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130-702: (Redirected from Mazurian ) Masurian or Mazurian may refer to: someone or something from Masuria the Masurians , a sub-ethnic group the Masurian dialects of Polish the Masurians, historical name for Masovians Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship , an administrative division in northern Poland Masurian Landscape Park , a protected area in Masuria Masurian Lake District Topics referred to by

260-496: A host of men, a band of comrades as well as a swarm or flock of animals. In Classical Greek , the word took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as " nation , tribe, a unique people group"; only in Hellenistic Greek did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or " barbarous " nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan"). In

390-596: A declaration of their German nationality by the embassies of the United States and Great Britain in Warsaw. Sixty-three percent of the Masurians in the district of Mrągowo received such a document. In December 1956, Masurian pro-Polish activists signed a memorandum to the Communist Party leadership: "The history of the people of Warmia and Masuria is full of tragedy and suffering. Injustice, hardship and pain often pressed on

520-560: A first resistance defending the rights of rural population was organized, according to Jerzy Mazurek usually by some teachers engaged in publishing Polish language newspapers. Despite anti-Polish policies, such Polish language newspapers as the Pruski Przyjaciel Ludu (Prussian Friend of People) or the Kalendarz Królewsko-Pruski Ewangelicki (Royal Prussian Evangelical Calendar) or bilingual journals like

650-421: A focus on the interface between groups. "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries", therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes: "...   categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact, and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in

780-499: A mercurial character. Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness". He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity   ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization." This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity

910-510: A narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry. By way of assimilation , acculturation , amalgamation , language shift , intermarriage , adoption , and religious conversion , individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. Ethnic groups may be divided into subgroups or tribes , which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy or physical isolation from

1040-612: A people of a common language , culture , common sets of ancestry , traditions , society, religion , history, or social treatment. The term ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation , particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism . Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage , ancestry, origin myth , history , homeland , language , dialect , religion, mythology , folklore , ritual , cuisine , dressing style , art , or physical appearance . Ethnic groups may share

1170-519: A preoccupation with scientists, theologians, and the public. Religious institutions asked questions about whether there had been multiple creations of races (polygenesis) and whether God had created lesser races. Many of the foremost scientists of the time took up the idea of racial difference and found that white Europeans were superior. The ethnicity theory was based on the assimilation model. Park outlined four steps to assimilation: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. Instead of attributing

1300-412: A process known as ethnogenesis, a period of several generations of endogamy resulting in common ancestry (which is then sometimes cast in terms of a mythological narrative of a founding figure ); ethnic identity is reinforced by reference to "boundary markers" – characteristics said to be unique to the group which set it apart from other groups. Ethnicity theory argues that race

1430-777: A result, the number of native Masurians remaining in Masuria was initially relatively high, while most of the population was subsequently expelled . Poles from central Poland and the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union as well as Ukrainians expelled from southern Poland throughout the Operation Vistula , were resettled in Masuria. According to the Masurian Institute, the Masurian members of resistance against Nazi Germany who survived

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1560-508: A stand-in for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953). The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972. Depending on context, the term nationality may be used either synonymously with ethnicity or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state). The process that results in emergence of an ethnicity

1690-636: A teacher and Polish national who had moved to Masuria in 1931 to establish a Polish school in Piassutten (Piasutno), died in his home of carbon monoxide poisoning, most likely murdered by local German nationalists. Due to severe persecution, from 1936 Polish organizations carried out their activities partly in conspiracy. Before the war the Nazi German state sent undercover operatives to spy on Polish organisations and created lists of people that were to be executed or sent to concentration camps . Information

1820-443: Is a social category and is only one of several factors in determining ethnicity. Other criteria include "religion, language, 'customs', nationality, and political identification". This theory was put forward by sociologist Robert E. Park in the 1920s. It is based on the notion of "culture". This theory was preceded by more than 100 years during which biological essentialism was the dominant paradigm on race. Biological essentialism

1950-423: Is called ethnogenesis , a term in use in ethnological literature since about 1950. The term may also be used with the connotation of something unique and unusually exotic (cf. "an ethnic restaurant", etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the dominant population of an area was established. Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership,

2080-420: Is called ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although historians and cultural anthropologists have documented that many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention. Ethnic groups can form a cultural mosaic in a society. That could be in a city like New York City or Trieste , but also

2210-414: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Masuria Masuria is bordered by Warmia , Powiśle and Chełmno Land in the west, Mazovia in the south, Podlachia and Suwałki Region in the east, and Lithuania Minor in the north. Some of the earliest archeological finds in Masuria were found at Dudka and Szczepanki sites and belonged to

2340-642: Is not a noun in Britain. In effect there are no "ethnics"; there are only "ethnic relations". In the U.S., the OMB says the definition of race as used for the purposes of the US Census is not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference". Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by

2470-442: Is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation. Kanchan Chandra rejects the expansive definitions of ethnic identity (such as those that include common culture, common language, common history and common territory), choosing instead to define ethnic identity narrowly as a subset of identity categories determined by

2600-547: Is surprisingly distinct, being of modern Central European character. However, Masuria was still largely agrarian-oriented and suffered from the economic decline after World War I, additionally badly affected by the creation of the so-called Polish Corridor , which raised freight costs to the traditional markets in Germany. The later implemented Osthilfe had only a minor influence on Masuria as it privileged larger estates, while Masurian farms were generally small. The interwar period

