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Yotvingians (Lithuanian: Jotvingiai, Sūduviai; Polish: Jaćwingowie, Belarusian: Яцьвягі) were a Baltic people with close cultural ties to the Lithuanians and Prussians. The Yotvingian language (sometimes called Sudovian) was a Western Baltic language nearest to Prussian, but with small variations. Yotvingians lived in the area of Sudovia and Dainava; south west from the upper Neman, between Marijampolė, Merkinė (Lithuania), Slonim, Kobrin (Belarus), Białystok, and Ełk (Poland); today this area corresponds mostly to the northeast of Poland with Białystok and Suwałki and a part of Hrodna Province of Belarus. Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD called the people Sudinoi.

A southern part of the Yotvingian lands had been dependant upon the Kievan Rus, since Vladimir I of Kiev has defeated them in 983. Since then on, the Slavicization of Orthodox Yotvingians accelerated. Netimeras, a ruler of the Yotvingians, was converted to Christianity by Bruno of Querfurt in 1009. From the 13th century, Yotvingians began raiding adjacent areas of Masovia, Lublin and Volhynia, after Konrad I of Masovia and Daniel of Halych had invaded them. In the 1280s the Northern Yotvingians were partly conquered and dispersed by the Teutonic Knights; some Yotvingians then took refuge in Lithuania. Many Sudovians came to live nearer Regiomontium in the area called the Sudovian corner^{[citation needed]}, while battles were fought in the wilderness area of Sudovia between Lithuania, Poland and the Teutonic Knights.

[edit] Sudovians

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Sudovians are an extinct subgroup of Baltic people, that used to live at the left bank of the River Nemunas, in the region known as Sudovia, territory today belonging to Lithuania and Poland.

Another extinct Baltic group, the Yotvingians is sometimes referred to as Sudovians as well.

[edit] External links

• English-Sudovian (Yotvingian) dictionary
• Map showing "Jadzvings" (Yotvingians) on the eastern edge of Poland "at the time of the death of Boleslav the Wrymouthed 1138."

[edit] See also

• Sudovian language

v • d • e Clans of the Old Prussians Included by modern historians: Bartians · Nadruvians · Natangians · Pogesanians · Pomesanians · Sambians · Warmians Included by Peter von Dusburg: Galindians · Kulmerland · Skalvians · Sudovians