Baltic Germans
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Baltic Germans is a historical community of German speakers living in the Baltic Sea region, mostly modern Estonia and Latvia. After 1945, their numbers drastically declined, with many relocating to G
Russian Baltic governorates
Dukes of Courland's Rundāle Palace
The many manors in Estonia and Latvia testify to the former splendor of the Baltic German landowning class. Pictured, the von Stackelberg family's manor in Vääna, Estonia
The von Lieven family's Mežotne Palace in Latvia
The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was a duchy in the Baltic region, then known as Livonia, that existed from 1561 to 1569 as a nominal vassal state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and subsequently
Baltic Germans
…which took the island of Ösel), Sweden (which took northern Estonia) and Poland, which annexed the newly created Duchy of Livonia, and granted the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, a vassal state of Poland-Lithuania, to the last Master of the Livonian Order Gotthard Kettler. The secularized land was divided among the remaining…
Double-Denar with monogram of Grand Duke Stephen Báthory and the coat of arms of Lithuania, minted in Mitau, 1578
Coin of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia with portrait of Ernst Johann von Biron, coat of arms of Poland and the coat of arms of Lithuania, 1764
Jelgava Palace, the main residence of the dukes
Gotthard Kettler