Masuria

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This article from 2019-05 contains content that lacks references to sources. Footnotes should be added to content that does not link to authoritative sources. (Adding a list of bibliographic sources or external links is not sufficient.) More precise information on what needs to be corrected may be in the discussion of this article. Once the imperfections have been fixed, remove the {{Improve}} template from this article. Masuria Masuria Illustration Masuria flag Domicile Poland Tongue Polish (Masurian dialect) also High German Religion Lutheranism Group Polish people Media at Wikimedia Commons Masurian cottage, East Prussia, 1931 A Masurian homestead with a house facing the road with its gable Contemporary parish network of Lutheran and Methodist churches in Masuria, Powiśle and Warmia. Most of the faithful are indigenous Masurians. Masuria (Mazurÿ, former Prussian Masurians[1]) - inhabitants of southern East Prussia, descendants of Polish settlers from Mazovia (mostly peasants, but also nobility), who in several waves of settlement settled the southern and partly eastern part of Ducal Prussia from the 12th century and who were mixed with the remains of the Prussian population and colonists from the German Reich and other Western European countries[2]. Currently, it is difficult to determine the proportions of specific ethnic groups in the formation of the Masurian-Prussian population. Unlike the Catholic Warmians and Masovians, they adopted Lutheranism along with the secularization of Ducal Prussia and the transition of its ruler (Albrecht Hohenzollern) to Protestantism in 1525. Since then, Lutheranism has become an important feature distinguishing the Prussian Masuria from related ethnic groups. After the secularization of the state of the Teutonic Order in Prussia in 1525 and the introduction of forced Protestantization, the population of Mazury, in accordance with the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, adopted Lutheranism as citizens of Ducal Prussia. Masurians still showed Polish national awareness, they cultivated Polish traditions. In the 18th century, the concept of Polishness had only a linguistic meaning in this area, not a national one[3]. They spoke a dialect which was a variant of the Masovian (Masurian) dialect of the Polish language, supplanted by German from the mid-nineteenth century. The Masurian-Prussian dialect is characterized by the presence (apart from typically Mazovian vocabulary) of words of Baltic (Prussian) and German origin. The language of education and religious literature of Prussian Masuria until the 1870s was Polish. The Masurian Polish nobility was germanized the earliest, at the end of the 18th century. The German language used by the Masurians was a literary language (Hochdeutsch) and differed from the colloquial German language of the majority of the inhabitants of the Duchy of Prussia, which was a variant of Low German (Plattdeutsch). In 2011, during the National Census, 1,376 people declared Masurian identification, including 1,125 people as the second identification, 1,027 people declared it together with Polish identification. Of those declaring, 932 people lived in cities, and 445 people lived in villages[4]. Contents 1 History 2 Ethnic connections 3 Ethnonymy 4 Masurian anthem[9] 5 See also 6 Footnotes 7 External links History Distribution of Protestant Poles in Prussian Masuria, map from Stefania Sempołowska's book "Prussian Masuria" from 1920. In the 19th century, the Polish-speaking population of East Prussia, like Silesia, was Germanized by the Prussian government. Germanization was counteracted by Gustaw Gizewiusz, a Polish social and national activist and folklorist. First of all, he demanded that the Polish language be kept in schools, and in order to stop Germanization, he published Polish books for Masurians, including translation of the school textbook Friend of Youth, in cooperation with Marcin Gregor (Królewiec 1845). He wrote down the songs of the Masurian people, later included by Father Kolberg in his Complete Works. After World War I, the German authorities openly fought against the Masurian dialect. The persecution started by the German militias affected especially that part of the population that in the plebiscite in 1920 opted for belonging to Poland, but quickly covered all Prussian Masurians who did not identify themselves with Germany. Also in later years, the German authorities suppressed manifestations of Mazurian national identity by closing schools in which the Masurian language was taught. Prussian Masurians, like the Warmians and other ethnic groups, were harassed by the Polish communist authorities after World War II as an insecure element. They were often treated as Germans. This was due to the significant Germanization of Masurians in the 19th and 20th centuries. This led to waves of migration of Mazurians and many other partially Germanized Polish ethnic groups that survived on their land for centuries. Jerzy Burski fought for the rights of Prussian Masuria in this period. Between Prussian Masuria and Mazury, which flowed into the area of ​​former East Prussia after 1945