Talk:Prussian estates

Confusing similar topics?
There seem to be confusion between several concepts: As far as I can tell from literature, Prussian estates were the first political representative body in Prussia created in 14th century, around 15th century they gave rise to Prussian Landesrat, after Second Trety of Thorn they continued within the Royal Prussia, in 1569 part of the Landesrat was incorporated into Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but part of which survived (alongside of the regional sejmiks) until the partitions of Poland. I am not sure if there was any similar body in the Duchy of Prussia, and what happens after Treaty of Oliwa in Duchy and partitions of Poland in Royal Prussia is very unclear - the representative body (bodies?) were weakened, but whether they disappeared or were transformed into something (Bundestag?) is not covered in my sources. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:46, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Prussian estates / Prussian Estates / Preußischer Estates
 * Prussian parliament / Parliament of Prussia / Preußischer Parliament
 * Preußischer Landtag / Prussian Landtag
 * Preußischer Landesrat / Prussian Landesrat
 * Prussian diet / Prussian Diet / Preußischer Diet
 * Polish sejmiks in Royal Prussia

Off and on I have been working on a parliament of Prussia article (concerning the 19th century institution) which I will try to post in the new week or two.

From the glossary of Karin Friedrich's The Other Prussia: sejmik- Provincial diet or dietine of the local szlachta in the palatines and districts. After 1569, Poles called the Royal Prussian diet (Landesrat) the "Prussian sejmik, or sejmik generalny (general dietine)." Landrat, on the other hand, was a position of the Hohenzollern state. Feuchtwanger roughly translates Landrat as "county councillor" and compares it to a Justice of the Peace. McKay describes the Landrat as a provincial councillor who administered the largest districts.

I'm not sure off-hand how often there were meetings of the (East) Prussian estates after the age of absolutism. Provincial diets were reestablished in 1823, at least.

The German Wikipedia has a broad article at de:Preußischer Landtag (compare to the current disorganized Preußischer Landtag). Different assemblies include: Olessi (talk) 00:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Diet of Royal Prussia
 * Diet of the Duchy of Prussia
 * United Diet (Vereinigter Landtag) of Prussia of 1847
 * Prussian National Assembly (Preußische Nationalversammlung) convened in 1848 (sometimes Prussian Constituent Assembly)
 * Parliament of Prussia / Prussian Landtag (Preußischer Landtag), bicameral from 1849-1918, then unicameral until 1933
 * Prussian State Assembly (Preußische Landesversammlung) from 1919-1921 (sometimes Prussian Constituent Assembly or Prussian Constitutional Convention)

Topic of the article
The topic is not entirely clear to me. It starts with the Teutonic Order state, then the article tries to encompass both Royal/West Prussia and Ducal/East Prussia without explaining the important differences. The end of story is unclear as well, how did the "Prussian Estates" turn (over time) into the provincial administrations of the Kingdom of Prussia. The following sentence sounds a bit naive to me: "The Order created the Estate to appease the local citizens, but over time the relations between the Order and the Estates grew strained, as the Order of knights treated local population with contempt." Estates used to exist all over Europe. There were of course political reasons for conflict. This should be explained in the article. As for the "contempt" factor, the remaining non-German natives were ruled or suppressed on the level of manorialism. The estates represented mainly the emerging new native German urban elites who tried to end the colonial ways of government (simplification). The Polish crown offered to them indeed more rights etc. - but in what was to be later called East Prussia the situation turned differently. I think it would be much easier to explain the political structures in the respective articles about the historic territories. And there is a factual mistake: The Duchy of Prussia did not come under the influence of the Electorate of Brandenburg with the Treaty of Oliva (1660), but since 1618 (personal union with Brandenburg) - notwithstandig the legal and status issues that continued to exist into mid-18th century. Finally, we do not learn much about what the composition of the "Prussian Estates" was, their privileges and their relations with the Order, Polish Crown, Duke of Prussia, Brandenburg rulers. --DaQuirin (talk) 18:12, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * To topic of the article are the Prussian estates. I agree there is room for much expansion and clarifications, please do so if you can.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

This is really confusing. Prussian Diet redirects here. Prussian diet redirects to Preußischer Landtag. As does prussian diet. The Preußischer Landtag article looks like one of Matthead's POV forks. That article should be merged into that one.radek (talk) 20:24, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Both spellings of Prussian Diet/Prussian diet (same as prussian Diet/prussian diet) redirect to Preußischer Landtag now, as his is the proper meaning. Besides, Preußischer Landtag was created 15:29, 21 May 2008 by Matthead, Prussian estates on 19:52, 17 September 2008 by Piotrus. Thank you, Radek, for once again assuming good faith about me. -- Matthead Discuß   06:30, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Merge
The article Preußischer Landtag should be merged into this article.radek (talk) 20:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Certainly not. -- Matthead Discuß   23:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Then please explain what the value added is of having that as a separate article and how the redirects should be constructed. Simply objecting for the sake of objecting is not constructive. The two articles are about the same thing, with this one being more general and the other one under the German, rather than English name.radek (talk) 00:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Brilliant explanation, but could you clarify why not for those of us who somehow failed to understand it? PS. My guess is that PL article is supposed to be about a building, and this article, about an institution. If this is so, the PL article needs a major rewrite. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 05:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge - per Radek and Piotrus Space Cadet (talk) 15:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

In the absence of further input I'm gonna go close this proposal and go ahead with the merge.radek (talk) 23:02, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, you are not going to merge two different topics, even if you believe they are the same. Do you want to add a photo of the building to the article written by Piotrus? Preußischer Landtag covers several meanings over several centuries, up to the present day building. The current English article may be a mere stub in need of expansion and clarification, but thats no reason to redirect it to the article Prussian estates, which according to its content only covers the pre 1772 period in the Monastic state and Royal Prussia. It should be moved to Royal Prussian estates, and focus about the relation with the Polish Kingdom 1466-1772, to which Polish editors should be able to contribute. -- Matthead Discuß   06:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I want to add the photos to this article, what of it? I would also add the ... one, two, three ... three sentences that the other article consists of to this article. No reason why they should be separate and in any case Prussian Diet should redirect here rather than there for a number of reasons, like, to start with the fact that here #sentences>3.radek (talk) 08:13, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with Radek and Piotrus, there is no reason for them to be separate, please merge into this article.--Jacurek (talk) 19:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Obvious merge per Radek. Tymek (talk) 21:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

This should be resolved. I suggest an WP:RFC. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * To educate you and your Polish companions about German language topics, spanning half a millennium? I've got a better idea: just leave it alone. Return to other battlefields. -- Matthead Discuß   22:57, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I added a link to the merge discussion at the top of this page. Now that Preußischer Landtag has been expanded, it's no longer clear that a merge is necessary; instead, a summary style paragraph in Prussian estates, with a link to the main article in Preußischer Landtag may suffice, but I'd like to hear other's thoughts before !voting. --KarlB (talk) 04:29, 1 July 2012 (UTC)