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Concept
Old Prussians
Summary
Old Prussians, Baltic Prussians or simply Prussians (Old Prussian: prūsai; Pruzzen or Prußen; Pruteni; prūši; prūsai; Prusowie; Prësowié) were a tribe among the Baltic peoples that inhabited the region of Prussia, at the south-eastern shore of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula Lagoon to the west and the Curonian Lagoon to the east. The Old Prussians, who spoke an Indo-European language now known as Old Prussian and worshipped pre-Christian deities, lent their name, despite very few commonalities, to the later, predominantly Low German-speaking inhabitants of the region.
The duchy of the Polans under Mieszko I, which was the predecessor of the Kingdom of Poland, first attempted to conquer and baptize the Baltic tribes during the 10th century, but repeatedly encountered strong resistance. Not until the 13th century were the Old Prussians subjugated and their lands conquered by the Teutonic Order. The remaining Old Prussians were assimilated during the following two centuries. The largely undocumented old Prussian language was effectively extinct by the 17th century.
The original territory of the Old Prussians prior to the first clashes with the Polans consisted of central and southern West and East Prussia, equivalent to parts of the modern areas of the Pomeranian Voivodeship and Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in Poland, the Kaliningrad Oblast in Russia and the southern Klaipėda Region in Lithuania. The territory was also inhabited by Scalovians, a tribe related to the Prussians, Curonians and Eastern Balts.
The name of the Old Prussians has its origin in toponymy, as the word Prūsas (a Prussian) can be derived from the term for a body of water, an understandable convention in a coastal region dotted with thousands of lakes, streams and swamps (Masuria). To the south, the terrain runs into the vast wetlands of the Pripet Marshes at the headwaters of the Dnieper River, which has been an effective natural barrier throughout the millennia.
Writing in 98 CE, Roman historian Tacitus described the pagan Aesti who lived somewhere by the Baltic Sea coast and east of the Vistula estuary.
Official source
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