Masuria (people)
The Masurians ( maz . Mazurÿ) are a mixed ethnic group in the southern part of East Prussia , now the Polish Masuria, due to immigration .
language
At the beginning of the 19th century, almost all Masurians spoke Masurian , which is a West Slavic dialect with old Prussian and German influences. Due to the Prussian school system and contact with Germans , their importance declined. Above all, the Protestant pastors worked to preserve it. In the course of the 19th century, the use of Masurian steadily declined. But it lasted in remote parts of Masuria until World War II .
“What characterizes the Masurian is mainly: his Polish ancestry, his German education, his Slavic customs and habits, his German tradition, his Polish family and German first names, his Polish language and his German script, the Polish proverb, the German song, the Slavic religiosity, the Protestant denomination. "
Mazovia
Originally a free people, independent of the Poles , the Mazovians settled on the right bank of the Vistula south of the Prussian borders, extending beyond Warsaw . Around the year 1000, Prince Bolesław Chrobry temporarily united the West Slavic peoples. In 1207 Mazovia regained its independence. A little later the eventful history of the Duchy of Mazovia began with the conquest and settlement activities of the Teutonic Order . After he had put down the last great Prussian uprising in 1273 , the country was settled according to plan. From castles and Lischken were cities . When the land was distributed, German farmers were entrusted with the most important individual settlements. Until 1526, under the sovereignty of Poland, Mazovia was able to maintain its state independence. Incorporated by Poland, it had a colonizing influence not only on southern East Prussia, but also on Polish territories.
The situation in the southeastern border area was completely different. Only fishermen , hunters , baggers and lumberjacks lived in the Great Wilderness . German immigration to this part of the order soon no longer sufficed for a settlement. After the lost battle of Tannenberg (1410) a commission of the order visited the border area in 1424 with a view to possible village facilities. Mazovians who were already living there applied for settlement. Given the ever-threatened border and the shortage of settlers, the order's leadership decided to accept them as settlers subject to duty and interest. In 1428 the Komtur von Balga issued the documents for the first three estates: Kissaken, Sokollen and Kowalewen. Belzonzen and Gehlenburg were among the first interest villages . From 1428 a stream of Mazovians migrated to the area of the later district of Johannisburg . The Thirteen Years War interrupted the settlement work. Johannesburg had indeed already in May 1451 by Grand Master Ludwig von Erlichshausen the Tangible get the city's foundation but was realized only 1645th
After the Second Peace of Thorn , the Order kept a free hand in the Great Wilderness. He strengthened the settlement there in order to be able to pay his debts from increased income. The goods were smaller than in the first settlement phase. Mazovian immigration reached a slow steadiness precisely at that time.
When Mazovia was annexed to the Kingdom of Poland in 1526 , the struggle of the Catholic Church against the Reformation began . Under his pressure , part of the Mazovian aristocracy emigrated to southern East Prussia. The third phase of the Mazovian immigration began with these religious refugees . Under Duke Albrecht estates and villages were founded; under his successors the settlement came to a standstill. Most Mazovians were Lutherans . The area around Allenstein , which belonged to the Principality of Warmia and remained Catholic , was an exception .
After the Tannenberg battle, the settlement situation in western Masuria was very different from that in the east. It was not about a new colonization (of the wilderness), but about closing the gaps in the village population. Strangers did not initially need to be brought into the country; after the Thirteen Years' War it was devastated and depopulated. At the same time, a large part of the old religious villages was in the hands of new noble families . The deserted people and the plummeting land prices attracted immigrants from Mazovia, which had remained intact, even without government intervention. After the Second Peace of Thorne, the Warmia region to the north was released from the association of the Order State, but in terms of settlement it developed in parallel. Before 1466 there were few traces of Polish immigration. A planned reoccupation of the country was only initiated towards the end of the 15th century. Mazovian immigration reached its peak in the four years after the equestrian war .
Prussia
In the 17th century, a change in favor of Germanness began. In the Treaty of Wehlau , the Great Elector obtained full sovereignty over Prussia. The Polish feudal sovereignty was over. As the political balance of power shifted in the East, the German element came to light again. Friedrich Wilhelm I founded Bialla (1722) and Arys (1726).
19th century
Due to the industrialization in the second half of the 19th century, especially after the founding of the empire , the poor rural population of Masuria offered attractive prospects in the west of the empire. Many Masurians therefore emigrated to Berlin , Westphalia and the Rhineland , so that the population increase was below the realm average despite the considerable birth surplus. In the Ruhr area, known as Ruhr Poland , they lived in colonies with a colorful club life, especially in Gelsenkirchen . Some of the Gromadki still exist today as prayer associations . The Masurian song is still sung by the ancients. The parents of the late FC Schalke 04 players Ernst Kuzorra and Fritz Szepan come from Masuria .
