Re: Odpowiedz: town and fence / Wends and Venedi

----- Original Message -----

From: smith

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2000 10:38 AM

Subject: [cybalist] Odpowiedz: town and fence / Wends and Venedi

Piotr wrote:

(3) The name Kwidzyn echoes Old Prussian Kwedin, the name of an island on the Vistula and of a Pomezanian village located there. The town as we know it grew round Marienwerder -- a castle built by the Teutonic Knights (they captured Kwedin in 1233), today a great tourist attraction (that's where I first met my wife, incidentally).

 

and

 

Martin Girchys-Shetty wrote:

> This question of the Slavic, Baltic and Germanic relations is certainly
> very interesting. And complex too. Archaeology of North-Eastern Europe
> has suffered much in the times of the cold war, either because of
> little interest, or because of misguided interest - as it was the case
> with Davydovna Gurevich excavating East Prussia and then distorting her
> data in favor of Soviet inspired pro-Slavic (pan-Balto-Slavic?)
> propaganda.

 

 

The castle (now called Malbork) houses an excellent archaeological exhibition on the western Balts, that is, old Prussians and Jatzvingians. Well worth a visit (or at least, it was last summer), even though I already have a wife :-> Remarkable how long pagan traditions continued in the country, even after "conversion" to Christianity. Local officials were giving permission for bulls to be sacrificed well into the 17th century. That must make east Prussia the last outpost of paganism in Europe   Piotr's reference to the Barts is new to me though. How do they fit in?

 

Andrew

 

PS Linguists would be amused by the notices by the entrance. These are in Polish, Russian, German and English, and are direct translations of each other. Apart from the prices - which are stratified by nationality. I never figured out why the tariff was highest for German speakers.

---

It's not the same castle, Andrew. Kwidzyn and Malbork are different towns. Malbork = German Marienburg, one of the biggest mediaeval castles in Europe and the former capital of the Teutonic Knight's Prussian state. The Kwidzyn castle is somewhat smaller but also worth a visit (even if you aren't looking for a marriageable girl). I didn't know the prices at Malbork were "nationally stratified" -- if they are, it's a disgrace. I suppose German speakers have to pay for the sins of the Teutonic Knights ;-), though I should think the Knights have left us something positive as well -- like those splendid Gothic castles and churches throughout northeastern Poland.

 

After all, it was the Polish-speaking dukes of Mazovia in the 13th century who invited the Teutonic Order to settle in Prussia and help them in their campaigns against the Western Balts, who would give them trouble by raiding Mazovia at regular intervals. For some time Polish-Teutonic relations were quite good and Polish knights often took part in the Teutonic crusade against the Prussians and Jatvingians (Sudovians), and subsequently against the Lithuanians. So did many a knight from Western Europe, including Chaucer's Knyght of the Canterbury Tales, who had fought "in Pruce". Prussia was much closer than the Holy Land.

 

As the Order grew in power, its relations with Poland became tense and open conflicts broke out every now and then. In the initial phase of that tension Poland was troubled by internal problems, from which it began to recover towards the end of the 14th c. What proved fatal for the Knights was the Polish alliance with Lithuania combined with the political consolidation and voluntary conversion of the latter (which rendered Teutonic actions against it formally illegal) and the coronation of the Lithuanian duke Jogaila (Jagiełło), a very able politician and an experienced military leader, as King of Poland. The Order was almost annihilated in the battle of Tannenberg (1410) by the combined Polish-Lithuanian forces, but Prussia, weakened as it was, remained an autonomous province which was later to develop into a powerful German-speaking state.

 

Though in the later course of history the tightening relations between Poland and Lithuania resulted in a political union and the cultural and linguistic Polonisation of the ruling class of Lithuania, at least the alliance saved the Lithuanians from the sad fate of their Prussian and Sudovian cousins, and so the East Baltic languages have survived. Pockets of Prussian-speaking population existed in German Prussia until the 18th c., then finally yielded to Germanisation. The residual pagan traditions you mention lingered on as well, but of course there was no longer anything you could call a distinct cult or religion -- at that time the people of Prussia were all good Protestans.

 

As for the Barts, they were just one of many similar tribes. I'm not sure whether they should be classified as Prussians or Sudovians. There was no single West Baltic state but numerous local centres of power, each with its own "kuningas".

 

Piotr