#Lithuanian art I guess

[unhonestlymirror]

Lithuanian advertising sure is something

[languages-i-guess-comic]

Baltics??! 🤯🤯

[flowerbloom-arts]

Hii I love your art style so much it's actually so cool💞!! Do you ever think of nationality hcs for the Simpsons characters? For example, I still like to imagine Seymour as having Armenian heritage even though I'm one of those people who completely disregard the Armin Tamzarian episodes. But he's still Armenian to me, probably from his moters side. He gets his American side from Sheldon. It makes sense to imagine Herman Hermann as coming from Lithuanian heritage or Dewey Largo to be Italian. I mean I can even see how Lenny could be part Central Asian, maybe Kyrgyz?? These hcs are very self indulgent I won't even lie I'm a huge history and geography nerd, but they're so fun to think about. I currently have Skinner with an Armenian flag tie in my drafts. Also also also I think Seymour has a tie collection. That's my rant, don't think too hard about it :P

Aaaaaa all of those are so cool!!! I loved making up nationality headcanons in the Moomin fandom but as of right now I'm not in the thought market to come up with such for Simpsons characters - I guess the only not totally substantiated headcanon I have is Dr. Nick being Argentinian?

I wish I could say more but arrrgghhhh I haven't thought much of it until now! Thank you for liking my art!!!

[antiquewhim]

Enough postponing, here's my attempt at making something comprehensive on one of the most varied creatures in Lithuanian folklore: laumės (Art credits: Marcė Katiliūtė)

Basically, laumės are groups of humanoid women, connected with water, birch, night and the act of weaving. Primarily considered bridges between humans and gods, they inhabit forests while having the ability to summon rain and weave rainbows.They interact with people by bathing in saunas after everyone is gone. Appeased laumės are said to leave textiles as a reward for a clean, warm sauna or any offerings made to them. Their day is Thursday, just like Perkūnas' and they're most active during the night.

Now onto complicated stuff: there are many variations when it comes to laumės’ appearance. Age ranges from young to old, some are said to have metal nails, some have chicken feet and feathered bodies hiding under white clothes which let them interact with humans. The earliest depiction of laumės was in the form of a dove, the bird of Goddess Laumė, sometimes as goat-headed or horned women, bears, cats. They’re either depicted as incredibly alluring and sexual or grotesque and terrifying. Their views towards humans also change: they can be only dangerous to men, sometimes they’re most dangerous to babies, which they exchange for bundles of wheat in the crib, the bundles growing into laumiukai (similar to fae changelings) overnight. It is unclear what they do to the stolen babies. In some tales they're shown as very ruthless, uncaring of their safety, in others they're maternal, stealing out of desire for motherhood and accidentally killing the babies out of love. Sometimes they can be helpful to weavers, however this is achieved only after guessing a riddle or obeying a specific rule, on Thursdays. Even then, should a laumė run out of material, she'll weave in hair or intestines of the woman whose work she's finishing.

Overall, laumės can be called morally grey: they're wonderful seamstresses who gift their handiwork to humans, but at the same time deadly, being able to thinly slice and weave an entire person as if they were wool.

SPECULATION: Their origin is quite interesting. I think that there may be a tie between them and the matriachal goddess Laumė (shown below), who, after having a child with a human man, was "banished" to Earth by the new patriarchal gods but this is JUST my opinion that is not based off of any source and moreso speculative connections between Laumė and laumės

Laumės are associated with mistletoe and similar parasitic plants seen on birch trees, from which they like to swing. Some sources claim that the so-called “laumė broom” can banish laumiukai from a home when they're beaten with it. Their ties with bodies of water, by which they dance and summon rain and new moon are also apparent, as well as their specific fear of flax. Though beings with many variations, they are the most famous characters in Lithuanian folklore along with aitvarai.

