Prussia, Prussians

[Ben Kenobi]

AFAIK Prussia just consisted of Germans, Lithuanians and Poles.

I don't know if it's so much as an ethnicity as it is a nationality. One of the main objects after the second world war with the borders was to destroy Prussia through division between the Soviet Union, Germany and Poland, with parts going to all three.

You are right that parts were Polish and Lithuanian, particularly after the partition, but I'm not sure one cannot make a distinction between the Germans in Prussia from the Germans elsewhere in Austria and the rest of Central Europe.

[Barnabas]

werent the germans invited there by the poles to conquer and christianize the pagans? they were not invited to stay there

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Saras


There is something creepy about a culture that goes on and completely renames every town, stream and lake after occupying the land. All the names were Lithuanian/Prussian and were only Germanised (Like Krakow-Krakau and Wroclaw-Breslau) after 500 or so years of German rule. The Russians renamed everything into Matrosskyi, Sovetsk and other fugly soviet sh|te names. That scares me.

In north america the invading european settlers 'retained' only a small fraction of the orginal place names of the prior inhabitants. And when I say 'retained' I include instances in which the settlers mistook some other native word or phrase for the name of a place and the mistake became the name the invaders eventually used. Most of the time the settlers placed a totally new and unrelated name on places they invaded.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yeah you are right. The Polish king in 1226 granted them land in the Baltic region, but the Holy Roman Empire gave the Knights the mission to conquer what we now call Prussia.

[Saras]

Originally posted by Geronimo


In north america the invading european settlers 'retained' only a small fraction of the orginal place names of the prior inhabitants. And when I say 'retained' I include instances in which the settlers mistook some other native word or phrase for the name of a place and the mistake became the name the invaders eventually used. Most of the time the settlers placed a totally new and unrelated name on places they invaded.

Not a nice thing to do, that.

[Saras]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
A Lithuanian defending Prussians? I've seen everything now.

It's more of a Lithuanian attacking soviets. I am, after all, a sovietphobe.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


I don't know if it's so much as an ethnicity as it is a nationality. One of the main objects after the second world war with the borders was to destroy Prussia through division between the Soviet Union, Germany and Poland, with parts going to all three.

You are right that parts were Polish and Lithuanian, particularly after the partition, but I'm not sure one cannot make a distinction between the Germans in Prussia from the Germans elsewhere in Austria and the rest of Central Europe.

Well yeah, I guess there are also differences between Englishmen in London and those in Liverpool, or between Frenchmen in Paris and Bordeaux. Doesn't make them separate ethnics though.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Saras


Not a nice thing to do, that.

Since when the hell does anyone care about nice?

Besides, you think the Lithuanians were the first to name everything in that area? Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. Who knows what more ancient names got dumped.

[Saras]

We're talking middle XX century total renaming here. Who else did that mid XX century?

[Sirotnikov]

How did this 6 post noob manage to threadjack this thread to talk about prussians?

What this thread really should be about is:




DL!!!!

[Saras]

[GePap]

Originally posted by Saras
We're talking middle XX century total renaming here. Who else did that mid XX century?

What does it matter if done in the XX century, or the X century? Does that make any difference whatsoever to the morality of the act??

[Gangerolf]

you agree it was a pretty fudged up thing to do then

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
How did this 6 post noob manage to threadjack this thread to talk about prussians?

What this thread really should be about is:




DL!!!!

the thread has been about prussia since post #1

also, take a look at the thread title

[GePap]

Originally posted by Gangerolf
you agree it was a pretty fudged up thing to do then

not really, no. The history of that land as either lithuanian or German ended. So who cares if the new owners decided to affirm that with new names?

[Gangerolf]

the civilised world?