 Group of women in 1920s, wearing traditional Warmian clothes | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Poland (Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship),Germany | |
| Languages | |
| Polish (Warmian subdialect) German (High Prussian,Low Prussian) | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholicism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Poles |
Warmians[a] are aPolish ethnic group fromWarmia. Most of them areRoman Catholic and speak in theWarmian subdialect ofPolish or theHigh Prussian orLow Prussian dialects ofGerman.[1]
Between the 14th and 17th centuries, settlers from northern,Mazovia moved to former territories ofOld Prussians, following conquests by theTeutonic Order, and the erection of theMonastic state of the Teutonic Knights.[2][3] Earlier, the southern parts of Warmia had become German-speaking, but eventually, more Polish settlers than Germans arrived to settle the land, particularly after 1410, so that the region gradually Polonized.[4]
Thebishopric of Warmia became in 1466 an autonomous part ofRoyal Prussia, and remained part of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1772 when it was annexed by theKingdom of Prussia (see:Partitions of Poland). While theMazurs in the neighboringDucal Prussia became Protestants when Duchy adoptedLutheranism in the 16th century, most Warmiaks, populating the areas aroundOlsztyn, remained Catholics.[2][3]
DuringWorld War II, the Warmiaks were persecuted by theNazi German government, which wanted to erase all aspects of Polish culture and Polish language inWarmia.[2][3]
After the war, due to their Polish roots and their Catholic faith (unlike theMasurians who were predominantly Protestant, who had a friendly attitude towards the Germans), they were not victims of the large-scaleexpulsion of Germans. However, over the course of time, large numbers of Warmiaks decided to leave their native land and settle in more prosperousWest Germany, exercising their right to German citizenship granted by theBasic Law as citizens or their descendants of inhabitants of Germany in the borders of 1937.[2][3]
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