International Law and Justice Working Papers - IILJ

Iur'ev, was designed to remind of that ancient continuity of the Russian presence. In the first
place, I'urev passed a message to the Baltic Germans: we were here before you.
The Kulturkampf between the Baltic Germans and the Russian central power in the second half
of the 19th century was carried out at the background of the emancipation of the native peoples,
the Estonians and the Latvians. A distinct feature of those peoples was there relative smallness in
terms of numbers - in fact, Friedrich Engels' diminutive word Völkerabfälle in characterizing the
Slavonic peoples of the Austria-Hungarian Empire could have even more be used with respect to
the Estonians and the Latvians. The Estonian and the Latvian nations were born of the idea that
distinct languages form the bases of distinct nations. Estonian, a Fenno-Ugric language close to
Finnish and Latvian, a Baltic language close to Lithuanian, were unlike German or Russian.
Herder's national ideas empowered the Estonian and Latvian quest for identity and selfdetermination.
The national identity of the Estonians and the Latvians was primarily a linguistic
one. As the Russians started to challenge the position of the Baltic Germans, both the Russians
and the Germans appealed to the interests and sympathy of the native peoples making at that
time though a process of emancipation. This emancipation finally led to the creation of the
Estonian and Latvian nation States in 1918.
With this background information in mind, we can now turn to the life and work of August
Bulmerincq.
3. Vita: Noblesse oblige