Rigby, Elizabeth. Letters From the Baltic. London: John Murray, 1844. (160 pages)

Elizabeth Rigby, born in England in the year 1809. As a single woman, she traveled from London to Estonia via Norway, Denmark and Russia in 1838.

The century and a half after the old “good Swedish” time, following the Great Northern War, which ended with the Peace of Uusikaupunki, was a relatively static period in Estonian history with few momentous events. This was the time of the crystallisation of the class system and the culmination of serfdom, when various socio-political and cultural undercurrents were also active, preparing the ground for the emergence of industrial society and the national-democratic movement in the second half of the 19th century. In 1844 Rigby published her collection of letters, titled Letters from the Baltic. Rigby notes that the purpose of her travels and her letters are an attempt at "the philosophy of this country"

While in Estonia, she stays with a sister who is married to a Baltic German. Rigby describes in great detail the Baltic German nobility, their wealthy habits, dissipated lifestyle and willingness not to study local language and habits. Rigby also writes the Estonian nobility need to match their education more with their land for they can do more "to promote the welfare of his little, fertile, favoured province, than the Russian government has at present inclination to thwart it."

In her letters from the Baltic Rigby describes realistically the situation of local Estonian peasants. Unfortunately, she tries convincing the reader that the peasant conditions are those of "free people" and she praises the provinces of Estonia, Livonia, and Courland for being amongst the first to enfranchise their serfs. It seams that Rigby does not know or do not want to know the fact that these same regions were forced to free serfs under Swedish rule, only to have it reinstated when the Russians took power in the early 1700’s.

(HV 2006)