Q. What exactly is a 'Prussian'? How would you define one? As there is no Prussian state, does that mean that there are no longer any Prussians?

A. This is a very complex question and there are no simple answers. The simplest and best answer is that a Prussian is someone who believes he (or she) is one. Though racially and culturally Prussians were historically Germans, Prussia had a large Slav population (West Prussian Kashubians, Silesian Schlonzaks, East Prussian Masurians, Hultschin Czechs and Poznanian Poles), East Prussian Lithuanians, West and East Prussian Dutch, Englishmen and Scots, Jews and French Huguenots (Infantry General Hermann von François, who achieved fame in the East Prussian campaign of 1914, being a famous example - see picture to right). To be a Prussian is not, therefore, to necessarily be a German racially as the ethnic complex of the Prussian state demonstrates. Clearly Von François became Prussian by citizenship - by adopting a new homeland when he was driven out of France with other Protestants fleeing Catholic persecution. So citizenship in the state of Prussia makes one a 'Prussian'. Additionally, acceptiong the Prussian culture (which was essentially German) but not necessarily a particular 'religion' since Prussia consisted of majority Lutheran-Protestants, with a large Catholic minority, and much smaller Reformed Protestant and Jewish minorities.

In a census taken after the First World War in the newly independent Polish state, citizens were asked whether they considered themselves to be Polish, White Russian or Ukrainian ethnically. One White Russian simply answered: "I am here" and would say no more. He didn't want to be classified. The bottom line is what you believe yourself to be. If you identify with Prussia then that, in my book, makes you a Prussian, whether you are in the former territory belonging to the Prussian state or elsewhere. That, at least, can be the only acceptable definition other than you are a descendant of one who formerly was a Prussian citizen, but even then there are modern Germans whose ancestors came from Prussia who do not regard themselves as 'Prussian' but simply 'German', 'Polish' or 'American' or whatever. If the Prussian State is ever restored - and it nearly was in 2001 in Germany when the SDP government proposed merging the Länder of Brandenburg and Berlin and renaming it 'Preussen' (Prussia) - and it might be if Northern East Prussia (currently the Kaliningrad Oblast in the Russian Frederation) ever became independent and was renamed Prussia - then another kind of Prussian might suddenly come into existence, one who is racially almost entirely Russian. But then that would only be a political concept, not a cultural one, for the Kaliningraders (including the tiny German minority living there who did not originally come from East Prussia but from the Russian heartland and other republics like Kazakhstan and the German Volga Republic), who are beyond question Russian culturally.

Which brings us full circle. For in the days of General von François, a French Huguenot fighting on the German site, and a loyal Prussian, the Germans faced a Russian General of German extraction called Paul von Rennenkampf who had a distinguished career in the Russian army before the communists executed him. Sad to say, the Russians did not treat their Germans as well as the Prussian Germans treated their Frenchmen.

What is a Prussian? That's up to you to decide. I know what I am.