2730-431: Is the belief that some races, specifically white Europeans in western versions of the paradigm, are biologically superior and other races, specifically non-white races in western debates, are inherently inferior. This view arose as a way to justify enslavement of African Americans and genocide of Native Americans in a society that was officially founded on freedom for all. This was a notion that developed slowly and came to be

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2860-604: The Mazurska Partia Ludowa ("People's Party of Masuria"), was founded in 1897. The eastern areas of the German Empire were systematically Germanised with changing of names and public signs, and the German state fostered cultural imperialism, in addition to giving financial and other support to German farmers, officials, and teachers to settle in the east. The German authorities in their efforts of Germanisation tried to claim

2990-583: The 20 July assassination attempt occurred in 1944. In August 1943 the Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe attacked the village of Mittenheide (Turośl) in southern Masuria. In 1943, "Związek Mazurski" was reactivated secretly by Masurian activists of the Polish Underground State in Warsaw and led by Karol Małłek. Związek Mazurski opposed Nazi Germany and asked Polish authorities during the war to liquidate German large landowners after

3120-608: The Black Death . In Masuria the death toll varied regionally; while 6,789 people died in the district of Rhein (Ryn) only 677 died in Seehesten ( Szestno ). In Lötzen ( Giżycko ) 800 out of 919 people died. Losses in population were compensated by migration of Protestant settlers or refugees from Scotland , Salzburg ( expulsion of Protestants 1731 ), France ( Huguenot refugees after the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685), and especially from

3250-458: The Caribbean and South Asia . Max Weber maintained that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct ) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolize power and status. This

3380-738: The East Prussian plebiscite on 11 July 1920 to determine if the people of the southern districts of East Prussia wanted to remain within East Prussia or to join the Second Polish Republic . The German side terrorised the local population before the plebiscite using violence, Polish organisations and activists were harassed by German militias, and those actions included attacks and some supposed murders of Polish activists; Masurs who supported voting for Poland were singled out and subjected to terror and repressions. Names of those Masurs supporting

3510-710: The German army invading Poland, and Russia two years later on. In addition, the Einsatzgruppe V Nazi paramilitary death squads entered German-occupied Działdowo to commit crimes against the Polish population . Only some of the Polish activists from Działdowo County were caught by the Germans, as most managed to flee and hide under assumed names in the General Government (German-occupied central Poland). Arrested Polish activists from

3640-480: The German language and to eradicate the Polish (Masurian) language as much as possible; German became the obligatory language in schools from 1834 on. The Lutheran churches and their vicars principally exerted their spiritual care in Masurian as concerned to Masurian mother tongue parishioners. Polish secret resistance was active and smuggled weapons through the region to the Russian Partition of Poland during

3770-551: The Goths ). In AD 98 Tacitus described one of the tribes living near the Baltic Sea ( Latin : Mare Suebicum ) as Aestiorum gentes and amber -gatherers. Before the 13th century, the territory was inhabited by Old (Baltic) Prussians, a Baltic ethnic group that lived in Prussia (the area of the southeastern coastal region of the Baltic Sea neighbouring of the Baltic Sea around

3900-716: The January Uprising of 1863–1864. Polish insurgents fled from the Russians to Masuria and found shelter in various towns and villages. Some insurgents reorganized in Masuria to return to the Russian Partition of Poland and continue the fight. Newly formed Polish units from the Prussian Partition of Poland also passed through Masuria, and even clashed with Prussian troops in the region. Several local resistance members, smugglers and insurgents were arrested and imprisoned by

4030-520: The Masurian dialect during the campaigning. In 1938, the Nazi government (1933–1945) changed thousands of still existing toponyms (especially names of cities and villages) of Old Prussian, Lithuanian and Polish origin to newly created German names; six thousand, that meant about 50% of the existing names were changed, but the countryside population stuck to their traditional names. Another renaming would take place after Masuria passed to Poland in 1945, with

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4160-458: The Napoleonic Wars and Polish national liberation struggles , in 1807, several towns of northern and eastern Masuria were taken over by Polish troops under the command of generals Jan Henryk Dąbrowski and Józef Zajączek . Some Masurians showed considerable support for the Polish uprising in 1831, and maintained many contacts with Russian-held areas of Poland beyond the border of Prussia,

4290-450: The New World were multi-ethnic from the onset, as they were formed as colonies imposed on existing indigenous populations. In recent decades, feminist scholars (most notably Nira Yuval-Davis) have drawn attention to the fundamental ways in which women participate in the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national categories. Though these categories are usually discussed as belonging to

4420-636: The Oletzkoer Kreisblatt - Tygodnik Obwodu Oleckiego continued to be published in Masuria. In contrast to the Prussian-oriented periodicals, in the late 19th century such newspapers as Przyjaciel Ludu Łecki and Mazur were founded by members of the Warsaw -based Komitet Centralny dla Śląska, Kaszub i Mazur (Central Committee for Silesia, Kashubia and Masuria), influenced by Polish politicians like Antoni Osuchowski or Juliusz Bursche , to strengthen

4550-802: The Przyjaciel Ewangeliczny and the Gazeta Polska dla Ludu staropruskiego w Westfalii i na Mazurach but also the German language Altpreußische Zeitung were published. During World War I , the Battle of Tannenberg and the First and Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes between Imperial Germany and the Russian Empire took place within the borders of Masuria in 1914. After the war, the League of Nations held

4680-452: The SS gathered under their locals performing songs like "Wenn das Polenblut vom Messer spritzt, dann geht's noch mal so gut" ("When Polish blood spurts from the knife, everything will be better"). The Nazi anti-Polish activities further intensified in 1939. Those Poles who were most active in politics were evicted from their own homes, while Polish newspapers and cultural houses were closed down in

4810-480: The Soldau concentration camp , where 13,000 people were murdered by the Nazi German state during the war. Notable victims included the Polish bishops Antoni Julian Nowowiejski and Leon Wetmański , as well as the nun Mieczysława Kowalska. Additionally, almost 1,900 mentally ill patients from East Prussia and annexed areas of Poland were murdered there as well, in what was known as Action T4 . Polish resistance in Masuria

4940-523: The Unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the last lessons that made use of the Polish language were removed from schools in 1872. Masurians who expressed sympathy for Poland were deemed "national traitors" by German public opinion, especially after 1918 when the new Polish republic laid claims to, up to then German, areas inhabited by Polish speakers. According to Stefan Berger, after 1871

5070-551: The Vistula Lagoon and the Curonian Lagoon ). A part of the territory later called Masuria was then known as Galindia and was probably a peripheral, deeply forested and lightly populated area. Inhabitants of the now Masuria spoke a language now known as Old Prussian and had their own mythology . Although a 19th-century German political entity bore their name, they were not Germans. They were converted to Roman Catholicism in

5200-545: The subneolithic Zedmar culture . Indo-European settlers first arrived in the region during the 4th millennium BC, which in the Baltic would diversify into the satem Balto-Slavic branch which would ultimately give rise to the Balts as the speakers of the Baltic languages . The Balts would have become differentiated into Western and Eastern Balts in the late 1st millennium BC. The region

5330-445: The "Great verification" campaign. Many unverified Masurians were imprisoned and accused of pro-Nazi or pro-American propaganda, even former pro-Polish activists and inmates of Nazi concentration camps were jailed and tortured. After the end of this campaign in the district of Mrągowo only 166 Masurians were still "unverified". In 1950, 1,600 Masurians left the country and in 1951, 35,000 people from Masuria and Warmia managed to obtain

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5460-632: The 13th century, after conquest by the Knights of the Teutonic Order . Estimates range from about 170,000 to 220,000 Old Prussians living in the whole of Prussia around 1200. The wilderness was their natural barrier against attack by would-be invaders. During the Northern Crusades of the early 13th century, the Old Prussians used this wide forest as a broad zone of defence. They did so again against

5590-561: The 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a tribe, race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. The sense of "different cultural groups", and in American English "tribal, racial, cultural or national minority group " arises in the 1930s to 1940s, serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological racism . The abstract ethnicity had been used as

5720-562: The German flag, but it was soon recovered by the Polish Army . During the interwar period many native inhabitants of Działdowo subregion left and migrated to Germany. Masuria was the only region of Germany directly affected by the battles of World War I. Damaged towns and villages were reconstructed with the aid of several twin towns from western Germany like Cologne to Neidenburg (Nidzica), Frankfurt to Lötzen (Giżycko) and even Vienna to Ortelsburg (Szczytno). The architecture still

5850-505: The German state Kętrzyński fought against attempts to Germanise Masuria However, the attempts to create a Masurian Polish national consciousness, largely originating from nationalist circles of Province of Posen (Poznań) in the Prussian Partition of Poland, faced the resistance of the Masurians, who, despite having similar folk traditions and linguistics to Poles, regarded themselves as Prussians and later Germans. and were loyal to

5980-606: The Greeks. Herodotus (8.144.2) gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating Whether ethnicity qualifies as a cultural universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen ,

6110-507: The Hohenzollern dynasty, the Prussian and German state. After World War I the editor of the Polish language Mazur described the Masurians as "not nationally conscious, on the contrary, the most loyal subjects of the Prussian king". However, a minority of Masurians did exist who expressed Polish identity After 1871 there appeared resistance among the Masurians towards Germanisation efforts,

6240-524: The Knights in order to hold their power and possessions. After the Order's acquisition of Prussia, Poles (or more specifically, Mazurs , that is inhabitants of the adjacent region of Mazovia ) began to settle in the southeastern part of the conquered region. German , Dutch , Flemish , and Danish colonists entered the area afterward, from the northwest. The number of Polish settlers grew significantly again at

6370-490: The Knights of the Teutonic Order , who had been invited to Poland by Konrad I of Masovia in 1226. The order's goal was to convert the native population to Christianity and baptise it by force if necessary. In the subsequent conquest, which lasted over 50 years, the original population was partly exterminated, particularly during the major Prussian rebellion of 1261–83. But several Prussian noble families also accommodated

6500-476: The Masurian dialect was still in use among bilinguals. Throughout industrialisation in the late 19th century about 10 percent of the Masurian populace emigrated to the Ruhr Area , where about 180,000 Masurians lived in 1914. Wattenscheid , Wanne and Gelsenkirchen were the centers of Masurian emigration and Gelsenkirchen- Schalke was even called Klein (little)- Ortelsburg before 1914. Masurian newspapers like

6630-502: The Masurian language separate from Polish by classifying it as a non- Slavic language different from Polish one, this was reflected in official census Thus the Masurian population in 1890, 143,397 was reported to the Prussian census as having German as their language (either primary or secondary), 152,186 Polish and 94,961 Masurian . In 1910, the German language was reported by German authorities as used by 197,060, Polish by 30,121 and Masurian by 171,413. Roman Catholics generally opted for

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6760-458: The Masurians in the German Empire were seen in a view that while acknowledging their "objective" Polishness (in terms of culture and language) they felt "subjectively" German and thus should be tightly integrated into the German nation-state; Berger concludes that such arguments of German nationalists were aimed at integrating Masurian (and Silesian) territory firmly into the German Reich. During

6890-596: The Nazis to be subhuman and were to be exterminated. The Nazi authorities also executed Polish activists in Masuria and those who remained alive were sent to concentration camps. In Masuria, Germany also established and operated the Stalag I-B and Oflag 63 prisoner-of-war camps for Polish, Belgian, French , Italian , Serbian and Soviet POWs, and built the Wolf's Lair , Adolf Hitler 's first Eastern Front military headquarters where

7020-612: The Polish identity in Masuria. The Gazeta Ludowa (The Folk's Newspaper) was published in Lyck in 1896–1902, with 2,500 copies in 1897 and the Mazur in Ortelsburg (Szczytno) after 1906 with 500 copies in 1908 and 2,000 prior to World War I. Polish activists started to regard Masurians as "Polish brothers" after Wojciech Kętrzyński had published his pamphlet O Mazurach in 1872 and Polish activists engaged in active self-help against repressions by

7150-426: The Polish language, Protestants appreciated Masurian. In 1925, German authorities reported 40,869 inhabitants as having declared Masurian as their native tongue and 2,297 as Polish. However, the last result may have been a result of politics at the time, the desire of the population to be German after the trauma evoked by the 1920 plebiscite. So the province could be presented as - so-called - 'purely German'; in reality,

7280-536: The Polish minority and attacks against Polish activists. Before the plebiscite Poles started to flee the region to escape the German harassment and Germanisation policies. The results determined that 99.32% of the voters in Masuria proper chose to remain with the province of East Prussia . Their traditional religious belief in Lutheranism kept them away from Polish national consciousness, dominated by Roman Catholicism . In fact almost only Catholics voted for Poland in

7410-407: The Polish side were published in German newspapers, and their photos presented in German shops; afterwards regular hunts were organised after them by German militias terrorizing the Polish minded population. At least 3,000 Warmian and Masurian activists who were engaged for the Polish side decided to flee the region. At the same time also local police officials were engaged in active surveillance of

7540-479: The Polish state. As a result, even many Poles of the region voted for Germany out of fear that if the area was allocated to Poland it would fall under Soviet rule. After the plebiscite in German areas of Masuria attacks on Polish population commenced by German mobs, and Polish priests and politicians were driven from their homes After the plebiscite at least 10,000 Poles had to flee German held Masuria to Poland. The region of Działdowo (Soldau), where according to

7670-551: The Prussians. Local residents protested against the deportation of insurgents to the Russian Partition. Mother tongue of the inhabitants of Masuria, by county, during the first half of the 19th century: The Darkehmen/Darkiejmy (now Ozyorsk ) and Gołdap counties, as transitional counties between Masuria and the Lithuania Minor region to the north, were inhabited by notable numbers of both ethnic Poles and Lithuanians. After

7800-462: The United States that the ethnicity theory was exclusively based on the immigration patterns of the white population and did take into account the unique experiences of non-whites in the United States. While Park's theory identified different stages in the immigration process – contact, conflict, struggle, and as the last and best response, assimilation – it did so only for white communities. The ethnicity paradigm neglected

7930-994: The added value of being able to describe the commonalities between systems of group identity in both tribal and modern societies. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning "ethnic" identity (like earlier claims concerning "tribal" identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states. According to Paul James , formations of identity were often changed and distorted by colonization, but identities are not made out of nothing: Categorizations about identity, even when codified and hardened into clear typologies by processes of colonization, state formation or general modernizing processes, are always full of tensions and contradictions. Sometimes these contradictions are destructive, but they can also be creative and positive. Social scientists have thus focused on how, when, and why different markers of ethnic identity become salient. Thus, anthropologist Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have

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8060-537: The anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation was founded, and various towns of Masuria joined it. Western Masuria with Ostróda , was, next to the Chełmno Land , the place of the most widespread participation of the nobility in the foundation of the Confederation. In 1454 upon the Confederation's request King Casimir IV of Poland signed the act of incorporation of the entire region including Masuria to Poland and after

8190-568: The areas being connected by common culture and language; before the uprising people visited each other's country fairs and much trade took place, with smuggling also widespread. Nevertheless, their Lutheran belief and a traditional adherence to the Prussian royal family kept Masurians and Poles separated. Some early writers about Masurians - like Max Toeppen - postulated Masurians in general as mediators between German and Slav cultures. Germanisation policies in Masuria included various strategies, first and foremost they included attempts to propagate

8320-522: The beginning of the 15th century, especially after the first and the second treaties of Thorn ( Toruń ), in 1411 and 1466 respectively, following the Thirteen Years' War and the final defeat of the order. The Battle of Grunwald took place in western Masuria in 1410. It was one of the largest battles of medieval Europe and ended in a Polish-Lithuanian victory over the Teutonic Knights. In 1440

8450-449: The belief of common descent. Jóhanna Birnir similarly defines ethnicity as "group self-identification around a characteristic that is very difficult or even impossible to change, such as language, race, or location." Different approaches to understanding ethnicity have been used by different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. As Jonathan M. Hall observes, World War II

8580-611: The bulk of the historic Polish names restored. According to German author Andreas Kossert, Polish parties were financed and aided by the Polish government in Warsaw, and remained splintergroups without any political influence, e.g. in the 1932 elections the Polish Party received 147 votes in Masuria proper. According to Wojciech Wrzesiński (1963), the Polish organisations in Masuria had decided to lower their activity in order to escape acts of terror performed against Polish minority activists and organisations by Nazi activists. Jerzy Lanc,

8710-573: The context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. In the 19th century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations". Nation-states , however, invariably include populations who have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion based on equality or seek autonomy, sometimes even to

8840-399: The conversion of Albert of Prussia to Lutheranism in 1525 brought Prussia including the area later called Masuria to Protestantism . The Knights untied their bonds to the Catholic Church and became land-owning noblemen and the Duchy of Prussia was established as a vassal state of Poland. The Polish language predominated due to the many immigrants from Mazovia , who additionally settled

8970-451: The counterreformed Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , including Polish brethren expelled from Poland in 1657. The last group of refugees to emigrate to Masuria were the Russian Philipons (as 'Old Believers' opposed to the State Church) in 1830, when King Frederick William III of Prussia granted them asylum. After the death of Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia in 1618, his son-in-law John Sigismund, Margrave of Brandenburg , inherited

9100-422: The course of individual life histories." In 1978, anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities: ... the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed. In this way, he pointed to

9230-526: The cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term "race" is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term "race" altogether and speak of "ethnic groups". In 1982, anthropologist David Craig Griffith summed up forty years of ethnographic research, arguing that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways people from different parts of

9360-474: The decisions made at the earlier Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference the region passed to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, pending a final peace conference with Germany. Most of the population fled to Germany or was killed during or after the war, while those which stayed were subject to a "nationality verification", organised by the communist government of Poland. As

9490-447: The distant past. Perspectives that developed after the 1960s increasingly viewed ethnic groups as social constructs , with identity assigned by societal rules. The term ethnic is ultimately derived from the Greek ethnos , through its adjectival form ethnikos , loaned into Latin as ethnicus . The inherited English language term for this concept is folk , used alongside

9620-452: The distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values. According to Wolf, racial categories were constructed and incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion , and ethnic groupings during the period of capitalist expansion . Writing in 1977 about

9750-856: The duchy (including Masuria), combining the two territories under a single dynasty and forming Brandenburg-Prussia . The Treaty of Wehlau revoked the sovereignty of the King of Poland in 1657. The region became part of the Kingdom of Prussia with the coronation of King Frederick I of Prussia in 1701 in Königsberg . Masuria became part of a newly created administrative province of East Prussia upon its creation in 1773. The name Masuria began to be used officially after new administrative reforms in Prussia after 1818. Masurians referred to themselves during that period as "Polish Prussians" or as "Staroprusaki" (Old Prussians) During

9880-536: The early 18th century. At that time they proved to be assimilated into the mass of German-speaking villagers and farmers. Areas that had many Polish language speakers were known as the Polish Departments. Masuria became one of the leading centers of Polish Protestantism . In the mid-16th century Lyck (Ełk) and Angerburg (Węgorzewo) became significant Polish printing centers. A renowned Polish high school, which attracted Polish students from different regions,

10010-530: The extent of complete political separation in their nation-state. Under these conditions   when people moved from one state to another, or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries – ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation but lived in another state. In the 1920s, Estonia introduced a flexible system of ethnicity/nationality self-choice for its citizens, which included Estonians Russians, Baltic Germans and Jews. Multi-ethnic states can be

10140-414: The fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. He also described that in the first decades of usage, the term ethnicity had often been used in lieu of older terms such as "cultural" or "tribal" when referring to smaller groups with shared cultural systems and shared heritage, but that "ethnicity" had

10270-518: The fallen monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the United States. Current topics are in particular social and cultural differentiation, multilingualism, competing identity offers, multiple cultural identities and the formation of Salad bowl and melting pot . Ethnic groups differ from other social groups, such as subcultures , interest groups or social classes , because they emerge and change over historical periods (centuries) in

10400-580: The following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified: In many cases, more than one aspect determines membership: for instance, Armenian ethnicity can be defined by Armenian citizenship, having Armenian heritage, native use of the Armenian language , or membership of the Armenian Apostolic Church . Ethnography begins in classical antiquity ; after early authors like Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus , Herodotus laid

