MYTHOLOGICAL HEROES AND HISTORY CONSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA OF 16<sup>TH</sup> CENTURY ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE PRUSSIAN CHRONICLE
The article is devoted to the analysis of the printed edition of the Prussian Chronicle published in 1566 in the printing house of Johann Daubmann. The proto-national discourse of the early modern period influenced the tendencies of all-European nations to identify themselves with ancient peoples and led to the active construction of ethnogenetic myths in national history-making, including in Prussia. Prussian myth and mythological heroes attribute the possible origins of the Prussians to Germanic ethnic groups. However, the Prussian Chronicle, as a work written and published at a time when Prussia had already been transformed into a duchy and was under Polish rule, was influenced by sarmatism as an idea of national identity, which was probably related to the chronicler's desire to justify the continuity of not only Germans, but also Poles in the Prussian territories.