What is "prussia"

from Medieval Latin Borussi, Prusi, Latinized forms of the native name of the Lithuanian people who lived in the bend of the Baltic before being conquered 12c. and exterminated by (mostly) German crusaders who replaced them as the inhabitants. Perhaps from Slavic *Po-Rus "(The Land) Near the Rusi" (Russians). The duchy of Prussia after union with the Mark of Brandenberg, became the core of the Prussian monarchy and later the chief state in the German Empire.

Prussia refers to the historical state of Prussia.

It may also refer to:

Prussia (, , ) is a historical region stretching from Gdańsk Bay to the end of Curonian Spit on the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea, and extending inland as far as Masuria. The territory and inhabitants were described by Tacitus in Germania in AD 98, where Suebi, Goths and other Germanic people lived on both sides of the Vistula River, adjacent to Aesti (further east). About 800–900 years later the Aesti were named Old Prussians, who since AD 997 repeatedly successfully defended against take-over attempt by the newly created Duchy of the Polans. The territory of the Prussians and neighboring Couronians and Livonians was in the 1230s under Papal Order established as Teutonic Order State. Prussia was politically divided in the period 1466-1772, with western Prussia under protection of the crown of Poland-Lithuania and eastern Prussia a Polish fief until 1660. The unity of both parts of Prussia remained preserved by retaining its borders, citizenship and authonomy until western and eastern Prussia were also politically re-united under the Kingdom of Prussia. It is famous for many lakes, as well as forests and hills. Since the military conquest by the Soviet Army in 1945 and the expulsion of the inhabitants it divided between northern Poland (most of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship), Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, and southwestern Lithuania ( Klaipėda Region). The former German state of Prussia (1701–1947) derived its name from the region.

Prussia (; ) was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centered on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised and effective army. Prussia, with its capital in and from 1701 in Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership. In November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, a state of Germany from 1918 until 1933. From 1933, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup, when the Nazi regime was successfully establishing its laws in pursuit of a unitary state. With the end of the Nazi regime, the division of Germany into allied-occupation zones and the separation of its territories east of the line, which were incorporated into Poland and the Soviet Union, the State of Prussia ceased to exist de facto in 1945. Prussia existed until its formal liquidation by the Allied Control Council Enactment No. 46 of 25 February 1947.

The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians. In the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with . Their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The Second Peace of Thorn (1466) split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the eastern part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia, a fief of the Crown of Poland up to 1657. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.

Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom, and exercised most influence in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century it had a major say in many international affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great. During the 19th century, Chancellor united the German principalities into a " Lesser Germany" which excluded the Austrian Empire.

At the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleon's defeat, Prussia acquired a large section of north western Germany, including the coal-rich . The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that s and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians.

The Kingdom ended in 1918. In the Weimar Republic, the state of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by . East Prussia lost all of its German population after 1945, as Poland and the Soviet Union absorbed its territory and expelled most of its inhabitants.

The term Prussian has often been used, especially outside of Germany, to emphasise the professionalism, aggressiveness, militarism and conservatism of the class of landed aristocrats in the East who dominated first Prussia and then the German Empire.