[pargolettasworld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Gil8CGRiY

Having visited Vilna once for a month during the summer, having seen the area where the ghetto was, and having visited Ponar, this song really hits home.  For a bit of background, Vilna (Yiddish for Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania) was once home to a large, varied, and remarkably scholarly Jewish population.  It was sometimes called “the Jerusalem of Lithuania,” and the art and literature and science and scholarship produced by the Jews of Vilna, all in Yiddish, is quite remarkable.  It’s also the original home of YIVO, which moved to New York when things started getting dicey.

Ponar (Ponary in Polish, or Paneriai in Lithuanian) is one of the outer neighborhoods of Vilnius.  There’s a train station there, and a nice wooded area.  In 1940 and 1941, the Soviet Army dug about seven giant pits in the forest to store munitions.  When the Nazis took over in 1941, they were looking for places to dump the bodies of the Jews they intended to murder, and hey, free pits!  The Jews killed and dumped in the pits in Ponar were killed by special squads of Lithuanian volunteers.  In 1943, the Nazis decided to start digging up the pits so that they could burn the bodies buried there to disguise the evidence of the mass murder they’d committed.

As far as I know, we’ve located six of these pits (likely the ones that the Nazis had Jewish prisoners dig up -- what, you think the Nazis would do the actual digging themselves?), and we know that there’s at least one more.  Furthermore, there are bodies scattered in the area around the pits.  Best guess is that there are about 100,000 bodies at the Ponar site, and the whole forest is a mass grave.

This song is a fairly typical ghetto song.  It’s a contrafact -- the original melody is for a Yiddish song called “Papirosn,” about an orphan boy who sells cigarettes on the street.  It would have been a popular song in the day, and a teenage poet named Rikle Glezer wrote new words to an old tune.

[madstars-festival]

[JURY INTERVIEW] MAD STARS, WHAT AN EXPERIENCE

MAD STARS attracts attendees from every corner of the Asia-Pacific region as well as jury members from places as far-flung as Mexico and Sub-Saharan Africa.

We wanted to know what they thought of last year’s festival, so we asked juries from countries near and far.

Kapil Bhimekar, creative director, Leo Burnett

MAD STARS was a highly inspiring and enriching experience. I was pleasingly surprised in so many ways, be it the quality of work, the venue, or even the whole organization of the event itself, it was so well done.

The thing that especially stood out for me was the people of Busan. I have never felt such warmth. The people from the organizing committee, as well as the locals around the town, were extremely helpful. The city overall has a beautiful welcoming vibe to it.

James Keng Lim, director of creative strategy, GCI Health

From a purpose and their entries model point of view, MAD STARS deserves all the credit. It embodies the ethos that the maddest ideas can change the world, independent of the size of the proverbial purse strings. I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate and commend the organizers and the relentless work done by the staff.

The festival ran like clockwork. It was well-organized and thoughtfully put together. I think I speak for all the juries when I say it is a festival all of us want to be a part of. That’s a huge compliment and validation of the great work done to put this festival together. 

Rimantas Stanevičius, creative director, Milk

This was my first time at MAD STARS. While the festival typically doesn't extend invitations to preliminary jurors, my enthusiasm for a complete experience led me to secure a grant from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. This allowed me to travel to Busan and represent our local Art Directors Club through podcasting.

I had the privilege of meeting tons of amazing people from the industry, forging new connections, and rekindling old ones. For example, I had a chance to reconnect with fellow alumni from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. I’d say my time there was well-spent, producing over two hours of interviews talking to Rey Kim of Mad Stars, Gabriel Lora, Jesse Wong, Becky McOwen Banks, and Mohammad Akrum Hossain among others.

Nurlan Satarov, creative director & creative group director, Cheil Worldwide

This was my third time as a juror since 2019, and I've noticed that the festival's scale and influence keep growing with each passing year.  What sets MAD STARS apart from other awards shows is that it’s free to enter. And guess what? They've got a ton of entries that have won big awards at Cannes Lions, One Show, Spikes, and D&AD (the toughest festival to win, in my opinion). It's awesome spotting hidden little gems amidst the massive cases. Making it onto the list of award-winning works alongside those giants is a sweet deal, even if you land on the shortlist.

