I beg to differ:
The Lithuanians were Indo-Iranian (Cimmerians). The Latvians were Finno-Urgic.
Lithuanians, Latvians, and Prus belong(ed) to the Baltic subgroup of Indo-European languages. Quite incidentially, the Latvians' names of their traditional gods are very closely related to the names of the Prussian gods (which my grandfather told me about), e.g. Prussian 'Perkunos' and Latvian
'Perkunas'.
The Finno-Ugric language group in that region is represented by Finnish and Estonian.
Prussian is regarded an archaic language which kept some forms also found in Sanskrit.
The originial Prussians were the "Prusi"( Finno-Urgic) who were nomadic raiders who also "went Viking". Wends and Poles (Slavic) farmers came in later and a trade interchange began.
The original Prus (pronounced like 'prooss'), or 'Prusai' in their own language, were not nomadic nor raiders by the time the colonization began, nor were they Finno-Ugric. They were farming the land and keeping animals. A different, but related tribe, the Curonians, made a living on fishing; there are still Curonians living in the area of the Curonian Lagoon. They still exist, live in the same place, and their boats still have the same characteristic looks. They are related to the Prus linguistically.
Agriculture, however, was how the Prus won their living, with fields owned collectively. The Prus were organized in twelve tribes acting autonomously, and their languages apparently differed, as some of them are classified as East Baltic while others are West Baltic.
A trade interchange already existed in the times of the Roman Empire which imported amber from the Prus.
The Wends did not get into Prussia. 'Wends' is a term for a multitude of Slavic peoples living in regions later on conquered by the Germans when they crossed the river Elbe, and it is also the name of a Slavic remnant population living in North Germany at the river Elbe still today. Historically, there was a Slavic population of several tribes from South of Kiel along the Baltic Sea to Pomerania. This Slavic population still exist today and some of them have a minority status (e.g. the Sorbs South-East of Berlin, with approx 30,000 speakers of the Sorbic language). Another tribe still around today are the Kashubians in Poland with approx 50,000 speakers of their original (Slavic) language.
As to your claim the Prus 'went Viking' - if that is to say they were plundering and pillaging seafarers: no way.
The description of the Prus as 'nomadic raiders' is about as truthful and based on facts as the similar decription of ndn nations - raiding is not all that sufficient and profitable a job when it comes to the survival of an entire population who want their meals somewhat regularly.
The Prusi stoutly refused to be coverted to Catholicism and after a 4 decade war were anniliated. Survivors were absorbed by the Wends and Poles.
Nope. Prussian was a spoken language until about 1750 which is quite a bit longer than four decades after the begin of the conquest. The population did not become extinct but exists beyond that date which merely indicates the point in time when the language was no longer used in every-day life. The Prus were not annihilated as a people, but lost their land and political autonomy, they were assimilated.
Not all Prus refused to become Catholic. There is one region, called 'Ermland'/Warmia, which was predominantly Catholic as compared to the rest of the Prus country which turned predominantly Protestant. Furthermore, although the towns founded did not accept Prus, Lithuanians, etc as inhabitants, the rural population was predominantly Prussian for several centuries; while at first they were able to keep their lands unconditionally, later on the possession of land was only possible for converts.
After four decades of Prussian fight against the Knights, the Prus were defeated militarily, and it is said that only 50% of the original population were left. It is however unknown how many of the other half was killed and how many wandered off to Lithuania or Latvia.
In fact the Prussian language became extinct with the increased immigration of Protestants from all over Europe to Prussia, and eventually German became the common language. However, the dialect spoken kept Prussian words, and especially family names. The dialect spoken in Prussia until 1945 was a mixture of German dialects with some Prussian and a few Slavic words.
Prussia than became a German Military State who provided soldiers/ Mercenarys (Landsnecht) to anybody who would have them.
Not quite. The country came under the reign of the Princes of Brandenburg who were Electors (i.e. belonged to the nobility electing the rulers of Germany).
Eventually, one of them became more ambitious and wanted to be a king, so he crowned himself a king in the Prussian town of Koenigsberg (i.e. 'King's Mountain, today Kaliningrad). However, the title was not accepted by the German nobility, so the title originally was 'King *in* Prussia', i.e. they had the right to call themselves king only when in their Prussian domain. Some time during the 18th century, this was changed to King of Prussia.
One of them in fact did earn the byname of 'Soldier King', but not for selling and providing mercenaries, but for building a huge army. In fact he *bought* soldiers all over Europe, or had his agents abduct persons, especially men of more than 1,80 metres which were forced to join his special units of so-called 'tall guys'.
There were German states which sold mercenaries to anyone able to pay and in need of an army, but Prussia did not belong to them.
The Prussians ( who were Lutheran) later only minimally supported the Nazis ( who were staunch Catholics) and the "Nazi hotbed myth" was spread by the Russians as a excuse to go in and slaughter them to the last man,woman, and child. ( see Kalingrad).
Support of the Nazis was - as much as I regret to say this - not less and not more spread than elsewhere in Germany. The Nazis were not staunch Catholics (in fact, some of them tried to 'revive' a Germanic religion, or rather what they took for Germanic spirituality), even though they had an agreement, the so-called Concordate, with the Vatican which was done as a gesture of appeasement. We owe it to these times to pay church taxes to the state still today which then transfers the money to both the Catholic and the Lutheran church (today 8 resp 9% of what you pay in income tax).
The Russians in fact needed no excuse or myth other than what they saw in their home country on their advance as the Nazi army retreated. Campaigns like 'Burnt Ground' had led to the slaughtering of tens of thousands civilians in Russia, in the Ukraina, in Belarus.
However, the remaining Prussian population was *not* slaughtered to the last man, woman, and child. There are still persons of German, Masurian, and Curonian ethnicity living in both parts of Prussia (the North is Russian, the South is Polish). As the Nazis had ordered East Prussia to act as a 'Fortress', the population was forbidden to flee when the Soviet army advanced. The head Nazi in Koenigsberg, by the name of Koch, happened to pack up and escape right after he issued this verdict.... So many tried to make an escape in a desperate last-minute attempt, my family among them. My great-grandmother was killed in a nightly aircraft attack on a treck across the frozen Vistula Lagoon, and my grandmother only survived because she was not allowed on the same cart as g-grandma, at the age of 45 she was supposed to be young and fit enough to walk.
A friend of my father's got lost when his family tried to leave Prussia, he was about 7 years then, and he grew up in an orphanage in the Russian part of Prussia. His family kept looking for him with the help of the Red Cross and found him by the end of the 50ies, so he was allowed to join them in West Germany.
Never trust the internet for history. Visit a library..........
Which one did you happen to use?
