Kulmerland

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Kulmer Land on the Vistula knee, southwest of the old Prussian landscapes
The Kulmerland north of the southern border of West Prussia on a map from 1908.

The Kulmerland (also Kulmer Land , Culmerland or Culmer Land , Polish Ziemia chełmińska ) is a historical landscape in the Polish Kujawien-Pomeranian Voivodeship , named after its capital Culm / Kulm ( Chełmno ). The flat and fertile land is bounded by the rivers Weichsel in the west, Drewenz in the south and Ossa in the north.

The name Kulm comes from the Slavic word chlm , which denotes a (wooded) hill and was borrowed into German as Kulm . Kulm was initially on the Lorenzberg (Polish: Góra Św. Wawrzyńca ) a few kilometers away .

history

The Kulmerland is one of the landscapes of the twelve Prussian tribes. With the expansion of the Slavs, the first Slavic settlements in the area of ​​today's Kulmerland are dated to the 8th century due to archaeological finds, but in the 13th century it was still a mixed Baltic-Slav area.

Since the end of the 10th century, the Polish rulers tried to subjugate the Kulmerland near the border. Since the Christianization of Poland , the promotion of missionary work in pagan areas was a means of territorial expansion of feudal rule.

The town of Kulm was first mentioned in 1065 in a document issued by King Bolesław II for the Mogilno Monastery .

During the feudal fragmentation of Poland (1138-1320), parts of the Kulmerland were temporarily ruled by the rulers of the Polish partial duchy of Mazovia , but temporarily came into the hands of the Baltic Prussians neighboring to the north .

For defense purposes, the Kulmerland was divided into castle areas, which were merged into larger administrative units, the castellanias , during the 12th century . These were administered in the name of the Duke of Voivoden . The Kulm castellany, for example, defended the northern fringes of the Kulmerland against the incursions of the Pomesanians, another tribe of the Prussians who were pagans at the time and were a constant threat to the Kulmerland in the first decades of the 13th century.

In 1215 Christian von Prussia , a Cistercian from Pomerania , became the first bishop of Prussia to take his seat in Kulm. From there the attempts to Christianize the Prussians were pushed. They fought bitterly against attempts to subjugate them religiously and secularly, and responded with counter-attacks on areas that were already Christianized, such as the Kulmer Land and Mazovia.

During the Prussian invasion of 1216, not only was the castle of Kulm destroyed, but churches and villages were also reduced to rubble and their inhabitants were abducted. In the years that followed, counter-attacks by German and Polish crusaders, which Bishop Christian helped to organize and in which Polish clerics also took part, did not result in a military decision. Duke Konrad of Mazovia and Kujawia (including the Kulmer Land), who was senior duke of all of Poland from 1228 to 1232 , could no longer master these attacks and the Prussians also threatened other regions. In 1222 he and Bishop Guntbert handed over the shares in their possession in the Kulmerland to Bishop Christian in Polazk , so that he would take care of the reconstruction and fortification of Culm Castle by the crusaders of that time. After the Teutonic Order initially refused to be active in the region, Duke Konrad von Masowien left the Kulmerland to the Teutonic Order in April 1228 (or on June 16, 1230, Treaty of Kruschwitz ) as a power base for the crusade against the Prussians. In 1231, Bishop Christian gave all of his shares in the Kulmerland to the Teutonic Order . In the same year Pope Gregory IX confirmed to the Teutonic Order the possessions in the Kulmerland received from Bishop Christian and Konrad von Masowien. Pope Gregory IX also confirmed. In 1231 Konrad von Masovien, at his request, donated the Kulmerland to the Teutonic Order. In the Rieti Bull , Pope Gregory IX. 1234 stated that the Teutonic Order for its territory in the Kulmerland and in Prussia was only subject to the Church and was not subject to any secular power.

The gold bull of Rimini , in which Emperor Friedrich II placed the Kulmerland and the yet-to-be-conquered pagan Prussia under the fiefdom of the Holy Roman Empire , is written after 1226. However, it was unmasked as a forgery from 1235 in a study published in 2008. Historical context: Before Konrad of Mazovia gave up the Kulmerland, the order had no interest in Prussia, after the Bull of Rieti, a feudal sovereignty of the Holy Roman Empire over the state was ineffective.

The Teutonic Order took possession of Nessau, which is (today) on the left bank of the Vistula, in 1230 , founded Thorn in 1231 and (a few kilometers from the old Polish foundation) again in 1232 Kulm. In the course of the year 1232, the knights of the order finally had most of the Kulmerland under their control and could now begin with the reconstruction and repopulation of the settlements and castles destroyed by the Prussians. In 1234 the knights of the order conquered Rehden and in 1234 Graudenz . In 1233, with the Kulmer Handfeste , Kulm and Thorn were the first settlements in the Kulmerland to be granted city rights.