I genuinely enjoy heading to Busan and connecting with fantastic folks at Mad Stars. It's such a cozy and welcoming event. Returning to the festival in person after the pandemic was especially wonderful. There's just something special about being able to participate in person and connect with people face to face again. There's no denying it, festivals by the sea have this magical vibe that's hard to replicate elsewhere.

Speaking of the judging process, the system got a major upgrade. All the necessary information and materials were delivered promptly and without any hiccups, making the whole experience smooth and convenient. With over 20,000 entries last year, Mad Stars has certainly become a big fish in the global awards scene. Winning any type of award at Mad Stars amid such fierce competition is a remarkable achievement and a testament to the outstanding quality of the work. It's no small feat to stand out among the world's top-notch entries. A big shoutout to the folks in the jury support division – they made a difference and helped make the whole process even better.

MAD STARS are like ROCK STARS. It's hard not to love what they are doing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAD STARS 2023 was filled with so many diverse experiences and warm memories!

What kind of juries will be joining MAD STARS this year?

We are looking forward to welcoming global experts who will evaluate various creative solutions with a fresh perspective at MAD STARS!

Don't miss out on the opportunity to evaluate outstanding entries from all over the world and make memories in the hot summer in the beautiful city of Busan by the sea!

Want to be a jury member for MAD STARS 2024?!

👉🏻 https://bit.ly/3wcSNp8

[mai-von-weissenfels]

I would like to establish myself as the biggest hater of August II of Saxony (1670 - 1733).

Below is a list of everything I don't like about him (warning: long thread):

Stole the Polish throne not once but twice, and his son stole it for a third time.

I know Poland's elective monarchy system is a bit fucked up (they have had a bunch of foreign monarchs before) but still August didn't even win the election. He was backed by several powerful surrounding states, like the HRE and Russia, but he still got his way onto the Polish throne by various shady shenanigans, involving a lot of bribery.

Now I'm not saying he's responsible for the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, but I'm saying he's partially to blame. The time period he was in was about after Poland won a major war (Great Turkish War 1683 - 1699). But he only saw Poland as an extension of Saxony, and a place where he could legally have the title of King while still being in charge of territory within the HRE. And he got it into another war that it didn't need to be in (more on that in a bit). Now, the war, the Great Northern War (1700 - 1721), it went pretty badly for the Saxons, and August was forced to give up the Polish throne. I would say even Karl XII had more regard for the Polish people than August, since he took the effort to find a suitable Polish candidate for the Polish throne instead of appointing one of his own. But as soon as Karl was defeated in Russia, August just stole the throne back. And after his death another war broke out in Europe over whether his son or a Pole would succeed the throne. The Polish throne became a spot for greater European powers to try gain influence. Which then led to the Partitions of Poland. So yeah. Not a fan.

2. Undeservedly won the Great Northern War

Oh boy, where do I even start. I guess I'll start from even getting into it in the first place. He knows his rule on Poland is illegitimate. He has to bribe the local Polish nobility to support him. And now, he wants to bribe the Livonian nobility to declare him the legitimate King of Poland. How does he do that? He promises to liberate them from Swedish rule. And put them under Saxon rule perhaps! Well anyways, he employs not only the Saxon army, but also the Polish army to fight in the war. It's not even their fight!

Well, now onto the actual war. I've got to give props to Denmark for surrendering within four months and thus saving Saxony from the "worst performance in the GNW" title, but honestly it's not much better. I compiled a list of battles in the GNW once, and I kid you not, Saxony never won a single battle by itself, they only win when they're joined by Russia. Saxony even lost and signed a peace with Sweden in 1706. They only came back to win the war when Russia defeated Sweden in 1709. Karl's mistake of neglecting the Russian front was his own fault. If he went for Russia first, defeated them, then went one on one with Saxony, I believe he would win.

3. Just a genuinely bad person

Hear all those stories about monarchs improving some aspects of their countries for the better? August does none of that. He could care less about the people and more for a luxurious lifestyle of collecting paintings and mistresses. Yes, the grandiose palaces full of high class art in Dresden are his. Granted, he reigned before the Age of Enlightenment and only caught a tiny bit of the very beginning, but Peter the Great lived during exactly the same time as him, and he cared for his people.

And about the mistresses, he was a notorious womanizer, and is said to have fathered over 300 children. Only one was legitimate. One. He once sent a consort, Aurora von Königsmarck, to try to persuade Karl XII to sign peace. She was refused, but still, that wasn't a very respectable move from August.

So yeah, in conclusion, I don't like him. Easily one of the worst monarchs ever in my opinion. Even his victories weren't legit. Thanks for reading my rant

[everygame]

Punch Club

Developed/Published by: Lazy Bear Games Released: 01/08/2016 Completed: 22/12/2023 Completion: Beat the main story (but I didn’t finish the Dark Fist bonus storyline.)

I’ve been meaning to play Punch Club for ages, but I’ve always been put off by the fact that every review you read complains bitterly about the fact that the game–a life/combat management simulator–features extremely aggressive stat decay that makes the game quickly an unpleasant grind just to keep your head above water. Well, guess what! This review is going to be no different. I should have listened!

I’ll start with some positives. Punch Club has a great 2D pixel-art look with a decent filter. The game systems make sense basically immediately and are as streamlined as can be. You’ve only got three stats to care about (strength, agility and stamina) and your upgrade trees neatly correspond to one. Working out or working to raise money makes you hungry and tired; you sleep and eat to fix that, but sleep costs you time and eating costs you money. The balancing act makes perfect sense.

The thing is… that stat decay. Now, one of the issues with any of these kinds of simulations is that you are always incentivised to min-max your opening as much as possible, and this game featuring stat decay seems to put that into overdrive. You quickly realise that you have to work out the absolute most efficient way to raise your stats while keeping your character rested and fed because any leeway you might have had is destroyed by every lost day costing your stat growth, allowing you to spiral into what feels like a need to restart as you hit up against opponents you can’t defeat (especially bad if you’re foolish enough to take on an opponent in the illegal fights where you can end up with injuries that make growing stats even harder.)

It’s worth noting that there’s really not a true game over in Punch Club, though. If you screw up completely, you can grind and it’ll just take you longer to beat the game–most opponents give you currency for your upgrade tree, meaning if you go through a long losing period, you should, as long as you can right the ship with stat growth to an even keel with your opponents, eventually out-skill them and defeat them. It’s just not very pleasant.

The game has an interesting take on combat, actually. There are some passive skills, but you select up to five skills that affect if your character is going to punch, kick, guard–or even what kind of punch or kick it is. The problem is that as much as you imagine changing these up between rounds to deal with opponents, because of the way skill trees are set up, and that stat decay means you want to avoid flexibility, you almost alway just have the highest attacks or powers in the skill tree equipped and run the combat at 8x speed because tactics basically don’t matter. You either out-skill and out-power your opponent, or you… don’t.

Punch Club tries to mix this up with the narrative and quests–because otherwise this would be unbelievably repetitive–but those are a mixed bag as well. This is a 80s/90s parody written by a Lithuanian studio with Russian founders, and it has the slight lost-in-translation air you’d expect as a result. The story makes absolutely no sense, and the references are direct to the point of not even really feeling like jokes. But when it comes down to it, that’s probably better than going for some sort of “radical” take on the era. Think how annoying something like Kung Fury is. This is nowhere near that bad, but the game is so relentless that every time it does something like make you travel somewhere just for a cut-scene you think “oh great, now I have to waste 2 ticks of the clock or pay $4 to get the bus back to the gym, thanks for nothing” rather than being that interested in seeing what happens. Things are even worse with the Dark Fist DLC, which does that constantly and culminates with a series of battles you have to do where you have only a chance of winning what you need to progress. I 100% said fuck that.

I didn’t hate Punch Club. Once you get into a rhythm with it, it’s… fine. Sort of pointlessly stressful and ultimately unrewarding though. I couldn’t recommend it.

