page_title: Masuria
section_title: Ducal Prussia
hierarchical_section_title: Masuria / History / Ducal Prussia
caption_attribution_description: English: Schematic view of the city Węgorzewo in 1684 year from the north-west. Polski: Widok schematyczny miasta Węgorzewo z 1684 roku od strony północno-zachodniej.
context_page_description: Masuria is a region in northeastern Poland, famous for its 2,000 lakes. Masuria occupies much of the Masurian Lake District. Administratively, it is part of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. Its biggest city, often regarded as its capital, is Ełk. The region covers a territory of some 10,000 km² and had a population in 2013 of 59,790.
context_section_description: The secularization of the Teutonic Order in Prussia and 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 nobleman 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 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, who took refuge, the very small southern towns constituted German mixed with Polish-speaking population. The ancient Old Prussian language survived in parts of the countryside in the northern and central parts of Ducal Prussia until the early 18th century. At that time they proved to be assimilated in 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, 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, 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, 3,400 people were enslaved and deported to Russia.  From 1709–1711, in all of Ducal Prussia between 200,000 and 245,000 out of 600,000 inhabitants died from 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 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 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.
caption: 17th-century view of Węgobork (now Węgorzewo), a typical Masurian town
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