After the end of the Great Northern War in 1721, the Baltic region was brought under the rule of the Russian Empire, but the peasants continued to be administered by the Baltic German nobility under a feudal Landtag. Serfdom was subsequently expanded under Catherine the Great, after the defeat of Pugachev's Rebellion. In response, local voices such as Johann Georg Eisen von Schwarzenberg and Garlieb Merkel began to advocate for the abolition of serfdom.