Nadruvians
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The Nadruvians took their name from their ancestral homeland, Nadruvia or Nadruva (Prussian: Nadrowite, Nadrovia, Nadrauen), also known in the sources as Nadravia, Nadrow and Nadra as well as other names. They were a now extinct tribe whom the medieval sources classified as being among the people of Prusas, or Prussia. The latter are known to have spoken a Baltic language, now called Old Prussian. Whether the Nadruvians spoke it is not known, but, considering their location and the fact that they fought on the side of the Prussian tribes, historians generally assume that they spoke Old Prussian as well.
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[edit] Time and place
The Nadruvians were on location at the beginning of their short history in 1231. Their origins must be sought in prehistory. There is no evidence that they migrated to Nadruvia from any region speaking some early form of Lithuanian. They remained on location and were considered by their enemies as Prussian until their annihilation in 1274. Their entire history thus spans only 43 years.
Nadruvia extended over the upper drainage basins of the Pregel and Neman Rivers, including the Isara, Pisa, Rominta, Angrape, Arga and Laukna rivers. It included the districts of Pikalnis, Stalupenai, Gumbine, Darkiemis, Isrutis and eastern Labguva. The peoples on the borders were the Skalvians (Schalauer at Memel) on the Neman River just to the north, the Sudovians to the east, and other Prussian tribes to the south and west.
[edit] The name
Etymology offers a few derivations, as follows.
- Kazimieras Būga reconstructs *Nadravo from Old Prussian na, "on" and dravis, "wood".
- K. Kuzavinis and Zigmas Zinkevičius: na, "on" and some reflex of Indo-European *dhreu-, "flow", as in English drizzle.
- Vilius Peteraitis relates the word to Old Prussian Nadyn, "forest"; Nede, a pond; Nydar, Lithuanian Nedejan, Russian Nadva, reconstructed Baltic *Nadva, a tributary of the Dneiper. The Indo-European root would be *ned-, *nid-, *nod-, the latter two being zero- and 0-grades of the first, with *nad- from Baltic a, "wet, flow, stream", probably represented by Pokorny's *neid-2 (Page 761) and *nid-, "flow, stream"; that is to say, the Nadruvians were people located in the wetlands.
[edit] Legend
Nadruvia was named for Prussian chief Nadro. It was the location of the sacred center of Baltic religion, Romove (Lithuanian Romuva) according to Peter of Dusburg, writing in 1326. From Romove, the chief priest, Krive, ruled over the religion of the Balts in all the pagan lands. Unarmed Nadro was attacked by Lithuo and therefore Lithuo was expelled by the Prussians. Lithuo started another religious gathering place, Rumove, in Lithuania. However all true Baltic Prussian believers gathered at the original Romove in Prussia.
[edit] Tragic history
In the year 1225, the land-hungry Knights of the Teutonic Order were expelled from Hungary by common agreement of church and state, as they had no authority to devastate that land. It was not long before this band of armed men operating on the outskirts of legality found new ventures. In 1226, Conrad, Duke of Mazovia (regent, actually, customarily called duke) invited them to attack the Prussians.
Hermann von Salza approached the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, and managed to obtain from him the Golden Bull of Rimini, an authorization to devastate Prussia and keep all the land he should seize from it. Frederick was not on good terms with the Holy Father at Rome. The church had little to do with the agreement at first.
In the year 1231 the blow fell on the peaceful and unsuspecting Prussians as they were tending their fields in the region of Danzig and Toruń. Riding out from their Danzig base, the Teutonic Order began to lay waste to Prussia, pretty much as they had laid waste to the environs of Riga earlier.
The Prussians were soon fighting for their homes and families, but the ex-crusaders had an advantage they did not: the stone keep. Prussian forts were all of wood, which soon burned, leaving them no bases. The order's technique was always the same: ride into a village, attack and burn it, then immediately construct a stone castle. By the time the prussians counterattacked, the knights were secure behind walls, while the Prussians were in the fields and forests.
Seeing the success of the Christian crusaders, Pope Gregory IX took a stand against the pagans in 1234, confirming the order and approving everything they did. The agony mercifully came to an end in 1249, when the Prussians sued for peace, and received the Treaty of Christburg, on condition that they convert to Christianity, build churches and, of course, accept the order as overlords. None of these events escaped the notice of the other Balts, who were receiving a steady stream of refugees.
The Prussian tribes were biding their time, while they regrouped and studied the methods of the enemy. In 1242 the Barti, Notangi and Varmi repudiated any former arrangements and went to war against the order. They lost and were punished severely.
The major rebellion came in 1260, when the Nadruvians, Skalvians and Sudovians opened total war on the order. They believed they had a winning strategy, and it probably would have been, if they could have obtained wider support. The strategy was to concentrate on the castles one by one. The war was especially bitter, with no quarter given or received. The Prussians came close to winning, destroying 43 of about 50 castles.
However, where the order could rely on reinforcement and supply from elsewhere in the Baltic, the Prussians could not. The Lithuanians also were biding their time, trying to build a powerful state, the first Lithuania, under a single monarch. They could easily see that they were to be next and they were hoping to gain time. The Prussians were welcome to escape to Lithuania, but there the assistance ended.
Running out of momentum, the Prussians collapsed. This time the order acted without mercy, killing the entire population of Nadruvia in 1274 and leaving it largely unpopulated for a time. After this disaster, from which they never recovered, only 170,000 Old Prussian speakers remained. Lithuanians began to drift into the former Nadruvia.
[edit] Reference
- Gimbutas, Marija, The Balts. Praeger, 1963. A number of editions are now available.
