The name Borussians, used interchangeably with old Prussians, refers to Baltic-speaking peoples of the Baltic sea region between the Neman and Vistula Rivers in present-day northeastern Poland and the enclave of Russian territory around Kaliningrad. The region is sometimes referred to as East Prussia, a former province of the kingdom of Prussia (the term Prussians is also applied to later inhabitants of varying languages of both East Prussia and West Prussia). The Borussians are classified among the Balts. A number of tribes are classified as Borussians, including the Bartians, Galindians, Notangians, and sambians. The NADRUVIANs and sKALVIANs to the east and north spoke dialects with both Borussian and Lithuanian influences and as a result are classified as either Borussians or LITHUANIANs. The same can be said of the YOTVINGIANs (sudovians) to the east.
ORIGINS
It is thought that proto-Baltics migrated to the Baltic Sea region by about 2000 to 1500 b. c.e. and spread southward into Prussia at least by the fifth century b. c.e. The Galindians were one of the first Baltic tribes mentioned by name; that tribe was cited by the second-century C. E. geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria. Other identifiable tribes had coalesced in the region by the ninth century. The name Bruzzi for the Borussians was first mentioned in 965 in a text by a Bavarian geographer.
LANGUAGE
The language of the Borussians, usually called Old Prussian, known from written records, constituted the western branch of the Baltic language group. It has been extinct since the 17 th century The only Baltic languages to have survived are Lithuanian and Latvian. The earliest Old Prussian (and Baltic) written record is a German-Prussian vocabulary of 802 words, known as the Elbing Vocabulary. It is thought to have originated in about 1300, with the oldest surviving copy from about 1400. Other important Old Prussian written records are three 16th-century catechisms based on Sambian dialects of Sambia and translated from German. Sambia (or the Sambian Peninsula), near modern Kaliningrad, was the last area where Old Prussian was spoken. The names Bruzzi and Prussi are possibly related to Prutenia, a place-name from medieval heroic sagas adopted from the name of the legendary priest-king Pruteno.
HISTORY
The Borussians had early trade contacts with the Germanic VIKINGS out of Scandinavia. The Saxons, Germanics living to the west, unsuccessfully attempted to convert them from paganism to Christianity in the 10 th century In 997 a missionary by the name of Adalbert (the first Slavic bishop of Prague, probably of Czech ancestry) was martyred there, not because of his preaching but because of his profanation of a tribal forest sanctuary.
In the 13th century the Teutonic Knights, a military and religious order made up of German nobles and others who had been active in Crusades to the Near East, followed a call in 1226 by the Polish duke Conrad of Mazovia and crusaded against the Borussians in exchange for conquered lands. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II granted the order vast privileges. In 1234 Hermann von Salza placed the conquests under papal suzerainty with the intention of organizing them as a separate German state. The Poles unsuccessfully asserted a claim to suzerainty over the order. In 1236-40, the Teutonic Knights occupied many forts and towns. The defeat of the order by the Russian Slavs under Alexander Nevsky at Lake Peipus in 1242 gave the Borussians the opportunity to revolt, but they were again temporarily pacified in 1247. In 1263 a new crusade was begun; more knights entered the region from all over Europe. In 1274 the Teutonic Knights defeated the Borussians, wiping out entire villages. Afterward they founded numerous towns and fortresses of their own encouraging German and Dutch peasants to settle the region. In 1283 the knights also defeated the Yotvingians and henceforth ruled the region as a papal fief. Surviving Borussians were reduced to serfdom. A revolt in 1295 was unsuccessful.
World History