Will I ever play it again? There are two routes through the game and 3 different fighting styles, and there’s even a no stat decay mode if I just wanted to see the other route. But even with that there’s just so much watching your character fight at 8x speed, or doing a training animation that I can’t imagine it.

Final Thought: For the sequel stat decay has been re-worked into a system where certain skills use “tonus”, a form of MP that is replenished by training, which might be… fine? Very funny to see people complain about the stat decay being removed because it was “realistic” in a game where your character doesn’t have to sleep (always annoys me in a game with a clock when they skip the night phase) and literally eats 5 frozen pizzas in a row to heal after a fight. 

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[imalsorettish]

so i was like a little lower on money than id like but i just got back from texas, which, if you havent been to texas, no amount of studying can prepare you for how intense and weird and forgeign and strange it is. for me to have not lived there and suddenly be in texas is so fucking asinine. just the weirdest fucking place. its a place where you can see just about anything youd like to and it is wholly the most unnatural thing i think ive ever experienced lmfao. So its cool i guess. I am even more against rich people now but its kind of like the vacuum of space? so like, its cool, but it is not very human. Needless to say im exhausted and spending a little more money to get my bearings again and be fed is a worthy cause. I got some polish food from nearby. I am not using any exaggerations when i tell you that this food made me cry. I hadnt even gotten to the pierogis and kielbasa yet, i tried the stuffed cabbage roll and the stew and instantly was transported back home to my childhood. Im still crying. Its so, so good. Wow. I have never cried from food before. I cant tell you what it means to me.

i dont even LIKE cabbage. it was my least favourite thing to eat as a kid because we were POOR and ate SO much of it. Egg noodles, kielbasa, WAY TOO MUCH boiled cabbage, butter and some salt and that was life for a looong time. Here i am as a grown ass man crying my fucking eyes out and Im eating this roll like ive been poisoned and its the antidote. this is ART

these are the pierogis and i do not have an image of the cabbage because i have demolished it. i was in the throes of love.

the irony here for me is that i often dont like the way traditional pierogis are cooked because theyre like steamed n stuff depending and i usually like the heathen way of frying those fuckers to shit in butter, steamed ones just taste like some poor polish person cried on them. and im always thinking "ik we made these recipes to suit impovershed people, but why do we still have to eat their tears rn :(" and here i am, i am the polish lithuanian guy crying on the pierogis. i understand now

[unhonestlymirror]

"Tell me, Hera, the first wife of mine..." by Indrė Jaskūnienė

[languages-i-guess-comic]

Lithuanian my pretty boy

[cillyscribbles]

i love you broken speech i love you heavy accents i love you regional dialects i love you pidgins i love you sociolinguistics i love you beginner speakers i love you interjections i love you language

[trzmielik]