10530-575: The forces of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , including 2,000 Tatar raiders , beat the allied Swedish and Brandenburg army capturing Bogusław Radziwiłł . The war resulted in the destruction of most towns, 249 villages and settlements, and 37 churches were destroyed. Over 50% of the population of Masuria died within the years 1656–1657, 23,000 were killed, another 80,000 died of diseases and famine, and 3,400 people were enslaved and deported to Russia. From 1709 to 1711, in all of Ducal Prussia between 200,000 and 245,000 out of 600,000 inhabitants died from

10660-672: The foundation of both historiography and ethnography of the ancient world c.  480 BC . The Greeks had developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes . Although there were exceptions, such as Macedonia, which was ruled by nobility in a way that was not typically Greek, and Sparta, which had an unusual ruling class, the ancient Greeks generally enslaved only non-Greeks due to their strong belief in ethnonationalism. The Greeks sometimes believed that even their lowest citizens were superior to any barbarian. In his Politics 1.2–7; 3.14, Aristotle even described barbarians as natural slaves in contrast to

10790-558: The genes. Examples of various approaches are primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism, and instrumentalism. Ethnicity is an important means by which people may identify with a larger group. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. The process that results in emergence of such identification

10920-550: The guidance of politician Leon Wojnowski who protested German attempts to remain Działdowo a part of Germany after the war; other local pro-Polish activists were Alfred Wellenger, Paczyński, Tadeusz Bogdański, Jóźwiakowski. The historian Andreas Kossert describes that the incorporation happened despite protests of the local populace, the municipal authorities and the German Government, According to Kossert, 6,000 inhabitants of

11050-433: The kernel of a nation which must be defended in times of conflict, or in iconic figures such as Britannia or Marianne . Ethnicity is used as a matter of cultural identity of a group, often based on shared ancestry, language, and cultural traditions, while race is applied as a taxonomic grouping, based on physical similarities among groups. Race is a more controversial subject than ethnicity, due to common political use of

11180-639: The latinate people since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian ecumene ), as the Septuagint used ta ethne 'the nations' to translate the Hebrew goyim "the foreign nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews". The Greek term in early antiquity ( Homeric Greek ) could refer to any large group,

11310-581: The local populace according to their alleged ethnic background. A Polish-sounding last name or a Polish-speaking ancestor was sufficient to be regarded as "autochthonous" Polish. In October 1946, 37,736 persons were "verified" as Polish citizens while 30,804 remained "unverified". A center of such "unverified" Masurians was the district of Mrągowo , where in early 1946 out of 28,280 persons, 20,580 were "unverified", while in October, 16,385 still refused to adopt Polish citizenship. However, even those who complied with

11440-477: The marginalized status of people of color in the United States to their inherent biological inferiority, he attributed it to their failure to assimilate into American culture. They could become equal if they abandoned their inferior cultures. Michael Omi and Howard Winant 's theory of racial formation directly confronts both the premises and the practices of ethnicity theory. They argue in Racial Formation in

11570-479: The modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century. They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries. Thus, in the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation , developed in

11700-454: The municipal administration of Rybno , after World War I Poles in Działdowo believed that they will be quickly joined with Poland, they organised secret gatherings during which the issue of rejoining Polish state with help of Polish military was discussed. According to the Rybno administration, most active Poles in that subregion included Jóżwiakowscy, Wojnowscy, Grzeszczowscy families working under

11830-460: The official German census of 1910 ethnic Germans formed a minority of 37.3%, was excluded from the plebiscite and became part of Poland. This was reasoned with placing the railway connection between Warsaw and Danzig (Gdańsk), of vital importance to Poland as it connected central Poland with its recently obtained seacoast, completely under Polish sovereignty. Działdowo itself counted about 24,000 people of which 18,000 were Masurians. According to

11960-483: The often used pressure by Polish authorities were in fact treated as Germans because of their Lutheran faith and their often rudimentary knowledge of Polish. Names were "Polonised" and the usage of the German language in public was forbidden. In the late 1940s the pressure to sign the "verification documents" grew and in February 1949 the former chief of the stalinist secret Police (UB) of Łódź , Mieczysław Moczar , started

12090-551: The parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a panethnicity and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity . Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis . Although both organic and performative criteria characterise ethnic groups, debate in the past has dichotomised between primordialism and constructivism. Earlier 20th-century "Primordialists" viewed ethnic groups as real phenomena whose distinct characteristics have endured since

12220-620: The period of the German Empire, the Germanisation policies in Masuria became more widespread; children using Polish in playgrounds and classrooms were widely punished by corporal punishment, and authorities tried to appoint Protestant pastors who would use only German instead of bilinguality and this resulted in protests of local parishioners. According to Jerzy Mazurek, the native Polish-speaking population, like in other areas with Polish inhabitants, faced discrimination of Polish language activities from Germanised local administration. In this climate

12350-483: The plebiscite. They were to be found as a majority in the villages around the capital Allenstein ( Olsztyn ) in Warmia, the same were Polish cultural activism got hold between 1919 and 1932. However, the contemporary Polish ethnographer Adam Chętnik accused the German authorities of abuses and falsifications during the plebiscite. Moreover, the plebiscite took place during the time when Polish–Soviet War threatened to erase

