Which Prussians?
The Old Prussians were Western Balts associated with lands around the southeastern Baltic, including Sambia and areas east of the lower Vistula. Their language, Old Prussian, belonged to the Baltic branch of Indo-European. The historical people and language need to be distinguished from the later German-speaking state that also carried the name Prussia.[1]
The name covers several regional communities. In their 2016 study, Alicja Dobrosielska and Bogdan Radzicki begin with this fragmented social setting rather than a unified Prussian state. Treating every district as if it shared one government, or made one decision about the invading Teutonic Order, would obscure the differences their analysis seeks to explain.[2]
Conquest and different responses
The Teutonic Order’s conquest is conventionally dated from 1230 to 1283. Dobrosielska and Radzicki use that framework but caution that 1283 did not end every form of resistance. They discuss resistance, accommodation and cooperation, as well as changes to religious practice and social space. Their interpretation draws attention to how conquest affected the organisation of community life, not only the outcome of campaigns.[2]
Marius Ščavinskas’s 2018 review of Dobrosielska’s monograph makes a related historiographical point. Accounts centred on an entirely united resistance, followed by disappearance, leave little room for native participation in the new order. The review discusses different responses to domination and the persistence of Prussian actors. This does not make conquest harmless; it makes the question of what followed more demanding.[3]
A case study: horses and Baltic contacts
A 2024 study led by Katherine M. French investigated sacrificed horses from nine cemeteries in what are now Poland, Lithuania and Russia’s Kaliningrad region. Genetic work identified both mares and males. Strontium isotope analysis identified three horses whose values were consistent with origins in Fennoscandia. Two came from cemeteries in Sambia; the third came from Marvelė in Lithuania. The study therefore concerns a wider region than Old Prussia alone.[4]
The authors discuss east-central Sweden and southern Finland as possible origins, rather than proving an exact birthplace for each animal. Similar isotope values can occur in more than one area. Nor can the horse evidence establish whether an animal arrived with its owner or was acquired by someone already living locally. It reveals contacts and animal movement without supplying a direct account of human ancestry.[4]
Language loss is a different question
Old Prussian is known from a small surviving written corpus, much of it mediated by German-speaking writers. Dini’s linguistic survey discusses the uncertainty around its final period of use. The end of military resistance, the changing identity of a community and the loss of a spoken language are therefore separate questions; they should not be assigned a single extinction date.[5]
When comparing accounts, keep three headings in your notes: political rule, language evidence and local settlement. Ask what each source actually establishes under each heading. A treaty, a vocabulary and a cemetery may illuminate the same region while answering different questions. Use the Old Prussian language article for more detail on texts and reconstruction, and the research guide to track editions and page references.
References
Sources accessed on 6 November 2026. The locators below identify the relevant passages.
Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija. prūsai. Lithuanian National Library, Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing Centre. Institutional encyclopaedia entry. Accessed 6 November 2026.
Locator: Opening definition and Apgyventa teritorija (inhabited territory). Source language: Lithuanian. English paraphrase.
Alicja Dobrosielska and Bogdan Radzicki. 2016. Die Prußen und der Konflikt des Universums in der Zeit der Eroberung. Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, 65(3), pp. 321 to 344. DOI: 10.25627/201665310049. Herder Institute / Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung. Scholarly journal research article. Accessed 6 November 2026.
Locator: pp. 321 to 322, introduction and differentiated responses to conquest. p. 321, note 2; p. 322; pp. 342 to 344, conclusion and English summary. Source language: German, with English summary. English paraphrase.
Marius Ščavinskas. 2018. The 13th-Century Conquest of Prussia Reconsidered. Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis, 37, pp. 181 to 187. DOI: 10.15181/ahuk.v37i0.1937. Klaipėda University Press. Scholarly book review. Accessed 6 November 2026.
Locator: pp. 181 to 183 and 186 to 187, review of resistance, opportunism, cooperation and the continuation of Prussian history.
Katherine M. French et al. 2024. Biomolecular evidence reveals mares and long-distance imported horses sacrificed by the last pagans in temperate Europe. Science Advances, 10(20). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ado3529. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Scholarly journal research article. Accessed 6 November 2026.
Locator: PDF pp. 1 to 2, sample scope; pp. 4 to 6, genetic results, strontium outliers and geographical modelling; equivalent full PMC Results. PDF pp. 5 to 7, isotope-baseline limitations, provenance discussion and alternative acquisition scenarios; equivalent PMC Discussion.
Pietro U. Dini. 2014. Foundations of Baltic Languages. Eugrimas, Vilnius. Updated English edition, translated by Milda B. Richardson and Robert E. Richardson. ISBN 978-609-437-263-6. Scholarly monograph. Accessed 6 November 2026.
Locator: pp. 321 to 324, documentation and historical setting; pp. 335 to 336, final period and uncertain extinction chronology.