Prussia-Eastern

The Prussia-Eastern - also called until 1701 the ducal Prussia - was a province of the Prussia on the the Baltic whose capital was Königsberg. Besides it constitutes the historical core of this State (with the walk of Brandebourg) and it is there that was crowned in 1701 Frederic Ier as king " en" Prussia.

Prussia is in the beginning occupied by Baltic people, the Borusses. With the the Middle Ages, the Baltic ones count among the last still pagan people of Europe. The multiple evangelization campaigns come from Poland turn to the failure and, at the beginning of the XIII° century, Borusses invade Mazovie. The king of Poland thus makes call into 1225 with the Chevaliers Teutoniques. The countryside of Prussia begins in 1231 pennies the command of Hermann Blake. The conquest is done especially thanks to the construction of strong castles and raids in the Baltic villages. The first castles are built on the edges of the the Vistula, with Thorn, Elbing and Kulm, then on the edges of the Baltique in the Samland. The people borusse which lived partly thanks to fishing see private of his access to the sea. Königsberg is founded in 1255. In the middle of the XIII° century, Borusses try an ultimate revolt which will do nothing but precipitate their decline. From 170.000 before the conquest, the Prussians are nothing any more but 90.000 about 1300. Prussia becomes a ground of German colonization then. Arable lands are liberally given to the colonists come from Germany and Holland. The towns of Prussia knowing a spectacular expansion and the construction of ports allows commercial exchanges with the remainder of the Baltic. The country also extends towards the West by annexing Danzig. Eastern Prussia thus knows an era of prosperity until the XV° century, profiting from the ground reputation of Croisade, because of sporadic combat against the Lithuanians remained pagan. But in 1386, the marriage of the king of Lithuania with the heiress of Poland changes gives it diplomatic in the area. Poland and Lithuania are combined against Teutoniques. In 1410, the Battle of Grunwald mark the beginning of the retreat of the knights teutonic. During successive defeats during the XV° century, Prussia impoverishes itself and is not towards the end of the century more but the vassal one of king de Pologne and equipped with a reduced territory. Also, because of conversion of the Lithuanians, Prussia is not any more regarded as ground of crusade and loses the support of other princes d' Europe. But the tender of the duchy of Prussia in Poland allows a certain economic rebirth, because not having to undergo wars more. In 1618, whereas the Thirty Year old Guerre begins, the houses of Prussia and Brandebourg marry, thus making it possible Eastern Prussia to join again with its German roots and to form with Brandebourg what was going to become one century later one of the more great powers of Europe: the kingdom of Prussia.

The North-East of the province was devastated by the Peste at the beginning of the eighteenth century (1709-1710) and was then repopulated by various populations (of which of Salzbourgeois Protestants and the Swiss ones). The province was one of the high places of the Aufklärung (Age of Enlightenment) in Germany and it should be noted that Kant (1724-1804) was born and worked in Königsberg. The first division of the Poland (1772) made it possible to join together the two parts of the kingdom of Prussia (Brandebourg - Poméranie and Prussia known as " ducale") - and to associate with the province Ermland with Allenstein, of catholic population. The remainder of the province had embraced Protestantism Lutheran at the 16th century.

The province was heavily touched by the Napoleonean campaigns (the battle fields of Eylau and Friedland are there thus that the town of Tilsit on Niémen/Memel). It remained at the 19th century a rural province which knew a strong rural migration towards the the Ruhr when the industrial revolution touched Germany. Province exposed to the east of the German empire after 1871, it knew also the germanisation of its Lithuanian and Slavic populations (Hovels) to the turning of 19th and 20th centuries. The Guerre of 1914-1918 made known to him the Russian invasion (in 1914, Hindenburg succeeds in stopping this invasion with Tannenberg, which became a kind of myth of German nationalism until 1945).

This province was separated from the remainder of the Germany at the conclusion of the First World War, during the creation of the “Corridor of Dantzig”, which opened an access towards the the Baltic for the Poland. It also lost in north the " territory of Memel" (annexed in 1923 by Lithuania). The plebiscite in Masurie in 1920 gave a majority crushing in favor of the maintenance within the German empire. The province, isolated, impoverished, was partially let allure by the Nazisme in the Thirties. The gauleiter Nazi Erich Koch controlled it iron hand (while controlling the Ukraine of 1941 to 1944). After the defeat of Poland in 1939, she lives herself increased purely Polish grounds (Zichenau/ciechanow and Suwalki), thus extending to the doors from Warsaw.

During the Second world war, the province was conquered by the Soviet army as from January 1945, then divided between the Russia and the Poland following the conferences of Yalta and Potsdam.

the Polish part is called Voïvodie de Varmie-Masurie. The Polish government expelled of them the Germans while seeking to maintain the Hovels on the spot, regarded as germanized Poles.
the Russian part is called Oblast de Kaliningrad: it is today about an enclave between Poland and Lithuania, separated from the remainder of the Russia. The oblast of Kaliningrad is one of the 88 members of the Federation of Russia. It has its own government, chaired by a Governor, who is named by the Local parliament under the presentation of the federal capacity.

Until 1945, the province had a German population, but there were also a minority of Lithuanian origin and a minority masurienne which spoke a Polish dialect. These two minorities strongly felt attached to Prussia and Germany. The inhabitants who had not succeeded in fleeing were maltreated, and finally expelled by the Polish authorities (since 1945-46) and Soviet in 1947.

Communtauté (is) the Prussian continuous one with living within Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen (www.ostpreussen.de) and small German associations in Eastern Prussia.

In 2005, Russia celebrated the 750e birthday of the foundation of Königsberg.

Bibliography: Pierre Benoit, Axelle Michel Tournier, the king of the alders

See too

List of the kings de Prusse
Western Prussia

Random links: