East Prussia

EAST PRUSSIA. - GEOGRAPHY. - In the German tradition (East Prussia passed to Germany in 1618), this name (Ost-Preussen) denoted the NE extremity of the territory of the Reich, between Lithuania, Mazovia and West Prussia.

Toward this last region the border ran, before 1918, from the Frisches Haff to Soldau, keeping somewhat to the east of the lower Vistula. After the First World War, with the creation of the Republic of Poland (28 June 1919), the so-called Polish Corridor, which led to Danzig, isolated East Prussia from the rest of Germany; it ended on the west at the Vistula, but had been mutilated of the Memel district (annexed to Lithuania). Within these limits East Prussia measured 36,991 sq km, with a population, in 1939, of 2.4 million inhabitants (65 per sq km). It is a territory almost entirely flat or with gentle hilly undulations (at most slightly above 300 m), in whose undulations numerous lakes, ponds and peat bogs find a place, and which opens onto the Baltic with a low coast bordered by long sandy spits (German Nehrung, Polish Mierzeja). Once almost entirely covered with forests (by now reduced to barely 1/6 of the total surface), East Prussia had been converted by German colonization (which dates back to the 13th century) into an agricultural region which, although not entirely fertile, produced cereals in notable quantity, and moreover potatoes, sugar beets and vegetables. Livestock raising (cattle and horses) was also well developed there. Within the population the German element was distinguished from the Masurians, of Slavic stock (a little more than 120 thousand, prevalent in the interior regions), although they too were by now profoundly Germanized; above all the major inhabited centers (with the capital Königsberg, which exceeded 100 thousand inhabitants) had assumed a typically German appearance.

On the basis of the Potsdam agreements and the Treaty of 16 Aug. 1945 between Poland and the U.S.S.R., East Prussia was divided into two parts: the southern part (Masuria) annexed to the new Republic of Poland, in which it essentially forms the voivodeship of Olsztyn (Allenstein; 20,994 sq km with 442 thousand inhabitants); the southern part annexed to the U.S.S.R., as the autonomous district of Kaliningrad (Königsberg; 10,000 sq km with 400,000 inhabitants), dependent on the R.S.F.S.R. The frontier between the two units runs roughly along 54° 20' N.

Giuseppe Caraci

HISTORY

The name of East Prussia, rather than constituting the designation of a geographical unit, is a historico-political definition and goes back to 1772, when, after the first partition of Poland, Frederick II of Prussia obtained Pomerelia, to which he imposed the name of West Prussia. The territories of the former duchy of Prussia, the political center of the state established by the Teutonic Order in the Middle Ages, situated to the east of West Prussia, thus received the name of East Prussia.

After the migrations of the Germanic peoples toward the West, present-day East Prussia was inhabited by a Baltic population, the Prussians, pagans and of a very warlike disposition; attempts were made to convert them to Christianity, but both Adalbert of Prague and Bruno of Querfurt, who around the year 1000 undertook this mission, met a violent death and suffered martyrdom. Subsequently the kings of Poland also strove to subjugate the Prussians, but without success. More concrete results were obtained by the evangelizing mission, begun around the early years of the 13th century by the Cistercian monk Christian, who in 1216 was consecrated bishop of Prussia, but as the hostility of the Prussians increased, Duke Conrad of Masovia turned around 1226 to the Teutonic Order for help. Duke Conrad, in order to put the Order in a position to subdue the infidels, gave in donation the Culmerland (Terra Colmensis: German Kulm, Polish Chelmno), probably as a base of operations for the crusade against the Prussians, to the Grand Master of the Order, Hermann of Salza. The intervention of the Order brought about in a very short time the conquest and the Christianization of E. P., and Innocent IV, toward the middle of the 13th century, divided the territory into the four dioceses of Kulm, Pomesania, Sambia and Varmia. The Christianization of the territory was followed almost step by step by the Germanization of E. P. and of the greater part of the Baltic countries. The Order became the predominant power of that region of Europe and its hegemony was broken only in 1410, with the battle of Tannenberg won by the Poles. In 1466, with the peace of Torun, concluded with Casimir IV, the Order finally lost even its independence and the Grand Master became a vassal of the Polish Crown. In 1525 the Grand Master of the Order, Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, converted to Lutheranism, secularized the Order's possessions, thenceforth transmissible in the direct and indirect line, and assumed the title of duke under the high sovereignty of the king of Poland. The bishops of Pomesania and Sambia also abjured the Catholic faith, but not those of Kulm and Varmia. In 1562 Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland, recognized in the elector of Brandenburg and his successors the right of succession in the duchy of P., in the event that that line of the house should become extinct. After the death of the last duke Albert Frederick, the elector George William in fact paid homage in 1621 to Sigismund III as duke of P. E. P. was freed from every bond toward the Polish crown with the Treaty of Wehlau (1675), when John Casimir recognized the full sovereignty of the elector Frederick William over it. From then on E. P. was an integral part of the Kingdom of Prussia, constituted in 1701, and after the end of the First World War of the Land P. The Potsdam Agreement of 2 Aug. 1945, pending the definitive peace treaty with Germany, granted in administration to Poland all the former German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, including therefore E. P. The annexation of the city of Königsberg, renamed Kaliningrad in 1946, and of the territory adjacent to Russia was instead recognized.

Silvio Furlani