Sambia Peninsula
Sambia (
Etymology
Sambia is named after the Sambians, an extinct tribe of Old Prussians. Samland is the name for the peninsula in the Germanic languages. Polish and Latin speakers call the area Sambia, while the Lithuanian name is Semba.
History
Reference to the Sambia Peninsula begins with Greek traveller Pytheas, referring to an amber island called "Abalus". The name probably described the whole lagoon area known in Finnic as AVA (open expanse = lagoon) and -LA (place of) Historic scholars could not find the mysterious amber island because the Sambia Peninsula did not look like an island since the whole Baltic area that was depressed by the Ice Age glaciers has been rising many meters in the last thousands of years and was no longer looking like an island by the 10th century. Based on finds of prehistoric amber carvings, nomadic boat using hunter gatherers were attracted to the area as early as 6,000 years ago,according to archeology.
Sambia was originally sparsely populated by the
In 1454, the region was incorporated by King
Because the Duchy of Prussia failed to fulfill its feudal obligations as a vassal of Poland during the
During World War II, the Germans operated two subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp, and the AGSSt Samland assembly center for Allied POWs in the region.[4][5] The Polish resistance movement was active in the region, with its activities including espionage of German activity and distribution of Polish underground press.[6]
In 1945 after World War II, the
The Soviet Union gradually repopulated the Kaliningrad Oblast, including Sambia, with Russians and Belarusians. Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, much of the district was a closed military area.
Kursenieki
While today the Kursenieki, also known as Kuršininkai are a nearly extinct Baltic ethnic group living along the Curonian Spit, in 1649 Kuršininkai settlement spanned from Memel (Klaipėda) to Gdańsk, Poland, including the coastline of the Sambian Peninsula. The Kuršininkai were eventually assimilated by the Germans, except along the Curonian Spit where some still live. The Kuršininkai were considered Latvians until after World War I when Latvia gained independence from the Russian Empire, a consideration based on linguistic arguments. This was the rationale for Latvian claims over the Curonian Spit, Memel, and other territories of East Prussia which would be later dropped.
Geography and geology
Baedeker[7] describes Sambia as "a fertile and partly-wooded district, with several lakes, lying to the north of Königsberg" (since 1946 Kaliningrad). The highest point, 360 feet, is found twelve miles north of Pereslavskoe (Drugehnen) at the ski resort then called the Galtgarben.[8] There also used to be a Samland railway station. As of 2010[update] the Pereslavskoe railway station serves the "Blue Arrow" railway line from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk.
Sambia includes two famous seaside resorts, Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk.
Amber
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Samland was also the codename for the USA by the wartime intelligence agency Abwehr (Operation Mincement by Ben MacIntyre)
- ^ Górski, Karol (1949). Związek Pruski i poddanie się Prus Polsce: zbiór tekstów źródłowych (in Polish). Poznań: Instytut Zachodni. p. 54.
- ^ Górski, p. 96–97, 214–215
- ISSN 0137-5377.
- ISBN 978-0-253-06089-1.
- ISBN 978-83-8229-411-8.
- ^ Karl Baedeker, Northern Germany, Leipzig, London and New York: 1904 (fourteenth revised edition (English language)), pp.177-8.
- ^ Some place names given here are in German.