Gvardeyskoye

Gvardeyskoye (Russian: Гвардейское; German: Mühlhausen (Kreis Preußisch Eylau)) is a village in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia.

Gvardeyskoye lies 25 km south of Kaliningrad and approximately 10 km north of Bagrationovsk.

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History

The village was founded by the Teutonic Knights in the Old Prussian region of Natangia as a location of a mill (Mühle=Mill) and a Church, first mentioned in 1372. The town was given as a pawn by the Order to Daniel von Kunheim in 1474. The laird Georg von Kunheim, a student at Wittenberg, married Martin Luther's youngest daughter Margarethe Luther in 1555, she died in Mühlhausen in 1570. Two paintings of Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora by Lucas Cranach existed at the church up to 1945 as well as the original summons of Martin Luther by Emperor Charles V. to the Diet of Worms and an original letter, written by Luther.

After the secularization of the Teutonic Knights in 1525 the village became part of the Duchy of Prussia and the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. In 1643 the village came into the property of the von Kalckstein family until 1826, also as advowson of the Church.

Conquered by the Red Army during World War II, the village was transferred from Germany to the Soviet Union according to the 1945 Potsdam Conference and had its German population expelled. The village was renamed from Mühlhausen to Gvardeyskoye

The formerly ruined church was rebuilt after 1994.

Population

Notable residents

References

External links