Masurians

East Prussia, 1931: Typical Masurian farmhouse near a lake.

The Masurians or Mazurs (Polish: Mazurzy, German: Masuren) were a Lechitic sub-ethnic group in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in Poland. They are descended from Masovians (Polish: Mazowszanie; German: Masowier), Polish settlers from Masovia who moved to Prussia especially during and after the Protestant Reformation and who were primarily Protestant. In the 19th century, the Masuria region of East Prussia was named after the Masurians. After World War II many Masurians were classified as Germans and expelled to West Germany or emigrated after 1956.

History

In the Middle Ages, the inhabitants of the Duchy of Masovia were called Mazur(z)y in Polish. Between the 14th and 17th centuries,^[1] Polish settlers from northern Masovia moved to the southern territories of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. (These lands had previously belonged to the Baltic Old Prussians, whom the Teutonic Knights had conquered in the 13th and 14th centuries.) The northern part of this state was soon settled by settlers from Germany and thus became Germanised. On the other hand, the incoming Masovians Polonised the southern part - Masuria - in approximately the same period. In 1466 those territories became a fief of Poland.

Masurian farmhouse

Because of the influx of Masovians into the southern lakeland, the area started to be known as "Masuria" from the 18th century. During the Protestant Reformation the Masurians, like most inhabitants of Ducal Prussia, became Lutheran Protestants, while the neighboring Masovians remained Roman Catholic. In 1525 the Duchy of Prussia, a Polish fief until 1657, was founded from the secularized order's territory and became the first ever officially Protestant state. The small minority of Protestant Masovians in southern Catholic Masovia inside Poland emigrated later to Prussian Masuria. Masuria became part of the Kingdom of Prussia at the Kingdom's founding in 1701, and part of the Prussian-led German Empire at the Empire's founding in 1871.

Masurians referred to themselves in the 19th century as "Polish Prussians" or as "Staroprusaki" (Old Prussians)^[2] Masurians showed considerable support for the Polish uprising in 1831, and maintained many contacts with Russian-held areas of Poland beyond the border of Prussia, the areas being connected by common culture and language; before the uprising people visited each other's country fairs and much trade took place, with smuggling also widespread^[2] Some early writers about Masurians - like Max Toeppen - postulated them as mediators between German and Slav cultures.^[2]

During the 1840s, the folklorist Gustaw Gizewiusz (Gustav Gisevius) collected Masurian folk songs which were later included in Oskar Kolberg's compilation Dzieła Wszystkie.^[3]

Masurians in 19th and 20th centuries

According to Andrzej Chwalba or Henryk Samsonowicz Polish national activists and Masurians already were engaged in cooperation in 1848 when Poles from Pomerania supported Masurian attempts to elect their representative Gustaw Gizewiusz who defended the use of Polish language and traditions^[4][5] For Piotr Wandycz the events of 1848 led to Polish national awakening in Masuria^[6] In contrast Andreas Kossert writes that Polish interest in Masuria was inspired by a single poem published in 1872, "O Mazurach" by Wojciech Kętrzyński and that the unsuccessful attempts to create a Polish national spirit in Masuria were financed by Polish Nationalists from Posen (Poznan), Lemberg (Lviv) and Warsaw .^[7][8] Beginning in the 1870s, Imperial German officials restricted the usage of languages other than German in Prussia's eastern provinces.^[9] The German authorities undertook several measures to Germanise the Masurians or to separate them culturally from neighboring Poles by creating a separate identity.^[10] After 1871 Masurians who expressed sympathy for Poland were deemed "national traitors" by German nationalists (this increased especially after 1918)^[2] According to Wojciech Wrzesinki Masurians didn't receive any assistance or help from Polish movement at the time^[11] According to Stefan Berger after 1871 the Masurians in the German Empire were seen in a view that while acknowledging their "objective" Polishness (in terms of culture and language) they felt "subjectively" German and thus should be tightly integrated into German nation-state; to Berger this argument went directly against the German nationalist demands in Alsace where Alsacians were declared German despite their "subjective" choice. Berger concludes that such the arguments of German nationalists were simply aimed at gaining as much territory as possible into German Reich.^[2]

