Prussian people

The Prussian people, or (old) Prussians, inhabited the area around the Curonian and Vistula Lagoons, in the region roughly occupied by the Mazurian Lakes. At the beginning of Baltic history, they were bordered by the Vistula and the Neman with a southern depth to about Torun, which was Prussian, and the line of the River Narew. The Germans were on the west, the Poles on the south, the Sudovians on the east, the Curonians on the northeast and the Lithuanians on the northwest. The Sudovians began at about Suwalki.

Related Topics:
Curonian - Vistula Lagoon - Mazurian Lakes - Baltic - Vistula - Neman - Torun - Narew - Suwalki

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The Prussians, like the other Balts of the times, were organized into a tribal structure. This structure is most fully attested in the Chronicon terrae Prussiae of Peter of Dusburg, a priest of the Teutonic Order. The work is dated to 1326. He lists 10 tribes, which were named on a geographical basis. The names of the regions in modern Lithuanian are Pamede, Pagude, Varme, Notanga, Semba, Nadruva, Barta, Skalva, Suduva and Galinda. These are not, perhaps, exhaustive. Many of the names appear in ancient and mediaeval sources, but the spelling and to some degree the morphology vary. Dusburg proferred Latin names, such as the Pomesani, Pogesani, Varmienses, etc.

Related Topics:
Balts - Chronicon terrae Prussiae - Peter of Dusburg - Teutonic Order - Pamede - Pagude - Varme - Notanga - Semba - Nadruva - Barta - Skalva - Suduva - Galinda

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Etymologically, the names were all formed on a common theme: water. A number of Indoeuropean roots are used, but they all mean about the same thing: water, stream, lake, flow, wetland, swamp, etc. This convention is understandable, as the terrain of the Baltic countries includes thousands of lakes, streams and swamps, so much so that this circumstance itself caused the very partial isolation that preserved the Baltic language group. Nor is the terrain much better to the south, as it runs into the Pripet Marshes at the headwaters of the Dnepr. They have been an effective barrier over the millenia.

Related Topics:
Baltic language - Pripet Marshes - Dnepr

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The original pre-Baltic settlers clearly named their settlements after the streams, lakes or seas on which they settled. The clan or tribal polities into which they were organized took the name of the settlement. For example, Barta, the home of the Barti, is related to some other Baltic water names, such as the Bartis River in Lithuania, and to such words as Albanian berrak, Bulgarian bera, "swamp." A *bor- root can be reconstructed, "swamp", which ought to come from the o-grade of Indoeuropean *bher-. Indoeuropean has several *bher- roots, however, so the exact meaning and line of descent is unclear.

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This very root is perhaps the one used in Prusas (Prussia), for which an earlier Brus- can be postulated. The name of the Dnepr in ancient Greek was the Borysthenes, which, though undoubtedly twisted, contains perhaps the *Bor-. In Tacitus' Germania we find the Lugii Buri living in the east range of the Germans. Lugi can descend from Pokorny's *leug- (2), "black, swamp" (Page 686), while Buri is perhaps the "Prussian" root.

Related Topics:
Germania - Lugii - Pokorny's

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The contexts for these elements remain unknown, or whether these Buri were the ancestors of our Prussians. The 2nd-century AD geographer, Claudius Ptolemy, lists some Borusci living in European Sarmatia (Eighth Map of Europe), which was separated from Germania by the Vistula Flumen. His map is very confused in that region, but these Borusci seem further east than our Prussians, which would have been under the Gythones (Goths) at the mouth of the Vistula. Similarly, the Galindae are far from the Sudini and both are not near the Borusci.

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Though a peaceful farming people, the Old Prussians were pagans and practiced human sacrifice, which attracted the attention of the Teutonic Order. Prussia was slowly and painfully overrun and subdued. The Germans replanted their own population on much of Prussian soil. Meanwhile, the Lithuanians utilized the time bought by the blood of the Prussians (allied with the Sudovians) to form the grand duchy of Lithuania, the first Baltic state as such. Lithuania had been divided into duchies or "dukedoms", where the "duke" meant was a tribal chieftain.

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The grand duchy united all the duchies and made one duke the grand duke. This polity grew in power and influence over a few hundred years under several grand dukes, allying with Poland and carving out an empire in Russia. Under Vytautas the Great, it turned suddenly on its original enemies, the Teutonic order, and massacred the order's army at the Battle of Grunwald, 1410.

Related Topics:
Vytautas the Great - Battle of Grunwald

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By way of settlement (The Treaty of Lake Melno, 1422), the duchy divided Prussia into East and West. West or Polish Prussia was by this time mainly Polish. Significant pockets of Prussians were left in a matrix of Germans in East Prussia (now Kaliningrad), and so the duchy returned it to the order. The historical states of Prussia now came into floruit, and the Prussians made significant contributions. They might have been with us today, but an act of nature struck them down. In 1711 a plague in Samland (Semba) removed over half the Prussian speakers and the rest assimilated to German. Nevertheless such notables as Copernicus (Kapernik) and Von Clausewitz descended from assimilated Prussian families. As for the Teutonic Order, its last grand master founded the Hohenzollern family. When Prussia united with Brandenburg in the 19th century to form a larger, German Prussia, with capital at Berlin, the Hohenzollerns took on the responsibility of providing kaisers. They retained, however, the militaristic tradition of the Teutonic Order.

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The monks of the Teutonic Order, being of a scholarly bent, took an interest in the language spoken by the Prussians and tried to record it. They needed to communicate with the Prussians in order to convert them. Consequently we have some record of the Old Prussian language. With the slightly known Galindian, and the better known Sudovian, it is all we have of West Baltic. As you might expect, it is a very archaic Baltic, showing affinities with Germanic. Old Prussian seems to support the theory that once a common Germanic/Balto/Slavic existed.

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Currently, an interesting experiment in cultural and linguistic revival is underway in Lithuania, exploring modern Lithuanian connections with the old ethnic Prussians from the same Baltic family.

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