Bambers, also known as Poznań Bambergians, are

Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

who are partly descended from

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

s who moved from the area of

Bamberg Bamberg (, , ; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Bambärch'') is a town in Upper Franconia district in Bavaria, Germany, on the river Regnitz close to its confluence with the river Main (river), Main. Bamberg had 79,000 inhabitants in ...

(

Upper Franconia Upper Franconia (, ) is a (administrative 'Regierungs''region 'bezirk'' of the state of Bavaria, southern Germany. It forms part of the historically significant region of Franconia, the others being Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia, wh ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

) to villages surrounding

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. They settled in villages which had been destroyed during the

Great Northern War In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern Europe, Northern, Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the ant ...

and the subsequent epidemic of plague, including: * 1719 in

Luboń Luboń () is a town in Poland, situated on the Warta River, in the Poznań metropolitan area, in the Poznań County in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. It has 32,848 inhabitants (2022). The town was created in 1954 by the merger of 3 long establ ...

* 1730 in Dębiec, Jeżyce, Winiary and Bonin * 1746–1747 in Rataje and Wilda * 1750–1753 in Jeżyce and Górczyn

History and meaning

After the economically important villages surrounding Poznań were devastated by the war and the plague, the city authorities decided to attempt to replenish their population through immigration. King

Augustus II Augustus II the Strong (12 May 1670 – 1 February 1733), was Elector of Saxony from 1694 as well as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1697 to 1706 and from 1709 until his death in 1733. He belonged to the Albertine branch of the H ...

of 1710 allowed this, as long as the newly arrived settlers were

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. About 700 Germans came in several waves. At least 450 to 500 men and women came to Poland according to surviving contracts, however, later documents suggest this number may have been as high as 900 people in four waves of immigration. The

integration Integration may refer to: Biology *Multisensory integration *Path integration * Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome *DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technology, ...

of the group was voluntary, and some families were already Polonised by 1800. Many of the settlers learned

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

in order to attend Catholic masses, and their children learned Polish at school. Mixed marriages with Poles living in the area began to happen. By the end of the 19th century, during the

Chancellor Bismarck Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (; born ''Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck''; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as ...

's policy of Germanisation in Poland, all residents in villages inhabited by the settlers chose Polish nationality during

Prussian Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzoll ...

and

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

es. The Bambers as a group opposed the Germanisation policy. The word "bamber" later expanded in meaning in Polish to denote well-off farmers in general, regardless of heritage. According to Culture.pl, this was due to the success of many Bambers due to good economic terms and hard work. Sometime after the early 20th century, it also came to be used to mean "backwards, primitive person". According to

Culture.pl Culture.pl is a large Polish multilingual project and web portal devoted to Polish culture. It was founded by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in March 2001. The project promotes the work of Polish artists around the world and is a popular informati ...

, this is because the Bambers often remained farmers after the Poznań expanded and annexed the villages in the early 20th century. In the late 19th century, the meaning of the word "Bamber" (singular form) became wider - it started to denote all people living in those villages, regardless of their ethnic or cultural background. Many of them were soldiers of the Polish army fighting in the Great Poland Uprising. During the

German occupation of Poland German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

most of them, like most Poles, were persecuted for their Polish identity. After World War II, they were the subject of suspicion from the Polish communist government due to their German-sounding surnames and faced repression, including sometimes the confiscation of their land and property. The situation improved after the fall of communism in Poland in 1989.

Culture

A well known aspect of Bamber culture is its extravagant female dresses.

Notes

References

{{reflist

External links

Official site of Bambrzy (in Polish)

Site of Towarzystwo Bambrow Poznanskich (The Society of Bambrzy) (in Polish)

Story map: 300 Years of Bamberg Settlers in Greater Poland
Luboń Ethnic groups in Poland German diaspora in Poland Poznań History of Greater Poland Slavic ethnic groups West Slavs