Abstract

The emergence of the Estonian national movement at the end of the 19th century led also to the politization of local anti-alcohol activity. The latter was proclaimed – in the atmosphere of the biologization of social thought typical of the era – a means of Estonian national emancipation. The situation was not similar among another social group inhabiting the Baltic provinces of Russia 100 years ago – the so-called Baltic Germans. Baltic Germans constituted the upper strata of the local society of that time. However, they, did not consider the issue of emancipation important and preached personal autonomy of individuals when the use of alcohol was discussed.

It was paradoxical that one of the leading anti-alcohol propagandists of the era, Gustav Piers v. Bunge, came from among Baltic Germans Being a professor in Basel, Bunge was seriously worried about the situation in his homeland, especially with the German speaking people facing, according to him, “degeneration” because of alcohol. Bunge was convinced that if (Baltic-)Germans were not poisoning themselves with alcohol they would be able to play a much more central role in the history of Russia as well as of the whole world. (A quite Pan-Germanistic statement, and, indeed, Bunge could be viewed as one of the founding fathers of German “racial hygiene”.)

Thanks to the efforts of Bunge, but also pressure from the Estonian anti-alcohol organizations ,the members of the German elite were gradually won over to the antialcohol activity. In the wake of World War I local German medical societies were already discussing alcohol related issues, and German female anti-alcohol societies were beginning to take shape.