Baltic provinces
| Baltic governorates Прибалтийские губернии |
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| Governorates of the Russian Empire | |||||
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| History | |||||
| • | Great Northern War | 1721 | |||
| • | Established | 1721 | |||
| • | Treaty of Brest-Litovsk | March 3, 1918 | |||
The Baltic governorates (Russian: Прибалтийские губернии), originally the Ostsee governorates (German: Ostseegouvernements, Russian: Остзейские губернии), is 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).
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 (Polish: Indygenat), and continuation of the traditional German jurisdiction and administration. The terms regarding religious freedom forbade any regulation of the traditional Protestant order by religious or secular authorities, and ruled that cases of disagreements be judged only by Protestant scholars. When in 1710 Estonia and Livonia capitulated to Russia during the Great Northern War, the capitulations explicitly referred to the Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti, with the respective references being confirmed in the Treaty of Nystad (1721).
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 in 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, 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.
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