Gustav II Adolfs bibel 1618 - portrait of Gustav II Adolf

The first duke of Estonia ( da, Hertug af Estland ) was appointed in 1220 by King

Valdemar II of Denmark Valdemar (28 June 1170 – 28 March 1241), later remembered as Valdemar the Victorious (), was the King of Denmark (being Valdemar II) from 1202 until his death in 1241. Background He was the second son of King Valdemar I of Denmark and Sophi ...

after the Danish conquest of Estonia during the

Livonian crusade The Livonian crusade refers to the various military Christianisation campaigns in medieval Livonia – in what is now Latvia and Estonia – during the Papal -sanctioned Northern Crusades in the 12–13th century. The Livonian crusade was cond ...

. The title was resumed by the kings of Denmark since 1269. During the 1266-82 reign of the queen dowager

Margaret Sambiria Margaret Sambiria (in Danish: ''Margrethe Sambiria'', ''Sambirsdatter'' or ''Margrethe Sprænghest''; c. 1230 – December 1282) was Queen of Denmark by marriage to King Christopher I, and regent during the minority of her son, King Eric V fro ...

, the title ''lady of Estonia'' ( la, Domina Estonie) was used. In 1332, after Christopher II died, his second son

Otto Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded f ...

inherited the title of the duke of Estonia.

Valdemar III Valdemar III (1314–1364) was King of Denmark from 1326 to 1329, while he was underage; he was also Duke of Schleswig as Valdemar V in 1325–26 and from 1330 to 1364. He was a rival king set up against the unsuccessful Christopher II and was w ...

assumed the title in 1338. The dukes of Estonia rarely resided in Estonia. To govern the Duchy of Estonia, the king of Denmark and royal counsellors appointed the Lieutenant ( la, Capitaneus), who resided in

Reval Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ''m ...

. The king of Denmark sold the duchy to the

Teutonic Order The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians on ...

in 1346, but

Christian I Christian I (February 1426 – 21 May 1481) was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was king of Denmark (1448–1481), Norway (1450–1481) and Sweden (1457–1464). From 1460 to 1481, he was also duke of Schleswig (within ...

reassumed the title of duke of Estonia in 1456. After the

Livonian War The Livonian War (1558–1583) was the Russian invasion of Old Livonia, and the prolonged series of military conflicts that followed, in which Tsar Ivan the Terrible of Russia (Muscovy) unsuccessfully fought for control of the region (pr ...

, Estonia became part of the

Swedish Empire The Swedish Empire was a European great power that exercised territorial control over much of the Baltic region during the 17th and early 18th centuries ( sv, Stormaktstiden, "the Era of Great Power"). The beginning of the empire is usually ta ...

, and the title was gained by kings of Sweden. Crown Prince Gustav Adolph was already Duke of Estonia 1607-1611 before he became King, but then officially abolished all Swedish duchies in 1618. The title was resumed by the Russian

tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...

s after the

Great Northern War The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swed ...

and

Treaty of Nystad The Treaty of Nystad (russian: Ништадтский мир; fi, Uudenkaupungin rauha; sv, Freden i Nystad; et, Uusikaupunki rahu) was the last peace treaty of the Great Northern War of 1700–1721. It was concluded between the Tsardom of ...

when Estonia became part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. The last duke of Estonia (russian: Князь Эстляндский) was

Nicholas II of Russia Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...

References

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Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

1220 establishments in Europe 13th-century establishments in Estonia