12480-433: The poorest areas of Masuria with the highest rate of Polish speakers. Especially in the elections of 1932 and 1933 they reached up to 81 percent of votes in the district of Neidenburg and 80 percent in the district of Lyck . The Nazis used the economic crisis, which had significant effects in far-off Masuria, as well as traditional anti-Polish sentiments while at the same time Nazi political rallies were organised in

12610-500: The pre-war German part of Masuria were mostly deported to concentration camps, incl. Hohenbruch  [ de ] , Soldau , Stutthof , Sachsenhausen , Gusen and Ravensbrück . In 1939, the German occupiers established a prisoner-of-war camp for captured Polish soldiers in Działdowo. In December 1939 it was converted into a camp for Polish civilians arrested during the Intelligenzaktion , and afterwards converted into

12740-450: The problem of racism became the sole responsibility of already disadvantaged communities. It was assumed that if a Black or Latino community was not "making it" by the standards that had been set by whites, it was because that community did not hold the right values or beliefs, or were stubbornly resisting dominant norms because they did not want to fit in. Omi and Winant's critique of ethnicity theory explains how looking to cultural defect as

12870-433: The public, political sphere, they are upheld within the private, family sphere to a great extent. It is here that women act not just as biological reproducers but also as "cultural carriers", transmitting knowledge and enforcing behaviors that belong to a specific collectivity. Women also often play a significant symbolic role in conceptions of nation or ethnicity, for example in the notion that "women and children" constitute

13000-797: The region soon left the area. In 1920, the candidate of the German Party in Poland, Ernst Barczewski, was elected to the Sejm with 74.6 percent of votes and to the Polish Senate with 34.6% of votes for the Bloc of National Minorities in 1928. During the Polish–Soviet War Działdowo was briefly occupied by the Red Army regarded as liberator from the Polish authority by the local German population, which hoisted

13130-515: The region, which allowed for even more blatant persecution of Poles. In the final moments of August 1939 all remains of political and cultural life of Polish minority was eradicated by the Nazis, with imprisonment of Polish activists and liquidation of Polish institutions. Seweryn Pieniężny, the chief editor of Gazeta Olsztyńska , who opposed Germanisation of Masuria, was interned, and other Polish activists in Masuria were also arrested. Directors of Polish schools and teachers were imprisoned, as

13260-544: The region. In an attempt to rig the results of an upcoming census and understate the number of Poles in the region, the Germans terrorized the Polish population and attacked Polish organizations. In summer 1939 the German terror against the Poles even exceeded the terror from the period of the 1920 plebiscite. Polish church masses were banned between June and July in Warmia and Masuria. In August 1939, Germany introduced martial law in

13390-567: The result of inherited traits and tendencies. With Weber's introduction of the idea of ethnicity as a social construct, race and ethnicity became more divided from each other. In 1950, the UNESCO statement " The Race Question ", signed by some of the internationally renowned scholars of the time (including Ashley Montagu , Claude Lévi-Strauss , Gunnar Myrdal , Julian Huxley , etc.), said: National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups: and

13520-483: The result of two opposite events, either the recent creation of state borders at variance with traditional tribal territories, or the recent immigration of ethnic minorities into a former nation-state. Examples for the first case are found throughout Africa , where countries created during decolonization inherited arbitrary colonial borders, but also in European countries such as Belgium or United Kingdom . Examples for

13650-564: The retreating German and advancing Soviet armies during the Vistula-Oder Offensive . During the Soviet offensive, wartime rape was especially common in the region , as well as ethnic cleansing of the remaining German population. Already on May 23, 1945, the Soviets granted that a Polish administration be established in the region, which aroused British and American protest. However, per

13780-413: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Masurian . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Masurian&oldid=1225948190 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

13910-581: The second case are countries such as Netherlands , which were relatively ethnically homogeneous when they attained statehood but have received significant immigration in the 17th century and even more so in the second half of the 20th century. States such as the United Kingdom , France and Switzerland comprised distinct ethnic groups from their formation and have likewise experienced substantial immigration, resulting in what has been termed " multicultural " societies, especially in large cities. The states of

14040-473: The shoulders of Warmians and Masurians... Dislike, injustice and violence surrounds us...They (Warmians and Masurians) demand respect for their differentness, grown in the course of seven centuries and for freedom to maintain their traditions". Ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include

14170-544: The so-called Gromadki movement was formed which supported use of Polish language and came into conflict with German authorities; while most of its members viewed themselves as loyal to the Prussian state, a part of them joined the Pro-Polish faction of Masurians. The programme of Germanisation started to unite and mobilise Polish people in Polish-inhabited territories held by Germany including Masuria A Polish-oriented party,

14300-420: The source of inequality ignores the "concrete sociopolitical dynamics within which racial phenomena operate in the U.S." It prevents critical examination of the structural components of racism and encourages a "benign neglect" of social inequality. In some cases, especially those involving transnational migration or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following

14430-413: The southern parts of Ducal Prussia, till then virgin part of (later Masuria) in the 16th century. While the southern countryside was inhabited by these - meanwhile Protestant - Polish-speakers, the very small southern towns constituted a mixed Polish and German-speaking population. The ancient Old Prussian language survived in parts of the countryside in the northern and central parts of Ducal Prussia until

14560-407: The state or its constituents. In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view,

