The dominions of Swedish Estonia (in what is now northern Estonia) and Swedish Livonia (in what is now southern Estonia and northern Latvia) became the governorates of Reval and Riga when they were conquered by Russia during the Great Northern War, and then ceded by Sweden in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721. Notably, both Reval Governorate and Riga Governorate were each at the time subdivided into one province only: the province of Estonia and the province of Livonia, respectively. In the period of the so-called Regency (or Namestnichestvo), 1783–1796, the Regent's (later Governor-General's) Office in Riga was created. It consisted of two subdivisions dealing with local matters and Russian affairs.
After an administrative reform in 1796, the Reval Governorate was renamed the Estland Governorate (Russian: Эстляндская губерния), and the Riga Governorate was renamed the Livland Governorate (Russian: Лифляндская губерния). The third Baltic province, Courland, was annexed into the Russian Empire after the third partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795.
The Baltic Governor-General (Russian: Прибалтийский генерал-губернатор) was the representative of the Russian Emperor in the provinces of Livland, Estland, and Courland. He was appointed by the Emperor and was subject to the latter as well as to the Senate. His duties were regulated by laws and instructions from central authorities. From the beginning of the 19th century, he acted as an intermediate between the ministries in Saint Petersburg and the administration of the Baltic governorates on the spot.
The Governor-General, the highest local executive official and military authority, was in charge of the internal order in the provinces and had to take care of their overall security. He was in charge of recruiting troops and had to keep an eye on the garrisons and fortifications. His civil duties included supervising the provincial administration and prisons, maintaining land roads and bridges, issuing passports, and overseeing the collection of state taxes and customs duties. He appointed and dismissed higher officials. The Office of the Baltic Governor-General was abolished at the beginning of the Russification in the Baltic Provinces in 1876.
Similar to the guberniyas of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, the Baltic Governorates were not subject to the common civil and administrative laws of the Russian Empire until the end of the 19th century. However, they did not have a monetary, fiscal, and passport system of their own.[3] Like the guberniyas of the Kingdom of Poland, they were treated as an integral entity, and Russian law provided them the preservation of local authorities.[4] In the Baltics, these were the Landtags. The special legislation which set rules for municipal administration and entrepreneurship according to local traditions, as well as the privileges of the local nobility, was known under the collective name of Ostsee Right (Russian: Остзейское право).
↑Tuchtenhagen, Ralph (2005) (in German). Geschichte der baltischen Länder. Beck'sche Reihe. 2355. C.H.Beck.
↑Kahle, Wilhelm (1984). "Die Bedeutung der Confessio Augustana für die Kirche im Osten". In Hauptmann, Peter (in German). Studien zur osteuropäischen Kirchengeschichte und Kirchenkunde. Kirche im Osten. 27. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. pp. 9–35.
↑Thaden, Edward C. (Hrsg.), Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855-1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1981. ISBN0-691-05314-6.
¹ Italics indicates renamed or abolished governorates, oblasts, etc on 1 January 1914. ² An asterisk (+) indicates governorates formed or created with renaming after 1 January 1914. ³ Ostsee or Baltic general-governorship was abolished in 1876.
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