The Prussian Lithuanians, or Lietuvininkai (singular: Lietuvininkas, plural: Lietuvininkai), are Lithuanians, originally Lithuanian language speakers, who formerly inhabited a territory in northeastern East Prussia called Prussian Lithuania, or Lithuania Minor (, ), instead of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, later, the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuania Major, or Lithuania proper). Prussian Lithuanians contributed greatly to the development of written Lithuanian, which for a long time was considerably more widespread and in more literary use in Lithuania Minor than in Lithuania proper.
Unlike most Lithuanians, who remained Roman Catholic after the Protestant Reformation, most Lietuvininkai became Lutheran-Protestants (Evangelical-Lutheran).
There were 121,345 speakers of Lithuanian in the Prussian census of 1890 with a much greater figure of people of Lithuanian origin. Almost all Prussian Lithuanians were murdered or expelled after World War II, when East Prussia was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union. The northern part became the Kaliningrad Oblast, while the southern part was attached to Poland. Only the small Klaipėda Region () was reattached to Lithuania.
Ethnonyms and identity The term Preußische Litauer (Prussian Lithuanians in German) appeared in German texts of the 16th century. The term Kleinlitaw (Lithuania Minor in German) was first used by Simon Grunau between 1517 and 1527. Prussian Lithuanians used various names for themselves: Prussians (Lithuanian: Prūsai, German: Preusch), Prussian Lithuanians (Lithuanian: Pruſû Lietuwiai, Pruſû Lietuvininkai, Pruſißki Lietuvininkai, German: Preußische Litauer), or simply Lithuanians (Lithuanian: Lietuw(i)ni(n)kai, German: Litauer). Local self-designating terms found in literature, such as Sziszionißkiai ("people from here"), Burai (German: Bauern), were neither politonyms nor ethnonyms. Another similar term appeared in the Klaipėda Region (Memelland) during the interwar years – Memellanders (Lithuanian: Klaipėdiškiai, German: Memelländer). Modern Lithuanian historiography uses the term Lietuvininkai or sometimes a neologism unknown to Lietuwininkai themselves, Mažlietuviai. The usage of Lietuvininkai is problematic as it is a synonym of the word Lietuviai ("Lithuanians"), and not the name of a separate ethnic sub-group.
For Prussian Lithuanians loyalty to the German state, strong religious beliefs, and the mother tongue were the three main criteria of self-identification. Due to differences in religion and loyalties to a different state, the Prussian Lithuanians did not consider Lithuanians of the Grand Duchy to be part of their community. They used the exonym Samogitians (, ) to denote Lithuanians of Lithuania Major. As with other closely related groups with differing religions (e.g. Northern Ireland, former Yugoslavia), antagonism was frequent between the Lutheran Prussian Lithuanians and the Catholic Lithuanians of the Grand Duchy, despite the common language. For example, inhabitants of Lithuania did not trust Prussian Lithuanians in the Klaipėda Region and tended to eliminate them from posts in government institutions. When Prussian Lithuanian writer Ieva Simonaitytė (Ewa Simoneit) chose the side of the Lithuanian Republic, she was condemned by relatives, friends and neighbours. Only one Prussian Lithuanian, Dovas Zaunius, worked in the government of Lithuania between World War I and World War II. The antagonism persisted until the end of World War II.
History
Early history
The territory where Prussian Lithuanians lived in ancient times was inhabited by the Old Prussian, Skalvian and Curonian tribes. The area between the rivers Alle and Neman became almost uninhabited during the 13th-century Prussian Crusade and wars between the pagan Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Order. This uninhabited area was named the wilderness in chronicles. Local tribes were resettled, either voluntarily or by force, in the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After the 1422 Treaty of Melno, a stable border between the two states was established. Better living conditions in the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights attracted many Lithuanians and Samogitians to settle there. Masurians and Curonians began moving into Prussia around the same time.
After 1525, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Albert became duke of Prussia and converted to Protestantism. Many Prussian Lithuanians also became Protestants. By the will of Albert, church services for Prussian Lithuanians were held in the Lithuanian language. Although Lithuanians who settled in Prussia were mainly farmers, in the 16th century there was an influx of educated Protestant immigrants from Lithuania, such as Martynas Mažvydas, Abraomas Kulvietis and Stanislovas Rapolionis, who became among the first professors at Königsberg University, founded in 1544. Martynas Mažvydas was a zealous Protestant and urged citizens to stop all contact between Prussian Lithuanians and Lithuanians living in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in a bid to curtail Catholic influence in the country.
The Lithuanian-speaking population was dramatically decreased by the Great Northern War plague outbreak in 1700–1721 which killed 53 percent of residents in Lithuania Minor and more than 90 percent of the deceased were Prussian Lithuanians. To compensate for the loss, King Frederick II of Prussia invited settlers from Salzburg, the Palatinate, and Nassau to repopulate the area. Many of these Lutherans were members of the Pietism movement, which then spread among Prussian Lithuanians. In 1811 a teacher's seminary for Prussian Lithuanians was established in Karalene near Insterburg, which remained open until 1924. From the mid-18th century, a majority of Prussian Lithuanians were literate; in comparison, the process was much slower in the Grand Duchy.