Before World War I many Masurians emigrated to the Ruhr Area, especially to Gelsenkirchen. Here, Masurians were not distinguished apart from the Poles and both groups were seen as inferior to Germans, culturally or even racially.^[12] Despite those official efforts, German scholars usually considered Masurians as a group of Poles. In all German geographical atlases published at the beginning of the 20th century, the southern part of East Prussia was marked as an ethnically Polish area, with the number of Poles estimated at 300,000.^[13] There was resistance among the Masurians towards Germanization efforts, the so-called Gromadki movement was formed which supported use of Polish language and came into conflict with German authorities; while most of its members viewed themselves as loyal to Prussian state, a part of them joined the Pro-Polish faction of Masurians.<ref name=Wang377> In general, popular resistance against linguistic Germanisation cannot be easily equated with anti-German sentiment or a strong attachment to the Polish national movement. Most of Masuria's small Polish-speaking intelligentsia remained decisively pro-Prussian, often adhering to an older, multi-ethnic model of Prussian identity, centred on loyalty to their king, not so much on the German language.^[14][15][16] This ethnically, but not nationally Polish identity was a repeated source of consternation for Polish national activists,^[17] and decidedly pro-Polish political parties and press never gained widespread influence among the general populace.^[18] Richard Blanke summarised this long-standing attachment, going back to the late Middle Ages, as: „Masurians became Prussian, in other words, before the Bretons (not to mention the Alsatians) became French.“^[19]

The Masurians evinced strong support for Germany during World War I.^[20] In 1920 the League of Nations supervised the East Prussian plebiscite - with British, French and Italian troops stationed in Masuria - to determine the new border between the Second Polish Republic and German East Prussia. The plebiscite was organized by the local German authorities.^[21] Polish ethnographer Adam Chętnik stated that the German authorities performed abuses and falsifications during the plebiscite,^[22] and Stefan Berger writes that the Masurians were subjected to huge psychological pressure and physical violence by German side to vote for Germany.^[23] Kossert admits irregularities during the referendum, but asserts that in general, its results truthfully reflected the overwhelmingly pro-German sentiment in southern East Prussia.^[24] In Masuria proper the vast majority (99.32%) opted to remain in Prussia.^[25][26] Attempts to create schools teaching Polish in interwar Germany were met with terror and violence^[27]

Support for the Nazi Party was high in Masuria, especially in elections in 1932 and 1933.^[28] Nazis used the Masurian dialect for their political rallies during the campaigning.^[28] The government of Nazi Germany changed the names of several Masurian towns and villages from their original Slavic or Baltic Prussian names to new German names in 1938. During World War II the Nazis persecuted and killed Polish speakers in Masuria and imprisoned Polish teachers as well as children who learned Polish.^[29][30] The Nazis believed that in future the Masurians as separate non-German entity, would disappear, while those who would cling to their "foreignness" as one Nazi report mentioned, would be deported.^[31] Poles and Jews were considered by Nazis to be "untermenschen", subject to slavery and extermination, and Nazi authorities murdered Polish activists in Masuria, those who weren't killed were arrested and sent to concentration camps,^[32]

In 1943 "Związek Mazurski" was reactivated secretly by Masurian activists of the Polish Underground State in Warsaw and led by Karol Małłek.^[33] Związek Mazurski opposed Nazi Germany and asked Polish authorities during the war to liquidate German property after victory over Nazi Germany to help in agricultural reform and settlement of Masurian population, Masurians opposed to Nazi Germany requested to remove German heritage sites "regardless of their cultural value".^[34] Additionally a Masurian Institute was founded by Masurian activists in Radość near Warsaw in 1943^[35] Andreas Kossert regards these claims as a presumption completely disregarding the actual conditions of the Masurian people.^[36]

Along with the majority of ethnic German East Prussians, many Masurians fled to western Germany as the Soviet Red Army approached East Prussia in 1945 in the final European campaigns of World War II. The post-war Potsdam Conference placed Masuria - and the rest of southern East Prussia - under Polish administration. Many Masurians who were classified as Germans were expelled with military force. After 1956 many who had remained in Poland emigrated to West Germany, as of 2003 approximately 5,000 Masurians still lived in the area, many of them as members of the German minority.^[13] Speculations about the reasons of this emigration vary from the economic situation and the undemocratic - communist - system in Poland^[13] to the shrinking prospect of a return of Masuria to Germany.^[37]

Mazur remains the 14th most common surname in Poland, with almost 67,000 people bearing the name.^[38] According to the ethnographer Adam Chętnik, the Masurians were most closely related to the Kurpie branch of the Poles.^[22] A group of Masurians migrated south and became one of the main components of the Lasowiacy, who live in the northern part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship.^[39][40]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mazury.

• Róża (2011 film)
• Warmiak
• Lietuvininks
• Kursenieki
• Mazurka
• List of Medieval Slavic tribes

Notes

References

• Clark, Christopher (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600–1947. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard. p. 776. ISBN 0-674-02385-4. 

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