In a document dated July 28, 1243, Prussia was divided by the papal legate Wilhelm of Modena into four bishoprics - the Kulmer , Erm and Samland and Pomesania  - which were subordinate to the Archdiocese of Riga . At the same time it was stipulated that two thirds of the Prussian territories conquered by the Teutonic Order should belong to him and a third to the Kulm bishops. The Teutonic Order conquered the neighboring Duchy of Pomerellen with Danzig west of the Prussian area in 1308 and remained in possession of this area through the Treaty of Soldin , 1309. For the promise to renounce any future claims to Pomeranian as well as to the Kulmerland and the Michelauer Land , Poland received the Kujawien conquered by the order and the Dobrinerland in return through the peace treaty of Kalisch in 1343 .

In 1440 the cities of the Kulmerland, including Thorn, the oldest city in Prussia and the birthplace of the doctor and astronomer Nikolaus Kopernikus , joined the Prussian Confederation opposing the Teutonic Order , which in 1454 fell away from the Teutonic Order and became an autonomous, neither by the Holy Roman Empire still recognized by the Roman Curia , Prussia voluntarily submitted to the sovereignty of the Crown of Poland. After the Thirteen Years' War between the Kingdom of Poland and the cities of the Prussian Confederation on the one hand and the Teutonic Order on the other, the Kulmerland remained under Polish suzerainty in the Second Peace of Thorne . It was expanded to include the Michelauer Land , one of the four parts of the autonomous Royal Prussia.

From then on, the Kulmerland was exposed to attempts at polonization , with the main aim of converting the autonomous region of Royal Prussia into a Polish province, if possible. This was attempted again in 1569 on the occasion of the formation of the Union of Lublin , through which the dual state of Poland-Lithuania emerged: By his coup-like decree of March 16, 1569 at the Lublin Sejm , King Sigismund II. August denounced the autonomy of Royal Prussia under threat Punishments unilaterally, which is why the sovereignty of the Polish king was perceived by the former cities of the Prussian Confederation from 1569 to 1772 as foreign rule. During the Polish rule, the Kulmer Land and Michelauer Land were almost completely Polonized, when the first Polish partition in 1772, the only German districts that were found here were the city and district of Thorn and the Thorn-Kulmer lowland. This was also due to the fact that the originally German nobility rapidly Polonized due to privileges they had received. After the Reformation, the Polonization efforts were accompanied by the systematic persecution and repression of the Protestants by the Polish state and church authorities, which culminated in the Thorner Blood Court on December 7, 1724. The Jews were also subjected to reprisals.

In the 18th century, numerous Protestant exiles from the Salzburger and Berchtesgadener Land , from Friesland and the Netherlands settled in the Kulmerland . They received lands under the so-called Dutch law , which freed them from compulsory labor and tithing , granted them freedom of belief and a number of other privileges. They also shaped the dialect spoken here until before the Second World War .

After the first division of Poland in 1772, western Prussia with the Kulmerland and the Michelauer Land came under Friedrich II to Brandenburg-Prussia . In 1816 the area became part of the new province of West Prussia , which was united with East Prussia as the Province of Prussia between 1824 and 1878 and then became independent again. The Kulmerland remained Prussian until 1920, with the exception of the French period from 1807 to 1815, during which it was part of the Duchy of Warsaw . The province was part of the German Confederation from 1849 to 1851 and of the German Empire from 1871 . With the exception of the cities of Graudenz and the surrounding area and Thorn as a result of the Polonization, the Kulmerland, which was mostly Polish-speaking, formed the constituencies of Graudenz - Strasburg and Thorn - Kulm . In both constituencies, regardless of the ethnicity of the electorate, predominantly national liberals prevailed over Polish candidates in the Reichstag elections .

After the end of the First World War , Germany had to cede the Kulmerland to Poland without a referendum on January 20, 1920 due to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty for the purpose of establishing the Polish Corridor .

In 1934 the Polish government terminated the minority protection treaty between the Main Allied and Associated Powers and Poland from 1919.

After the invasion of Poland , the Kulmerland was annexed by the German Reich in 1939 and belonged to the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia until 1945 . Associated with this was the suppression of the Polish population and their partial resettlement in the Generalgouvernement .

Towards the end of the Second World War , the Kulmerland was occupied by the Red Army in January as part of the Vistula-Oder operation and again part of Poland. In the period that followed, the German population, unless they had fled, was largely expelled by the new Polish administrative authorities . Some of the newly settled residents came from the areas east of the Curzon Line that had fallen to the Soviet Union as part of the “ West displacement of Poland ” .

