ABSTRACT
HISTORICAL PRECONDITIONS FOR LAND REFORM Land reform and family farming have a long historical precedent in the Baltics. The transition from serfdom to family farming began in the early 19th century in the Baltic provinces of Kurland, Livland, and Estland (present-day Estonia and about two-thirds of present-day Latvia) under the Russian Empire. 1 The first step, though, was not ownership but rather an incremental increase in personal freedom for peasant-cultivators? Only in the second half of the 19th century were peasants in these provinces granted the right to buy their land holdings. 3 In the territory encompassing present-day Lithuania and the rest of present-day Latvia, which at that time were under Russian rule, the control of the nobility over estates had been curtailed.4 Emancipated serfs were granted the right to buy land during the same period as those in the Baltic provinces of Kurland, Livland, and Estland. Although these reforms led to a rapid increase in the number of owner-cultivators by the beginning of World War I, about 50 percent ofthe agricultural land was still owned by the state, the Church, or large private landlords. 5
The collapse of the Russian Empire after World War I and the sudden realization of national independence by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania provided the opportunity and the political necessity to implement radical land reform measures. In the tradition of agrarian reforms in the eastern part of Europe, these reform measures were initiated and managed by the state and driven as much or more by political as economic objectives.6 The reform involved expropriation of land (mostly from the large private estates), compensation, and land redistribution that began in Estonia in 1919, in Latvia in 1920, and in Lithuania in 1922? The recipients of the land were those who had served in the national armies, those who were landless, and existing smallholders who could demonstrate a need for more land.
