Western Borderlands in the Eighteenth Century
Journal: Oxford University Press eBooks
Year: 2017

Abstract The chapter explores the eighteenth-century expansion of the Russian empire west and into the Black Sea steppe, culminating in the political and judicial reforms of Catherine II in 1770s–80s that destroyed many existing local autonomies. It details general tolerance of German institutions and elites as Russia acquired Livonia where a Baltic German nobility ruled over enserfed Latvian and Estonian peasants and summarizes Catherine II’s populationist importing of German and other settlers