And you're entitled to your opinion, of course. However, let's not forget that these are real nations with actual history and while they did get separated at first, then it definitely doesn't apply anymore after the Napoleonic era. Like, it's just a manga but I personally can't separate the character that's supposed to represent Poland from, well, Poland. I don't mind Hima making Lithuania the main character for some reason, but there isn't really that much history with Poles in the Prussian partition. Because there the germanisation actually worked for Poles and it did cover a little part of the polish nation, a really tiny bit. It's only talked in schools about because ooh Bismarck he was an important figure of course, funfact he also didn't like Poles like any important figure in German history xD and like 2 events in the 1900s in total. They weren't impactful. They're brought up as a way of explaining the later events. It's purely symbolic. It's hard to find anyone who has ancestors from the Prussian partition. That's not where the culture happened, that's not what the poets wrote about, where they were abused, exiled, arrested and where they had to run from. Two polish literary eras are focused on Russia, romanticism from aroound partitions and positivism from January uprising until 1890s first mainly about the usual topics but for us very real, fight for independence and second, when the censorship and everything is strict, about work and education of people so someday Poles would be strong enough to fight again. It's just Russia. I don't think that it's just something you can choose from, I'm not exaggerating when saying that at least half of our current national identity is based on fight against Russia. I feel like...I dunno, making that just for the sake of Poland and Lithuania being separated- which they weren't, not after the Napoleonic times, and the national uprisings especially in 1831 and 1863 proved that, it was the last time when the nations of the former Commonwealth fought together before all the nationalisms' real awakening. They weren't separated, that's not why they didn't get back together. after around 1869 polish language and culture was heavily suppressed everywhere that includes both Warsaw and former GDL so if you want, you can try to do something with it like idk exile Feliks to Siberia, but not Prussia it just doesn't make sense imo. Especially considering that they used the January Uprising in their own game, not allowing its fighters to pass through their borders, and playing with Austria and France that would support the Poles. I think I might know where that comes from for Hima, because at first Warsaw was occupied by Prussia and technically big parts of the former Crown of Poland went to Prussia and Austria indeed, but- ethnic Poles stretched much further east, people considering themselves polish, be it modern understanding or polish-speaking Lithuanian and ruthenian nobility, they were a part of the polish nation. Their suffering is our history and ignoring that just because of the current borders or modern understanding of nationality is extremely tone deaf from his part. Prussian partition matters the least and Austrian, because of being underdeveloped, a lot of people with actual another identity (Ukrainians) and well, not much oppression, culturally isn't half as significant for the forming of the modern polish nation. Sorry I know it's incompressible I don't speak english and it's midnight😑 well I guess I just wanted you to know. I myself made prupol art, and it's a fun concept and everything. I love your presence on this website and please keep it up!

Edit: oh and forgot to mention, I don't ship ruspol btw just, he would definitely live with him most of the time regardless, separated from liet or not, while living in the same "house". In 19th century Russia's the first reason why Poland gets compared to a phoenix

Edit2: hmm haha it's a long rant...I might have misinterpreted your answer a bit, well in any case please continue to enjoy it, I was more referring to the separation part

I was wondering, where did the idea of Gilbert wanting Feliks as his bride even come from originally? cuz I saw many works with this trope already lmao

Really? Where? because i need them. Honestly I'm not sure exactly where this trope in particular originated. If someone knows please tell me But i had a few different influences mainly @doomspiral (Doom, did you start this?) and @kaishouri something in one of their fics got me thinking idk which made me want to write this. I in general just like tropes like crossdressing and arranged marriages and just marriages that are filled with drama.

I just like the trope because it's something I enjoy, and it is weirdly poetic and fitting for Feliks and Gilbert. I mean like i said in the notes of ironically not the marriage fic but in another. The power balance between Poland, Lithuania, and the Teutonic knights changed with the Union of Poland and Lithuania (prior to that Poland would side with both at different times blah blah blah not a historian) So doesn't it just feel so fitting for when Prussia finally flips the power balance to his favour to take Feliks in a union of sorts.

I started the marriage fic in April.

[stillunusual]

A "memorable date in the military history of Russia" that wasn't.... According to Google translate, Russia has decided that the 15th of July is a "memorable date of the military history of Russia" because "on this day in 1410, Russian troops and their allies defeated the German knights in the Battle of Grunwald". Wait....what????? Back in the real world, this is just another Russian lie.... The battle of Grunwald (Žalgiris) was one of the largest and most significant battles that took place in medieval Europe, and was a decisive victory for the combined forces of King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland and Vytautas the Grand Duke of Lithuania, against the Teutonic Knights. The Lithuanian army under the command of Grand Duke Vytautas was comprised of 40 banners and included troops from all parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which at that time included the whole of modern Belarus, parts of what is now western Russia and most of Ukraine. The only tangible connection between the battle of Grunwald and Russia is the fact that three of the Lithuanian banners were from Smolensk. But although Smolensk is in Russia today, back in 1410 it was in Lithuania, and the Smolensk banners (whose ethnic composition is not known) were led into battle by Prince Simeon Lingwen - the King of Poland's brother. And as a Russian state didn't actually exist at the time, and its precursor - the Grand Duchy of Moscow - played no part in the battle whatsoever, calling it a "memorable date of the military history of Russia" really is a bit of a stretch....

