Pierwsze wrażenia w Prusach po porażce zakonu niemieckiego w bitwie grunwaldzkiej

• Authors: Krzysztof Kwiatkowski

Title variants

EN

The first impressions in Prussia after the defeat of the Teutonic Order in the battle of Grunwald

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

In the article the author makes an attempt to analyze a small fragment of the 1409–1411 war connected not so much with military activities as with mental conditions of the perception of reality by people of those times. Asking the question about impressions (in a general sense) and feelings connected with the outcome of the battle of Grunwald among people of Prussia constitutes a part of cultural studies over the phenomenon of ‘war’ in particular and ‘conflict’ in general. It concerns important questions of the psychological influence which military activities and their outcomes exert on the human being. As far as reactions to the outcome of the battle appearing in the evening after the battle are concerned, indirect accounts show that the predominant feeling was the impression concerning the magnitude of the battle in the Teutonic Order, and a high number of the killed. This intense impression determined the appearance of oral narrations about the final stage of the battle. The next day after the battle, 16 July, apart from the sensory reception of the bodies of the killed soldiers and horses, the Prussians experienced various actions undertaken by Władysław II which had a symbolic and ritual character. They were as follows: liturgical acts during at least two votive solemn masses, presenting to the King military signs captured the previous day, the order of the King to find the bodies of Teutonic brothers and to send them to the nearest convent in a royal funeral procession, a magnificent ceremonial feast, and a three-day stay of the King on the battlefield. Inhabitants of Prussia witnessed the ostentation and manifestation of the belief that the Polish King had received the support from the supernatural during the battle of Grunwald, They also saw the manifestation of the total and glorious victory of the Polish monarch over the opponent, which was executed in all dimensions. Symbolically, they received a message of God’s sentence, which was the way people understood battles in those times. Among prisoners from the Teutonic army all those rituals must have caused a feeling of fear. The analysis of the source material shows that the mental influence of those events on prisoners on the battlefield from 15 to 17 July was not so strong despite its ostentatious character. Impressions from the battlefield did not make inhabitants of Prussia support the Polish King. The significant factor which affected the change of attitude among inhabitants of Prussia was the factual, not symbolic, presence of the royal army in the nearest geographical neighborhood, which was visible particularly in case of big Prussian towns. Reactions of members of the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order were diversified. The behavior of some dignitaries who had survived the battle was marked by panic and confusion. Corporation bonds, the basic element constituting the Teutonic Order, were undermined. In such suddenly changed circumstances the organization of activities was based on a different type of relations such as family connections, ties of blood.

Keywords

EN

Teutonic Knights; perception of warfare; Polish-Teutonic War 1409–1411; Battle of Grunwald; late-medieval Prussia

• Publisher: Towarzystwo Naukowe w Toruniu
• Journal: Zapiski Historyczne
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 75
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 44-66

Contributors

author

Krzysztof Kwiatkowski

• Instytut Historii i Archiwistyki, Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika