Baltic Germans is the term that came to be used in the 19th century to describe German speaking inhabitants living in the area that would later become Estonia and Latvia, but which were then Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire. The Teutonic Knights first conquered the area in the 13 th century, and from then on, they formed an upper class of nobles, clerics, academics, businessmen and craftsmen, but few became landowners. Both under Swedish and Russian rule, they were granted privileges which gave them considerable autonomy. These were only abolished with the establishment of independence in Estonia and Latvia in 1920. Nonetheless, many Baltic Germans would continue to live in the area until 1940.

There were no peasants among the Baltic Germans, most of whom were aristocratic landowners who represented the Baltic German self-awareness as the world-view of the conquerors of the land and the crusaders. The first Baltic Germans, after all, arrived in Estonia in the 13th century as crusaders, accompanied by merchants and priests, who conquered the new territories in both a political and economic sense. On the one hand, memories of those heroic days formed a strong foundation for the Baltic German myth, while, on the other hand, beginning in the mid-19th century, this formed an increasingly impenetrable wall between the Baltic Germans and Estonians/Latvians, who saw the Baltic Germans as an unpleasant colonial burden.

The Baltic Germans never constituted more than a small percentage of the population of the Estonian territory. True, the medieval culture in the area was mostly German-language, but issues of nationality were not raised back then in the way they are today. In the Middle Ages, the German share of the population in Estonian towns was never more than 50-60%. Culturally, this was, in a sense, a colonial culture that relied on the values of the Christian Occident and its technical achievements, but had nevertheless adopted a remarkable number of elements from the local people. Examples can be found in the specific Tallinn church architecture, fashion or state administration – a complicated mixture of German and ancient Estonian elements. One the one hand, Germans were seen as destroyers of ancient Estonian culture; on the other hand, the arrival of the Baltic Germans and the conquest of the Estonian territory introduced 'European culture' in this part of the world. As elsewhere in Europe, this culture acquired an original form, thus changing both the conquerors and the conquered.

In the Livonian War, waged in the middle of the 16th century, the medieval Old Livonian system of administration, supported by the Baltic Germans, collapsed and the local Baltic German elite had to acknowledge the supremacy of competing great powers. The attempts of the Swedes to turn the conquered areas into a territory with a political culture similar to that of Sweden and Finland had no time to bear fruit, because in the early 18th century Russia invaded the area of today’s Estonia and Latvia.

The heyday of the Baltic German manor culture lasted approximately from 1721 to 1870. Russian rulers did not interfere in the internal affairs of the Baltic German community, and the period known in Estonian and Latvian history as the darkest time of serfdom constituted an era for the Baltic German nobility when they could realise their economic, political and cultural dreams. Beautiful manor houses were built, with designs commissioned from Italian and German architects. Selling grain and spirits to Russia further increased the Baltic German wealth and, consequently, the power of the elite. They jealously protected their privileges and were quick to make use of the advantages, including the fact that Russia was slowly opening up to Europe and needed the Baltic Germans to become a part of the Western cultural space. Soon the Baltic Germans were swarming in the palaces of St Petersburg and Peterhof.

The period from the mid-18th century to mid-19th century was a real German century, although the language was mostly French. Germans, mainly Baltic Germans, made up the top official bureaucracy, the army and developing science. This had an impact on the homeland of the Baltic Germans, where new winds were blowing as well. What exactly their influence was is still being debated today, and constitutes quite a problem amongst Estonian historians, because, in the words of an 18th century man of letters, the Enlightenment in Estonia and Latvia was accompanied by screams from peasants being beaten.

In the 19th century, the almost overwhelming influence of the local German community in running the Russian empire began to decrease and, from the middle of the century, Estonians and Latvians, previously restricted to the status of peasants, demanded the right to their own culture. The Baltic Germans, however, remained the economic force in the country, practically until 1939.

The Baltic German cultural self-awareness was mightily boosted by the opening of the only German-language university in the Russian empire in Tartu at the beginning of the 19th century; in the 19th century, Baltic German literature and figurative art also reached its zenith. At the same time, the second half of the 19th century was a kind of beginning of the end. The Baltic Germans realised too late that they had alienated themselves both from the Russian central powers and from local Estonians and Latvians, who were successfully developing their own culture in their own language.

The local German community was not always totally clear about their identity. After all, centuries had changed the content and appearance of that group of people as well. On the one hand, the Baltic German nobility greatly revered the ideals of the 13th century crusaders and, through their claims, the right to their land, which for them meant the right of the original conquest. Non-aristocratic Baltic Germans added to this construction the Hansa era and Christianisation of the country, the myth of Kulturträgertum.

On the other hand, the Baltic German community underwent repeated changes - the wars in 16th century Europe replaced a third, or even two thirds, of the Baltic German population. The most obvious result was the gradual replacement of Low German (Plattdeutsch) with High German (Hochdeutsch). The upper classes were gradually supplemented by noblemen and adventurers from France or from the British Isles. Southern Estonia, which in the 16th and 17th centuries was occupied by Poland, was the destination for numerous noblemen from Poland/Lithuania. The 18th century brought new inhabitants from Russia. They became German and, by the 19th century, the most prominent among them, such as Barclay de Tolly, Douglas, Girard de Soucanton and Baranoff, all spoke German and represented the Baltic sub-category of German culture.

However, the Russification policy, which started in the second half of the 19th century, gradually pushed the Baltic Germans aside, back to the Baltic Sea provinces where the Baltic German culture increasingly withdrew into itself, no longer influencing the mainstream of history. The situation was not even saved by the last desperate attempt of the Baltic Germans: the idea of establishing a new state, dependent on the German empire, in the territories of Estonia and Latvia in the turmoil of WW I. As it was, there were too few Baltic Germans by that time, and their ideas clashed with the modern nationalist movement of the early 20th century, which made it possible to found independent Estonian and Latvian states. In hindsight, this seemed like the beginning of the end, but we might always ask: what if history had taken another turn?