Legend

According to legend, Chelmo was the twelfth son of King Widowuto , who received the land between Mokra, Istula (Vistula) and Driwantza (Drewens). He built a fortress called Chelmo, which was later called Althaus Culm . He named another festival after his son Potto, which was later called Potterberg.

State affiliation (overview)

The Kulmerland (Ulmigeria, Culmigeria) in Old Prussia has changed its political affiliation several times in its history. Here is a quick summary:

literature

(in order of appearance)

  • Johannes Voigt : History of Prussia, from the oldest times to the fall of the rule of the German order . Volume 1: The time of paganism , Bornträger, Königsberg 1827, pp. 476–479.
  • Xaver Frölich : History of the Graudenzer Kreis . Graudenz 1868–1872.
    • Volume 1, 2nd edition: 1864 ( e-copy )
    • Volume 2: The history of time and culture . Graudenz 1872 ( e-copy ).
  • Franz Schultz: History of the city and the district of Kulm . Volume 1: Until 1479 , Kafelmann, Danzig 1876 ( E-Copy ).
  • Brauns: History of the Culmerland up to the Peace of Thorner. Lambeck, Thorn 1881.
  • Prussia (encyclopedia entry). In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition, 16th volume, Leipzig and Vienna 1908, pp. 292–294.
  • Kazimieras Buga: The Prehistory of the Aist Tribes. Leipzig 1924.
  • Albrecht Duwe: Damerau : Village and its surroundings in the Fordon Vistula bend . Essen 1986.
  • Georg Gerullis: The old Prussian place names. Berlin, Leipzig 1922.
  • Lęga: The Kulmerland z. The transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age. In: Rocznik Grudziądzki , 1960.
  • Hans Maerker: History of the rural places and the three small towns of the Thorn district. Danzig 1899/1900.
  • Mariana Biskupa : Ziemia Chełmińska w przeszłości: wybór tekstów źródłowych. Toruń 1961, ( digitized version ) (Polish).

Web links

Wiktionary: Kulmerland  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. We, the Balts
  2. ^ Friedrich von Dreger : Codex Pomeraniae diplomaticus. Volume I except for the year 1269 including Haude and Spener, Berlin 1768, pp. 105-107, no.LVIII .
  3. ^ Friedrich von Dreger : Codex Pomeraniae diplomaticus. Volume I except for the year 1269 including Haude and Spener, Berlin 1768, p. 129, no. LXXI .
  4. ^ Friedrich von Dreger : Codex Pomeraniae diplomaticus. I. Volume up to the year 1269 including Haude and Spener, Berlin 1768, p. 144, No. LXXXIII.
  5. ^ Friedrich von Dreger : Codex Pomeraniae diplomaticus. Volume I except for the year 1269 including Haude and Spener, Berlin 1768, pp. 144–145, no. LXXXIV.
  6. ^ Friedrich von Dreger : Codex Pomeraniae diplomaticus. Volume I except for the year 1269 including Haude and Spener, Berlin 1768, pp. 145–146, no. LXXXV.
  7. Tomasz Jasiński: Kruschwitz, Rimini and the foundations of the Prussian Order. Document studies on the early days of the Teutonic Order in the Baltic Sea region . Elwert, Marburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7708-1321-6 , ( Sources and studies on the history of the Teutonic Order 63), ( Publications of the International Historical Commission for Research on the Teutonic Order 8)
  8. The Kulm law based on the Kulmer Handfeste later applied to the entire Teutonic Order .
  9. ^ Anton Friedrich Büsching : Extract from a description of the earth. First part, which contains Europe and the northern part of Asia . Hamburg 1771, pp. 162-166.
  10. ^ A b Hans Prutz : History of the Neustadt district in West Prussia . Danzig 1872, p. 104 .
  11. ^ A. Reusch: West Prussia under Polish scepter. Ceremonial speech given at the Elbinger Gymnasium on 13th Spt. 1872 . In: Altpreußische Monatsschrift , NF, Volume 10, Königsberg 1873, pp. 140–154, especially p. 146 .
  12. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Ferdinand Schmitt : Land and people in West Prussia . In: Journal for Prussian History and Regional Studies . Volume 7, Berlin 1870, pp. 189-229, especially pp. 192-193.
  13. Xaver Frölich : History of the Graudenzer Kreis . Volume 1, Graudenz 1868, p. 103.
  14. ^ Bernhard von Winckler : West Prussian Studies . In: Old Prussian Monthly Journal , Volume 3, Königsberg 1866, pp. 415–440 .
  15. ^ Victory candidates in the Reichstag elections in the constituency of Graudenz-Strasburg
  16. ^ Victory candidates in the Reichstag elections in the Thorn – Kulm constituency
  17. Ulmigeria, Culmigeria in Alt- Preussenland map

Coordinates: 53 ° 25 '  N , 18 ° 50'  E