Estonian Manor Houses

Estonian Manor Houses

Alu

Saxa te loquuntur, let the stones speak to you! This is the motto that Carl Friedrich von Staal had engraved on the pediment of his manor house in Järvakandi, Central Estonia, more than 200 years ago. Von Staal, who had served in both the French and the Russian armies, had been the tutor of the Holstein-Gottorp princes for 12 years and travelled with them all over Europe. The mansion with Palladian forms was not only one of the finest among other manor houses, it also contained a rich variety of paintings and sculptures, and had a magnificent English garden.

Staal had his mansion built of such enduring strength that it would be able to last until the Doomsday trumpets. Unfortunately, not even proper ruins have survived: Järvakandi was one of those manor houses which was set on fire during the first Russian revolution in December 1905. Later its walls were taken away to fill the roads and to be used as building material.

In the second half of the 18th century, Estonian manor house architecture flourished. The Great Northern War at the beginning of the century had destroyed a large number of older manor houses. Therefore not many manor houses dating from the older Swedish period (i.e. late 16th - early 17th century) have survived. It took dozens of years to overcome the war chaos, and it was not until the 1760s that a new boom occurred. According to the words of contemporaries, it was as if the lords of the manors were seized by a madness to build. Families, who had previously lived in rather modest wooden houses, moved one after the other, into large mansions. Of the 200 manor houses currently under state protection as architectural monuments, about 1/3 were built in the late 18th century. In terms of stylistic development, Baltic manor house architecture did not lag much behind Western Europe - close contacts with foreign countries, travel, and widely available architectural literature made it possible to keep up with the most recent developments. The only indication of being a bit behind the times is the fact that various phenomena were imported from western architecture in a crystallised form, ready-made. The building of manor houses embodied not only the local, but also German, Russian and even Italian architectural concepts. The manor houses and parks of that period became remarkable signs of the rest of Europe in the Estonian landscape.

Construction was also quite brisk in the early 19th century, especially during the 1820s and 30s. This period which was the culmination of Neo Classicism in Estonia produced not only magnificent manor houses, with numerous white porticoes, but also various outbuildings, gazebos, chapels, etc. Although by their descent, language and Lutheran faith, the Baltic nobility was primarily German, many of them worked in Russia. Thus both German and Russian influences are evident in manor house architecture. This was the time when areas, dominated by the most dense concentration of imposing manor houses, were finally established: around larger cities like Tallinn, Tartu and Haapsalu, as well as in Virumaa and Järvamaa (Northern and Central Estonia) where the lords of the manors accumulated wealth by selling vodka and cattle to St.Petersburg.

The 2nd half of the 19th century was marked, first of all, by the powerful emergence of new trends, i.e. NeoGothic and NeoRenaissance. Most of the mansions built at that time were rather picturesque, having, besides German and Russian influence, also English influence. The tradition of Historicism partly continued into the 20th century, but an inkling of Jugendstil was already there.

The 20th century has been a difficult time for manor houses - many buildings suffered considerably during the 1905 revolution. The first laws of the newly independent Republic of Estonia included the 1919 Land Reform Act which radically restricted the landed properties of the manor house owners. This destroyed the economic basis of the manor houses, and several were already abandoned by the 1920s. The Soviet annexation in 1940 brought along a nihilistic attitude towards values of the past, especially towards manor houses which were regarded as an embodiment of the "architecture of the exploiters class". Still, over 500 manor houses and parks have survived in Estonia. Thanks to them, the Estonian cultural heritage is considerably more complex architecturally, linguistically and psychologically than it might appear at first sight.

Palmse Alu Kaysersling (by Rapla)

Ants Hein