Let's Discuss Poland

[Ahimsadharma]

Well, if Tenochtitlan just gets slaughtered it becomes Mexico. Geographical definitions are just that

This is a euro-centric perspective, really. Most non-european cultures consider the history of their land as their's, not a question of "our history starts when this tribe migrated here/barged in" but " this is the history of me and my land".
Perhaps this is because Asiatic/African history is far older than European ( civilization did afterall exist in these locales for 5000-6000 years before it spread to Europe) and it has seen far more ancient migrations and/or intermingling.
Perhaps your view is a result of racial undertones to European history ( Europe tends to define history through race, while rest of the world defines it through land) and a far more fundamentally flawed perspective.
This is because, one really has very little idea what their ancestors looked like/were or hell, who their ancestors really were.
Take for example you- You are, i presume, Polish. According to you, Polish history starts after Atilla (when the slavs moved there)simply because you identify with the slavic people.
But no race is 'pure' and concepts of racial purity might hold true in some extreme areas or small isolated pockets, but on a long enough timeline, almost everyone intermingled with everyone.
Can you, for example, say that when the Slavs moved into Poland, there was not a single Hun left ? Can you garantee that not a single Pole married/raped/impregnated a Hun or vice-versa ? Obviously, logic and common sense dictates that if you arrive into a new land, short of genocidal extermination, you don't end up avoiding mixing. And even then, you cannot avoid mixing on a societerial level - look at the last 500 years for eg: the colonisation of the new world ( Australias & Americas) by Europeans has resulted in these regions having the largest mixed population ( Latin America) and even highly racist/genocidal societies like USA/Australia have not managed to avoid intermingling.
So on that record, whether you like it or not, their history is also your history.
This is why a civilization/culture-based definition is a far more visible and robust definition than a 'people/race based' definition.
In short, Hunnic history of Poland is very much history of Poland- every bit as much as Slavic history of Poland.

I guess if your historical awareness of your own people went back to 7000/8000 years at the minimum, you'd see the futility in trying to define civilizations by 'race/clan of people' instead of as a culture.
I am an Indian( from eastern parts of India) and i know most of Indian history for the last 6000-7000 years. If i tried to find any cogent meaning of 'who my people are' as a race/clan, it'd be a futile exercise because it involves atleast 5 major different ethnic migrations/mixings and numerous intermingling due to us being a very trade-based society.
You will find that if you were to discover the history of any people ( barring exception cases of people stuck in remote/isolated locations) for the last 7000-8000 years, everyone is mixed with half a dozen or more other 'tribes/groups' that are now impossible to follow/date, given that it'd be like trying to differentiate cavemen societies.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

They had no Wikipedia back then

Hmmm. perhaps they didnt do much travelling.

For eg, Indians new of all lands up to northern China at one end, jungle islands of indonesia on the other, from Chinese coast at one end to Gaul at the other as early as 700 BC. Greeks knew of India &Ethiopia as early as 400-500 BC. Rome was very well familiar with all lands up to India by 200 BC.

That Polish would somehow restrict their worldview to Europe a thousand years or more later, seems to be a very small/narrow worldview.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

Actually, it was both Danzig and Gdańsk until 1945 when Germans were just expelled. Now it's only Gdańsk. Which one is more justified is one of those questions without answers I think.

Neither is really justified IMO. Historical justification has a fatal flaw that you are overlooking - it is purely a question of how far of a history or which portions of history you wish to consider.
The very same gripe you are showing towards German-sphere ( which IMO is justified) for culturally pirating your Slavic city's origins ( after burning it, forgetting about it/ignoring it and then re-founding it) is surprisingly, absent when you address the Hun case of Poland.
To you, any hunnic settlements and whatnot simply do not 'exist' in Polish history because you've limited your historical perspective to the last 1400 years, just as the Germans restrict it to the last 700.
IMO you both are wrong, history of Poland is not restricted to the history of slavs, neither should it be seen prefferentially.

Perhaps you will now realize how hollow/flawed it is to associate history strictly with race, since everybody is a mix of a zillion different mixes to begin with.

 

[cybrxkhan]

The forum works in mysterious ways......

it is the natural laws of CFC... even advanced mathematics can't explain it.

And power through territory also not only considers size, but also resource richness, people ruled over, etc.

 

[onedreamer]

I think that Poland should be in the game if "civs" like The Netherlands or Vikings, Native Americans or others are in. I don't think we need kilometers of thread or tenths of different threads to agree on this; but I think that Firaxis/Take2 staff doesn't have any criteria in choosing civs except being consistent with a successful past. Why change a successful formula ? So in short the whole discussion boils down to a 3 steps reasoning:
1- Did Civ3 and its expansions sell well ? I think so.
2- Were the Vikings, Netherlands and Native Americans (kinda) included in Civ3 ? Yes.
3- In Civ4 we will include these civs and not Poland.

I don't think other silly historical arguments make sense at all. Poland does have a historical heritage worth of Civ, maybe more than the USA, for example you can notice it from the fact that polish people do know polish history while americans are severly lacking any knowledge on the matter. In the minds of the average american, a Civ is worth of Civilization only if it has suppressed a sufficient number of people or started/won a sufficient number of worthless wars, or if it is one of such Civs' victims (you can't blame this mentality if you look at the USA history, after all). For example, Italy is not worth even being called a Civ, because it lost even against Ethiopia in WW2; better keep the Roman Empire to represent all what Italy has given to the world's culture (including the name of an era in Civilization). The Roman Empire did win a sufficient number of wars and suppressed enough peoples to be worth of Civ.