14690-441: The state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka , argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within

14820-512: The study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently. According to Eriksen , these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology , by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicized forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in

14950-527: The subsequent Thirteen Years' War Masuria became a part of Poland as a fief held by the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order . Later assimilation of the German settlers as well as the Polish immigrants and native Prussian inhabitants created the new Prussian identity, although the subregional difference between the German- and Polish-speaking part remained. The secularization of the Teutonic Order in Prussia and

15080-524: The term in social studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Barth went further than Weber in stressing the constructed nature of ethnicity. To Barth, ethnicity was perpetually negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. Barth's view is that ethnic groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates or logical a priori to which people naturally belong. He wanted to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with

15210-446: The term. Ramón Grosfoguel (University of California, Berkeley) argues that "racial/ethnic identity" is one concept and concepts of race and ethnicity cannot be used as separate and autonomous categories. Before Weber (1864–1920), race and ethnicity were primarily seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before, the primordialist understanding of ethnicity predominated: cultural differences between peoples were seen as being

15340-461: The usage of the term "ethnic" in the ordinary language of Great Britain and the United States , Wallman noted The term "ethnic" popularly connotes "[race]" in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter value load. In North America, by contrast, "[race]" most commonly means color, and "ethnics" are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. "[Ethnic]"

15470-451: The victory over Nazi Germany to help in agricultural reform and settlement of Masurian population, Masurian iconoclasts opposed to Nazi Germany requested to remove German heritage sites "regardless of their cultural value". Additionally a Masurian Institute was founded by Masurian activists in Radość near Warsaw in 1943. In the final stages of World War II , Masuria was partially devastated by

15600-501: The war became active in 1945 in the region, working in Olsztyn in cooperation with new state authorities in administration, education and cultural affairs. Historic Polish names for most of towns of Masuria were restored, but for some places new names were determined even if there were historic Polish names. German author Andreas Kossert describes the post-war process of "national verification" as based on an ethnic racism which categorised

15730-448: The ways in which race can complicate a community's interactions with social and political structures, especially upon contact. Assimilation – shedding the particular qualities of a native culture for the purpose of blending in with a host culture – did not work for some groups as a response to racism and discrimination, though it did for others. Once the legal barriers to achieving equality had been dismantled,

15860-442: The world have been incorporated into a global economy: The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all

15990-483: Was a turning point in ethnic studies. The consequences of Nazi racism discouraged essentialist interpretations of ethnic groups and race. Ethnic groups came to be defined as social rather than biological entities. Their coherence was attributed to shared myths, descent, kinship , a common place of origin, language, religion, customs, and national character. So, ethnic groups are conceived as mutable rather than stable, constructed in discursive practices rather than written in

16120-463: Was characterised by ongoing Germanisation policies, intensified especially under the Nazis. In the 1920s Masuria remained a heartland of conservatism with the German National People's Party as strongest party. The Nazi Party , having absorbed the conservative one, became the strongest party already in the Masurian constituencies in the elections of 1930 and received its best results in

16250-407: Was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race". Another influential theoretician of ethnicity was Fredrik Barth , whose "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" from 1969 has been described as instrumental in spreading the usage of

16380-562: Was founded in Ełk in eastern Masuria in 1546 by Hieronim Malecki , Polish translator and publisher, who contributed to the creation of the standards and patterns of the Polish literary language. The westernmost part of Masuria, the Osterode (Ostróda) county, in 1633 came under the administration of one of the last dukes of the Piast dynasty , John Christian of Brieg . In 1656, during the Battle of Prostki ,

16510-450: Was gathered on who sent children to Polish schools, bought Polish press or took part in Polish ceremonies and organised repressions against these people were executed by Nazi militias. Polish schools, printing presses and headquarters of Polish institutions were attacked as well as homes of the most active Poles; shops owned by Poles were vandalised or demolished. Polish masses were dispersed, and Polish teachers were intimidated as members of

16640-461: Was inhabited by ancestors of Western Balts – Old Prussians , Sudovians / Jotvingians , Scalvians , Nadruvians , and Curonians while the eastern Balts settled in what is now Lithuania , Latvia and Belarus . The Greek explorer Pytheas (4th century BC) may have referred to the territory as Mentenomon and to the inhabitants as Guttones (neighbours of the Teutones , probably referring to

16770-508: Was organised by Paweł Nowakowski "Leśnik" commander of the Home Army 's Działdowo district. The resistance operated one of the region's main smuggling points for Polish underground press in Ełk. The Nazis believed that in future, the Masurians, as a separate non-German entity, would 'naturally' disappear in the end, while those who would cling to their "foreigness" as one Nazi report mentioned, would be deported. Local Jews were considered by

16900-657: Was the staff of Polish pre-schools in the Masuria region. They were often forced to destroy Polish signs, emblems and symbols of Polish institutions. With the start of the German invasion of Poland and World War II on 1 September 1939, the German minority in the parts of Masuria attached to Poland after World War I organised themselves in paramilitary formations called Selbstschutz (selfdefense) and begun to engage in massacres of local Polish population; Poles were imprisoned, tortured and murdered while Masurians were sometimes forcefully placed on Volksliste . From now on conscripted Masurians had to serve without exception in

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