Courland Governorate

Latvia, 1796–1918. Draft, not yet reviewed

The Courland Governorate, initially organized in 1795–1796 as the Courland Viceroyalty, was a province (guberniya) and one of the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire. The governorate was created in 1795 following the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, when the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was incorporated into the Russian Empire. Like the neighbouring Baltic provinces, Courland retained regional administrative autonomy managed by the local Baltic German nobility through the Courland Landtag, and serfdom was abolished in 1817. Russian rule formally ended with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, and the territory became part of the independent Republic of Latvia in November 1918.

Seat of power: Jelgava

Rulers

Paul I of Russia

Emperor of all the Russias, 1796–1801

Paul I was Emperor of Russia from 1796 until his assassination in 1801. He also imposed the first limitations on serfdom with the Manifesto of three-day corvee, sought to curtail the privileges of the nobility, pursued various military reforms which were highly unpopular among officers and was known for his unpredictable behavior, all of which contributed to the conspiracy that took his life.

Portrait of Paul I of Russia: Vladimir Borovikovsky, Public domain, file

Alexander I of Russia

Emperor of all the Russias, 1801–1825

In the first years of his reign, he initiated some minor social reforms and (in 1803–1804) major liberal educational reforms, such as building more universities. He was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first King of Congress Poland from 1815, and the Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to his death in 1825.

Portrait of Alexander I of Russia: George Dawe, Public domain, file

Nicholas I of Russia

Emperor of all the Russias, 1825–1855

He was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 1825 to 1855. He is mainly remembered as a reactionary whose controversial reign was marked by geographical expansion, centralisation of administrative policies, and repression of dissent both in Russia and among its neighbors.

Portrait of Nicholas I of Russia: Georg von Bothmann, Public domain, file

Alexander II of Russia

Emperor of all the Russias, 1855–1881

He is also known as Alexander the Liberator because of his historic Edict of Emancipation, which officially abolished Russian serfdom in 1861. However, many of these reforms were met with intense backlash and cut back or reversed entirely, and Alexander eventually shifted towards a considerably more conservative political stance following an assassination attempt against him in 1866.

Portrait of Alexander II of Russia: Attributed to W. & D. Downey, Public domain, file

Alexander III of Russia

Emperor of all the Russias, 1881–1894

He was highly reactionary in domestic affairs and reversed some of the liberal reforms of his father, Alexander II, a policy of "counter-reforms". During his reign, Russia fought no major wars, and he came to be known as The Peacemaker.

Portrait of Alexander III of Russia: Sergey Lvovich Levitsky, Public domain, file

Nicholas II of Russia

Emperor of all the Russias, 1894–1917

He was the last Emperor of Russia from 1 November 1894 until his abdication in 1917. Despite ostensibly presiding over a constitutional monarchy, Nicholas resisted political reform and retained autocratic control over the nation's governance even after the establishment of the Duma.

Portrait of Nicholas II of Russia: Unknown author (originally uploaded to Wikimedia Commons on 22 August 2012 by Peruanec), Public domain, file

Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia

Emperor of all the Russias, 1917–1917

He was designated Emperor of Russia after his brother abdicated in 1917 and proclaimed him "Emperor Michael II", but Michael declined to take power a day later.

Portrait of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file

Culture

Built during a period of rapid economic growth, most of Riga's Art Nouveau buildings date from between 1904 and 1914.
Between 1897 and 1913, the city grew by 88%, reaching a population of 530,000 in 1914 and making it the fifth largest city in the Russian Empire and the third largest in the Baltic region.
In 1915, during World War I, the province was occupied by the German Army under Ober Ost.
Since Courland remained under German occupation, Čakste and the Land Council focused on assisting war refugees who had fled to Livonia and Estonia.

Picture

Art Nouveau architecture in Riga makes up roughly one third of all the buildings in the centre of Riga.

Image: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0, file

Sources

Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.