View source for Bambers

{{Short description|Germans who settled in Poland 1719–1753}}
[[Image:Bamberki Boze Cialo1.jpg|thumb|170px|right|Girls wearing unmarried women's dresses during a [[Corpus Christi (feast)|Corpus Christi]] procession in Jeżyce, a borough of Poznań]]
'''Bambers''',{{efn|[[Polish language|Polish]]: ''Bambrzy'', ''Bambry''}} also known as '''Poznań Bambergians''',{{efn|[[Polish language|Polish]]: ''Poznańskie Bambry''; [[German language|German]]: ''Posener Bamberger''}} are [[Polish people|Poles]] who are partly descended from [[German people|German]]s who moved from the area of [[Bamberg]] ([[Upper Franconia]], [[Germany]]) to villages surrounding [[Poznań]], [[Poland]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Kępa |first=Marek |title=Bambers: The German Farmers Who Brought New Life to Poznań |url=https://culture.pl/en/article/bambers-the-german-farmers-who-brought-new-life-to-poznan |website=[[Culture.pl]]}}</ref> They settled in villages which had been destroyed during the [[Great Northern War]] and the subsequent epidemic of plague,<ref name=":0" />{{Clarification needed|date=November 2024}} including:{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}} 
* 1719 in [[Luboń]]
* 1730 in Dębiec, [[Jeżyce, Poznań|Jeżyce]], Winiary and Bonin
* 1746–1747 in Rataje and [[Poznan-Wilda|Wilda]]
* 1750–1753 in Jeżyce and Górczyn

== History and meaning ==
[[Image:Bamberki Boze Cialo2.jpg|thumb|120px|left|Traditional Bamberka costume]]
[[Image:Bamberka blisko.jpg|thumb|170px|right|"Bamberka" from [[Czarnków]]]]

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.<ref name=":0" /> King [[August II of Poland|Augustus II]] of 1710 allowed this, as long as the newly arrived settlers were [[Catholic]].<ref name=":0" />{{Clarification needed|reason=Was this in response to this specifically, or a general policy?|date=November 2024}} About 700 Germans came in several waves.<ref name=":0" /> 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.{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}}

The [[Polonisation|integration]] of the group was voluntary, and some families were already Polonised by 1800.<ref name=":0" /> Many of the settlers learned [[Polish language|Polish]] in order to attend Catholic masses, and their children learned Polish at school.<ref name=":0" /> Mixed marriages with Poles living in the area began to happen.<ref name=":0" /> By the end of the 19th century, during the [[Chancellor Bismarck]]'s policy of Germanisation in Poland, all residents in villages inhabited by the settlers chose Polish nationality during [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussian]] and [[German Empire|German]] [[census]]es.<ref name=":0" /> <!-- probably also because of the general dislike in the sounth (Franconia, Swabia, Bavaria) of all things Prussian -->The Bambers as a group opposed the Germanisation policy.<ref name=":0" />

The word "bamber" later expanded in meaning in Polish to denote well-off farmers in general, regardless of heritage.<ref name=":0" /> According to Culture.pl, this was due to the success of many Bambers due to good economic terms and hard work.<ref name=":0" /> Sometime after the early 20th century, it also came to be used to mean "backwards, primitive person".<ref name=":0" /> According to [[Culture.pl]], this is because the Bambers often remained farmers after the Poznań expanded and annexed the villages in the early 20th century.<ref name=":0" /> 

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.{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}} Many of them were soldiers of the Polish army fighting in the [[Greater Poland Uprising (1918–19)|Great Poland Uprising]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}} During the [[History of Poland (1939–45)|German occupation of Poland]] most of them, like most Poles, were persecuted for their Polish identity.{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}} 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.<ref name=":0" /> The situation improved after the fall of communism in Poland in 1989.<ref name=":0" />

== Culture ==
A well known aspect of Bamber culture is its extravagant female dresses.<ref name=":0" /> 

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20041019153826/http://www.city.poznan.pl/bambrzy/index.html Official site of Bambrzy (in Polish)]
* [https://www.bambrzy.poznan.pl/ Site of Towarzystwo Bambrow Poznanskich (The Society of Bambrzy) (in Polish)]
* [https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6f9792eb9de041d5986d81a5b10f1845 Story map: 300 Years of Bamberg Settlers in Greater Poland]
{{Slavic ethnic groups}}
{{Ethnic groups in Poland}}
{{Germans}}
[[Category:Luboń]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Poland]]
[[Category:German diaspora in Poland]]
[[Category:Poznań]]
[[Category:History of Greater Poland]]
[[Category:Slavic ethnic groups]]
[[Category:West Slavs]]