However, this ludicrous claim demonstrates the extent to which the winos and crackheads who churn out the Kremlin's propaganda try to rewrite history by shamelessly making stuff up and lying about pretty much everything (just like they do about current events). On the other hand, you do have to admire their dedication. Russia began to falsely appropriate this particular event in the history of Poland and Lithuania a few years ago, and I guess that anyone who is prepared to go all the way back to the 15th century to find new things to lie about really takes the art of lying very seriously.  Incidentally, the battle scene depicted in the screenshot above is taken from a painting called "The Battle Of Grunwald" by Polish artist Jan Matejko. During the Second World War this painting was hidden in Lublin to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Germans. "The Battle Of Grunwald" and another of Matejko's paintings called "Prussian Homage" (which depicts Albrecht of Hohenzollern, the Duke of Prussia, kneeling in submission while paying homage to Polish King Zygmunt I in Kraków on 10th April 1525) topped their list of "most wanted" Polish artworks. But although the Germans looted or destroyed many other artifacts of Polish culture during WW2, they never managed to find either of these paintings ("Prussian Homage" was hidden in the town of Zamość)....

[enbies-and-felonies]

Hi! Infodump? Infodump

alsoooo this is what I remember from hours of documentaries and wikipedia that may not necessarily be remembered correctly and w/ minimal wikipedia fact checking lol

The old Prussians were a bunch of baltic people who lived around where Kaliningrad is today. after the crusades in the Middle East, European christian leaders wanted to get rid of the last pagans in Europe 😬 and promised the same rewards for driving out the pagans in the area as the crusades in the Middle East, incentivizing crusading orders to begin the northern crusades in the area (which also included Lithuania.)

the Teutonic Knights, who were from germany (hence "teutonic") converted or killed/drove out the pagans from the area, and started a huge migration of German people to the area. they also tried to convert Lithuanians, but they failed. the Lithuanians later converted to christianity anyway when they joined with Poland to create the polish-lithuanian commonwealth.

after setting up a government there, there was not much left to do, as far as crusading went, and they chafed a lot with the christian neighboring countries as well. at the battle of grunwald (1410) they were defeated by the polish-lithuanian commonwealth and reduced to the duchy of prussia, under polish rule.

then, Albert, the elector of Brandenburg, (1490-1568) an electorate in the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806, could be called the predecessor of Germany, a precarious collection of >1000 germanic countries that was more of an alliance than an actual country, "the Holy Roman Empire is neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire" -voltaire) also became ruler/grand master of prussia/the teutonic order (though prussia itself was not a part of the hre, and a fiefdom of Poland).

he passed down the title to Frederick William the Great Elector (1620-1688), who seized a chance in the 30 years war to ally with Sweden against Poland and force Poland to let prussia go. voila, the kingdom of prussia-brandenburg. however, he was not allowed to call himself king because a) Poland kept a small chunk of prussia for themselves, so the king of Poland also had the right to call himself king of prussia, and b) Brandenburg was still a part of the hre, which already had an emperor, and they didn't like having another guy in the hre call himself king.

(also these guys were all hohenzollerns)

okay! so his son Frederick I inherited Brandenburg- prussia, then his son Frederick I (not a typo, they were both Frederick I), then Frederick William I, also called the "soldier king." he put a great focus on military, but funnily enough, while his son Frederick II is known as the promoter of the arts who turned prussia from a backwater country into a European superpower, Frederick II entered a lot more wars than his "soldier king" father ever did. Frederick William I was also known for 'the Potsdam giants," his army of carefully selected soldiers who were all over 6 ft. also, Frederick William I was a terrible, strict father who was so bad that Frederick II tried to escape with his gay lover. Frederick William I was... not happy.

