Heritage for the Public?
Heritage for the Public?

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the activities of architectural heritage protection carried out in the Baltic provinces during the long nineteenth century within the social and political context of the age. The preconditions for these activities are briefly examined, with the focus on the work performed in the field of conceptual ideas and practical measures taken to identify and preserve significant historic buildings following the actual trends of the day, as well as considering the specific circumstances characteristic to the Baltic provinces in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The protection of architectural heritage was linked to the development of ethnic nationalism in the late Russian Empire, expressed mainly in the activities of Baltic German voluntary associations dealing with local history and architecture, and laying the foundations for a modern approach to architectural heritage protection in present-day Estonia and Latvia. This paper is devoted to architectural heritage protection activities carried out by the Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Altertumskunde der Ostseeprovinzen Russlands, founded in 1834 in Riga, an association for local history studies that became the most influential public institution working in the field of historical research in the three Baltic provinces during the long nineteenth century.

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