LAND REFORM LEGISLATION IN ESTONIA AND THE DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE BALTIC GERMAN RURAL ELITE, 1919-1939

The economic reforms implemented in the successor states after the First World War were indispensable prerequisites for the formation of nation states. The reforms were especially necessary in the agrarian sector. In the Baltic area, the land reform laws disestablished a rural elite that had been in a controlling economic and social position since the Middle Ages.;Exhibiting a tenacity that had characterized the Baltic German elite through the centuries, the remnant of the rural gentry undertook a rebuilding of a Baltic German landholding element. In this their attempts were supported by Germany. The Weimar Republic was interested in maintaining a German landholding element in the border states. As shown in the dissertation, the Baltic German landholders were generally masters of more extensive farms than their Estonian Colleagues.;The land reform itself proved to be generally successful, in spite of dire predictions by Baltic German propagandists. Over the years some of the more radical features of the legislation were changed. In the course of the two decades of Estonian independence the agrarian structure of the country was completely transformed, with the large landholdings replaced by an extensive system of family farms. Thus the land reform legislation had not only profound economic, but also social and political significance.;It is obvious, that the former landholders would use all the methods at their disposal to prevent the radical land reforms. The dissertation shows how their responses ranged from outright military action to the mobilization of foreign powers. On the other hand, the indigenous government, precariously positioned between several potentially hostile powers, was hard-pressed to justify the necessity of the land reforms. As a result of complex diplomatic maneuvering the issue was finally settled some ten years after the passage of the original land reform legislation. When the attempts to prevent the passage of the land reform legislation failed, the former landholders concentrated on securing a relatively sizeable compensation. This issue, too, was to become an object of international diplomacy. The compensation question prevented the passage of a trade treaty between Estonia and Germany for some years, and resulted in a formal complaint to the League of Nations.