Frederick II was also known for being short, making his coffee with champagne and mustard, playing the flute, being even more misogynistic than other European rulers at the time, and tricking germans into liking potatoes (which grew well in German soil) so that they wouldn't have to rely on other countries for crops.

okay so Frederick II is also called Frederick the great (or große, which sounds like "gross" lol) completely reformed prussia, and also engaged with a lot of wars (that he won) with his military genius (cough cough using the fantastic military he inherited from his father cough). notable wars include the war of Austrian succession, in which he contested the legitimacy of Maria Theresa's succession to her father's throne (which was sort of an excuse to stole the fertile land of Silesia from Austria), and the 7 years war, the world war before the world wars, which was started again over Silesia.

prussia really rocketed to the European stage during the 7 years war, when it was surrounded by extremely powerful enemies (the French, Austrians, and Russians) on all sides, and was forced to do most land fighting by her own because her ally Britain was a) focusing on fighting France on the American stage, b) focusing on naval battle, and c) did not have the resources for huge land army. Britain mostly helped financially (on the European front, at least). prussia was losing terribly, but after a series of miracles, including russia withdrawing because the queen died and her nephew (I think?) who succeeded her loved prussia ("I'd rather be a Prussian soldier than a Russian czar," or something like that) and the Austrian generals being too careful and not seizing chances like prussia did. the fact that prussia managed to come out on top (even though they failed miserably in the beginning) was huge, and would continue to put them at odds with austria in the years following.

prussia also participated in the first partition of Poland w/ russia & austria. Poland should have dissolved prussia when they had the chance when they defeated the Teutonic Knights back in the battle of grunwald. :/

because Frederick II never had children with his wife (I wonder why) his nephew Frederick William II succeeded him, followed by Frederick William III, Frederick William IV, followed by William I.

(if you ever need to guess a Prussian monarch's name, guess frederick, William, or Frederick William)

William I bullied other northern German states like Saxony and Hesse into the northern German confederation, which was set up very soon after the seven weeks war with austria, in which prussia and austria fought to be the dominant power in the German confederation, a group of German countries that followed the dissolution of the fragile hre after the napoleonic wars.

(fun fact about the napzoelanic wars- Frederick William III, who was king of prussia during the Napoleonic wars and got his ass kicked, was incredibly indecisive and rather useless. his wife, queen Louise, became involved in politics and was very well-liked by the people.)

prussia won the seven weeks war, and thus was created the northern German confederation. in 1870, after the franco-prussian war broke out (in which Otto von Bismark, who knew the power of media, cleverly made it seem that France had been the aggressor), the southern German states joined the northern German confederation against France, laying siege to Paris. this sort of set up the stage for ww1 Franco-german aggression, in which France tried to take back the alsace-lorraine region prussia had stolen.

so! the southern German states joined the northern German confederation and officially became the German empire, and William I became Kaiser William I. prussia was the dominant force within the German government.

however, following Germany's defeat in ww1 and kaiser William II's (kaiser William I's grandson) abdication, prussia was reduced to the free state of prussia. while it still existed, all its power was sucked out. however, prussia was, compared to the rest of germany, much more economically stable during the disaster that was the Weimar Republic.

during n*zi germany, h*tler looked up to Frederick the great (who had nothing to do with nazism, and brandenburg-prussia had been known for receiving religious refugees), and the legacy of Prussian militarism, tarnishing the legacy of both. after ww2, the allies officially dissolved prussia because they wanted to remake germany during occupation, and they believed prussia would be an enduring symbol of aggression and militarism. (which, to be is fair, is its legacy- Bismarck himself described prussia as "not a nation with an army, but an army with a nation). Prussia was split into different German states, and east prussia became Kaliningrad, which was given to russia, and exists as an exclave today. while other germanic countries that existed alongside prussia like Bavaria and Saxony still exist as current-day states in germany, prussia does not.

Prussia's flag is also very cool- white, with black horizontal stripes at the top and bottom and a black eagle.

uh yeah! also look up the prussia meander kokoshnik- it's really cool. it was a wedding gift for duchess Cecile when she married kaiser William II.

bro,,,,,,,,,,, this was so fucking cool and when i asked for infodumps you DELIVERED /positive!!!!!

thank you!! this was really interesting and i loved it!!!! /gen

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Eglė Abariūnienė illustrations for the book "Katės rūmas ir Perkūnas" ("Cat's palace and Perkūnas"), part 1