Loyal to the Crown of Prussia from time immemorial, the Masurians have always been considered conservative. In the Masurian constituencies of the Allenstein and Gumbinnen administrative districts , the German Conservative Party achieved more than 80 percent of the votes in the Prussian state elections.
20th century
After the First World War , the Masurians were to vote in 1920 under the supervision of the Entente Powers on whether they wanted to belong to East Prussia (expressly not “Germany”) or Poland. As suggested by the Polish delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 , the approximately 100,000 Masurians who migrated west should also be included. The “national” mood in the Masuria was very different from that of the Ruhr Poles from the province of Poznan : In the Allenstein voting area, 97.89 percent of the 371,189 voters voted for Masuria to remain with East Prussia;
In the Weimar Republic , conservative and monarchist parties such as the German National People's Party and, in the final phase, the National Socialists achieved a disproportionately high percentage of votes in Masuria. Under National Socialist rule, many place names of Masurian, Lithuanian and Prussian origins were replaced by often constructed German names with no historical background. Masurian family names were also Germanized and the public use of the Masurian language was prohibited. This was intended to erase the memory of the Slavic heritage.
During the Battle of East Prussia , many Masurians, like most German-speaking East Prussians, fled to the west.
People's Republic of Poland and Federal Republic of Germany
About 65,000 Masurians and foreigners remained behind even after the end of the war, the Potsdam Conference and the annexation of Masuria to the People's Republic of Poland , because, as officially “autochthons” of Polish origin, they were not expelled to the West like the rest of the population with German citizenship . From 1956, many of the remaining Masurians came to the Federal Republic of Germany as ethnic repatriates , and after the Eastern Treaty was concluded, another 55,227 Masurians and Ermländer until 1989.
Masurian writer
literature
- Richard Blanke: Polish-speaking Germans? Language and national identity among the Masurians since 1871 (= East Central Europe in the past and present ). Böhlau Verlag , Vienna Cologne 2001, ISBN 978-3412120009 .
- The Ostpreußenblatt (CK): The Mazovians became Masurians. Mazovian settlement in East Prussia - Johannisburg was one of the centers. Episode 25, June 23, 1973, p. 11.
- Hartmut Boockmann : German history in Eastern Europe, East Prussia and West Prussia. Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-88680-212-4 .
- Alfred Cammann (Ed.): The Masurians. From their world, from their fate in history and stories (= Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research. Individual publications of the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research . Volume 25). Elwert, Marburg 2004, ISBN 3-7708-1249-2 .
- Paul Hensel : The Protestant Masurians in their ecclesiastical and national character. A contribution to church history on the question of Catholic-Polish propaganda in Masuria (= writings of the Synodal Commission for Eastern European Church History . Issue 4). Koenigsberg 1908.
- Franz Heyer : Translation of Masurian folk songs from Polish. In: Old Prussian monthly . Vol. XIV, pp. 188ff. and Vol. XVI, p. 361ff.
- Andreas Kossert : Masuria - East Prussia's forgotten south. Pantheon Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-570-55006-9 .
- Friedrich Krosta: Land and people in Masuria. A contribution to the geography of Prussia. In: Report on the Kneiphöfische Stadt-Gymnasium zu Königsberg i. Pr. During the school year 1874/75. Printed by the university book and lithographic printing house by EJ Dalkowski, Königsberg 1875. (A continuation appeared in the annual report for the school year 1875/76, but cannot be found on the Internet.)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Adolf Schimanski: The economic situation of the Masurians. Königsberg 1921 (Phil. Diss.), Quoted from Andreas Kossert (2001), p. 202
- ↑ a b c d e Ostpreußenblatt 1973
- ↑ Richard Blanke (2001), p. 134.
- ^ Andreas Kossert: "Grenzlandpolitik" and Ostforschung on the periphery of the empire. P. 124.
- ↑ Włodzimierz Borodziej, Hans Lemberg, Claudia Kraft: "Our homeland has become a foreign country to us ..." - The Germans east of the Oder and Neisse Mountains 1945–1950 . Ed .: Herder Institute (Marburg) . 2000, ISBN 3-87969-283-1 , pp. 549 ( herder-institut.de [PDF]).
- ^ Andreas Kossert: Masuria. East Prussia's forgotten south. 3. Edition. Pantheon, Munich 2008, chapter “Polish Brothers? Masuria in Poland ”, pp. 357–379, number on p. 374.