorates (, ), was a collective name for the administrative units of the Russian Empire set up in the territories of Swedish Estonia, Swedish Livonia (1721) and, afterwards, of Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (1795).
History.
The Treaty of Vilnius of 1561 included the "Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti" by which Sigismund II Augustus guaranteed the Livonian estates several privileges, including religious freedom with respect to the Augsburg Confession, the "Indigenat"
Between 1710 and 1795, following Russia's success in the Great Northern War and the three Partitions of Poland, the areas inhabited by Baltic Germans eventually became Baltic governorates of Russian Empire - Courland Governorate, Governorate of Livonia and Governorate of Estonia.
Russia's Baltic governorates (1710–1917) Autonomy.
The Baltic provinces remained autonomous and were self-governed by the local Baltic nobility. Until the imperial reforms of 1880s local government was in the hands of the landtag of each province, in which only members of the matriculated Baltic nobility