History of Mazury

engthen the Polish identity in Masuria. The Gazeta Ludowa was published in Lyck in 1896–1902, with 2,500 copies in 1897 and the Mazur in Ortelsburg after 1906 with 500 copies in 1908 and 2,000 prior to World War I.

Polish activists started to regard Masurians as "Polish brothers" after Wojciech Kętrzyński had published his pamphlet O Mazurach in 1872 and Polish activists engaged in active self-help against repressions by German state Kętrzyński fought against attempts to Germanise Masuria The attempts to create a Masurian Polish national consciousness, largely originating from nationalist circles of Provinz Posen, however faced the resistance of the Masurians, who, despite having similar folk traditions and linguistics to Poles, regarded themselves Prussians and later Germans. and were loyal to the Hohenzollern dynasty, the Prussian and German state. After World War I the editor of the Polish language Mazur described the Masurians as "not nationally conscious, on the contrary, the most loyal subjects of the Prussian king". However, a minority of Masurians did exist which expressed Polish identity After 1871 there appeared resistance among the Masurians towards Germanisation efforts, the so-called Gromadki movement was formed which supported use of Polish language and came into conflict with German authorities; while most of its members viewed themselves as loyal to Prussian state, a part of them joined the Pro-Polish faction of Masurians. German actions like Kulturkampf, the programme of Germaniation started to unite and mobilise Polish people in Polish inhabited territories held by Germany including Masuria A Polish-oriented party, the Mazurska Partia Ludowa ("People's Party of Masuria"), was founded in 1897. The eastern area of German Empire was systematically Germanised with changing of names and public signs, and the German state fostered cultural imperialism, in addition to giving financial and