Pravdinsk

Pravdinsk (, prior to 1946 known by its German name, Friedland, Frydląd, Romuva), is a town and the administrative center of Pravdinsky District in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. It is on the Lava River and is east of Bagrationovsk and southeast of Kaliningrad. Population figures: Pravdinsk was founded in 1312 at a ford across the Lava River after the local Natangian tribe in Prussia was subdued by the Teutonic Knights, and received town privileges in 1335 under Grand Master Luther von Braunschweig. It was known by its German language name Friedland ("peaceful land"). In 1440 the town joined the anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation, at the request of which Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon signed the act of incorporation of the region to the Kingdom of Poland in 1454. The town was devastated during the subsequent Thirteen Years' War, the longest of all Polish–Teutonic wars. After the war, per the peace treaty signed in Toruń in 1466, it became a part of Poland as a fief held by the Teutonic Knights. In 1525, the town became a part of the Duchy of Prussia, a vassal duchy of Poland, after the secularization of the State of the Teutonic Order. From 1618, it was ruled by Dukes of Brandenburg from the Hohenzollern dynasty, remaining under Polish suzerainty. It was again damaged by Swedish troops in the course of the Second Northern War 1655-1660. Friedland belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia from 1701, and during the Napoleonic Wars on June 14, 1807, Napoleon's French army aided by Poles and Saxons won the nearby Battle of Friedland against a combined Russian-Prussian army. The town became part of the German Empire in 1871, during the Prussian-led unification of Germany. During World War II, Friedland was conquered by the Red Army on January 31, 1945 as part of the Soviet invasion of Germany. At the time Friedland belonged to Landkreis Bartenstein in the province of East Prussia, which was transferred from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union according to the 1945 Potsdam Agreement.