“Polish-Speaking Germans?” Language and National Identity Among the Masurians

Abstract

Before 1945, Masuria was part of Germany and known primarily as the scene of the 1914 Battle of Tannenberg and as an attractive summer vacationland of numerous lakes, extensive forests, and villages of characteristic wooden houses. Since 1945, Masuria has belonged to Poland, where it is known as the scene of the 1410 Battle of Tannenberg/Grunwald, and as an attractive summer vacationland. To students of nationalism and national identity, however, Masuria is interesting primarily because its predominately Polish-speaking population seems to present the clearest and best-documented example anywhere in Europe of national identity developing counter to native language. Although most Masurians spoke Polish and lived adjacent to Poland, they gave every indication over quite a long period of time of voluntary and virtually unanimous identification with the Prusso-German state and nation. They did so at a time when most of the rest of eastern Europe was increasingly subject to the influence of ethnolinguistic nationalism and the rest of the German–Polish borderlands were witness to one of Europe's classic ethnic-national rivalries. (see Maps 1 and 2)