19th century
The nationalistic Lithuanian national revival in the late 19th century was not popular with Prussian Lithuanians. To them integration with Lithuania was not understandable and not acceptable. The idea of Lithuanian–Latvian unity was more popular than idea of Lithuanian-Prussian Lithuanian unity during the Great Seimas of Vilnius, a conference held in 1905.
The first Prussian Lithuanian elected to the Reichstag, Jonas Smalakys, was a fierce agitator for the integrity of the German Empire. In 1879, Georg Sauerwein published the poem Lietuwininkais esame mes gime in the newspaper Lietuwißka Ceitunga. The 7th stanza was dedicated to Wilhelm I, German Emperor.
There was no national Germanization policy until 1873; Prussian Lithuanians voluntarily adopted German language and culture. After the Unification of Germany in 1871, when part of Lithuania became integrated with the new nation of Germany, learning the German language was made compulsory in state schools. Studying the German language provided the possibility for Prussian Lithuanians to become acquainted with Western European culture and values. However, Germanization also provoked a cultural movement among Prussian Lithuanians. In 1879 and 1896, petitions for the return of the Lithuanian language to schools was signed by 12,330 and 23,058 Prussian Lithuanians from the districts of Memel, Heydekrug, Tilsit and Ragnit.Ko neįstengė suprasti Lietuvos valdžia ir klaipėdiškiai 1923–1939 metais? In 1921, the French administration made a survey in the Klaipėda Region that showed that only 2.2 percent of Prussian Lithuanians would prefer purely Lithuanian schools. The Lithuanian language and culture were not persecuted in Prussia. By contrast, there were restrictive Russification policies and a Lithuanian press ban in the parts of Lithuania that had become part of the Russian Empire. The Prussian Lithuanians could publish their own newspapers and books, even helping Lithuanians in Russia to bypass their press ban by publishing their newspapers, such as Auszra and Varpas.
+Lithuanian-speaking population in the Kingdom of PrussiaDistrict (Kreis)Region (Regierungsbezirk)182518341846Number%Number%Number%LabiauKönigsberg8,80628.311,99333.014,45432.3MemelKönigsberg19,42252.522,38659.626,64558.1HeydekrugGumbinnen16,50271.918,11271.822,47568.7InsterburgGumbinnen10,10825.09,53718.35,3999.3NiederungGumbinnen18,36649.120,17345.720,20641.0PillkallenGumbinnen11,27138.510,68734.113,82034.4RagnitGumbinnen15,71147.818,44346.619,88842.6StallupönenGumbinnen5,43520.75,31216.85,90715.7TilsitGumbinnen18,05747.522,47150.526,88048.6GoldapGumbinnen3,55914.33,54812.02,2596.1DarkehmenGumbinnen2,99212.51,1023.93301.0
Between the two World Wars
The northern part of East Prussia beyond the Neman River was detached from East Prussia at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, dividing the territories inhabited by Prussian Lithuanians between Weimar Germany and the Klaipėda Region (Memelland) under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors, which was formed to enforce the agreements reached in the Treaty of Versailles. The organisation "Deutsch-Litauischer Heimatbund" () sought reunification with Germany or to create an independent state of Memelland and had a membership of 30,000 individuals. Two dozen pro-Lithuanian representatives of the Prussian Lithuanian National Council signed the Act of Tilsit, asking to unite the Klaipėda Region with Lithuania; the idea was not supported by the majority of Prussian Lithuanians. World War I was followed by severe economical hardships and inflation in Germany. In 1923, the Republic of Lithuania occupied the Klaipėda Region during the Klaipėda Revolt.
A secret report of 1923 by Jonas Polovinskas-Budrys, a Lithuanian professional counterintelligence officer, shows around 60 percent of the local inhabitants supported the revolt, 30 percent were neutral and 10 percent were against, namely the supporters of a freistadt status or reunification with Germany. Soon Lithuanian policies alienated the Prussian Lithuanians. People from Greater Lithuania were sent to assume public administration posts in the region. According to the Lithuanian view, the Prussian Lithuanians were Germanized Lithuanians who should be re-Lithuanized. Prussian Lithuanians saw this Lithuanization policy as a threat to their own culture and began to support German political parties, and even started identifying themselves as Germans. During the 1925 census, 37,626 people declared themselves to be Lithuanians and 34,337 people identified themselves as Memellanders, a neologism to distinguish themselves from Lithuanians. Inhabitants of the Klaipėda Region continuously voted for German or German-oriented parties.
Nazi Germany invaded Klaipėda after the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania. The inhabitants were allowed to choose Lithuanian citizenship. Only 500 asked for citizenship, and only 20 were awarded it. The reunification of Klaipėda with Germany was met with joy by a majority of inhabitants. About 10,000 refugees, mostly Jews, fled the region.
World War II and after After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Prussian Lithuanian activists living in Germany were persecuted. In 1938, Prussian and Lithuanian place names in East Prussia were translated into German or replaced by German names often unrelated to the Lithuanian toponym. For example, Lasdehnen (Lazdynai) became Haselberg, Jodlauken (Juodlaukiai) became Schwalbental, and so on. The Prussian Lithuanian newspaper Naujaſis Tilźes Keleiwis was not closed down until 1940, during World War II. Church services in Tilsit and Ragnit were held in the Lithuanian language until the evacuation of East Prussia in late 1944.