After the Russian conquest of the Baltic provinces of Estonia, Livonia and Courland in the 18th century, the Baltic German people played an important role in the modernisation of the Tsarist empire, carried out by Peter the Great and his successors. Because of their good education, contacts and Western style of life they were considered an elite across the whole of the empire.
The Tsarist empire offered its German-speaking subjects good career opportunities. As civil servants, military men, medical doctors, researchers and merchants they sped up the knowledge transfer between west and east. A close link to rulers and governments secured the Baltic area for a long time a special place in the Russian empire. With the rise of Estonian and Latvian nationalism and increased pressure from Russia the Baltic Germans were put on the defensive.