 

[Dhul Qarnayn]

I'm half Polish (from my mother) (yes another Pole in CFC) and i don't really mind if Poland is in Civ4 or not. I'd be happy if i could play Poland in the game, but it's not really essential for me. Most civ that are in the game deserve to be in, and maybe Poland could be. I'm not against (they did a lot before) but they are not a needed civ like Egypt or Rome or China...

About Egypt, Athen... Ancient Egyptians were not black, maybe darker than now. Their invaders (greeks then roman then arabs) may have made them less dark than now, but i don't think so. It may be a big issue today, after colonialism and nationalism drawing them like white european, some black people do the same error making them black. Nonetheless, Egyptians seem still darker than other Arabs (since they are mixed) for me, but i don't know if i'm right.

About "Black Athena", I haven't read this book but i read some things about. I read that the author preferred the title "African Athena" but the editor choose Black. In fact this book says that before Indo-Europeans came, there were Phoenicians cities in Greece, so this mix became ancient Greeks. Greeks has been really influenced by some old asiatic myths (from middle east) like were Egyptians. The author believe that a lot of greek words came from old egyptian, and some divinities too. Therefore it's more a semitic/north-african/middle-eastern influence that is described in the book. Not really "Black".

And comments like "it's Africa, so it's black !" do you know the Berbers ? Most of them looks whiter than Arabs. Berbers in Northwest Africa, aka Kabylians (a french word) in Algeria, or aka Numidians before (during Antiquity) are first known inhabitants of Northwest Africa, and they're not black.

 

[RedRalph]

Yeah, not all Africans are black by a long shot... mainly just the subsaharan peoples. As far as I know, the US census counts people of North African origin as white. the average Algerian, Lybian, tunisian etc is a lot closer in skin tone to me than the average Nigerian or South African

 

[Dhul Qarnayn]

The main problem is that some afrocentrists can say that it's because of invasions (as the average north african is known as an Arab). The main ethnicity which is known for long as white in Africa (except Egypt) are Numids (or Numidians dont know the english word). There were in that place when Phoenicians come to found Carthage and co.

 

[RedRalph]

The main problem is that some afrocentrists can say that it's because of invasions (as the average north african is known as an Arab). The main ethnicity which is known for long as white in Africa (except Egypt) are Numids (or Numidians dont know the english word). There were in that place when Phoenicians come to found Carthage and co.

Well, they can say that but its irrelevant... the fact is the average North African citizen IS Arabic in appearance, language and culture, but they are still cleary citizens of, and inhabitants of Africa, making them African. Unless you follow that logic, most of North American arent Northern American but rathe reuropean. Ethnically they are, but theyre Americans, Canadian, Mexicans, Cubans etc...

 

[Dhul Qarnayn]

Well, they can say that but its irrelevant... the fact is the average North African citizen IS Arabic in appearance, language and culture, but they are still cleary citizens of, and inhabitants of Africa, making them African. Unless you follow that logic, most of North American arent Northern American but rathe reuropean. Ethnically they are, but theyre Americans, Canadian, Mexicans, Cubans etc...

Here comes the actual problem coming from a few centuries of racism.
And the main question : are Poles the true heirs of Attila ?

 

[Angst]

This is a euro-centric perspective, really. Most non-european cultures consider the history of their land as their's, not a question of "our history starts when this tribe migrated here/barged in" but " this is the history of me and my land".
Perhaps this is because Asiatic/African history is far older than European ( civilization did afterall exist in these locales for 5000-6000 years before it spread to Europe) and it has seen far more ancient migrations and/or intermingling.
Perhaps your view is a result of racial undertones to European history ( Europe tends to define history through race, while rest of the world defines it through land) and a far more fundamentally flawed perspective.
This is because, one really has very little idea what their ancestors looked like/were or hell, who their ancestors really were.
Take for example you- You are, i presume, Polish. According to you, Polish history starts after Atilla (when the slavs moved there)simply because you identify with the slavic people.
But no race is 'pure' and concepts of racial purity might hold true in some extreme areas or small isolated pockets, but on a long enough timeline, almost everyone intermingled with everyone.
Can you, for example, say that when the Slavs moved into Poland, there was not a single Hun left ? Can you garantee that not a single Pole married/raped/impregnated a Hun or vice-versa ? Obviously, logic and common sense dictates that if you arrive into a new land, short of genocidal extermination, you don't end up avoiding mixing. And even then, you cannot avoid mixing on a societerial level - look at the last 500 years for eg: the colonisation of the new world ( Australias & Americas) by Europeans has resulted in these regions having the largest mixed population ( Latin America) and even highly racist/genocidal societies like USA/Australia have not managed to avoid intermingling.
So on that record, whether you like it or not, their history is also your history.
This is why a civilization/culture-based definition is a far more visible and robust definition than a 'people/race based' definition.
In short, Hunnic history of Poland is very much history of Poland- every bit as much as Slavic history of Poland.

I guess if your historical awareness of your own people went back to 7000/8000 years at the minimum, you'd see the futility in trying to define civilizations by 'race/clan of people' instead of as a culture.
I am an Indian( from eastern parts of India) and i know most of Indian history for the last 6000-7000 years. If i tried to find any cogent meaning of 'who my people are' as a race/clan, it'd be a futile exercise because it involves atleast 5 major different ethnic migrations/mixings and numerous intermingling due to us being a very trade-based society.
You will find that if you were to discover the history of any people ( barring exception cases of people stuck in remote/isolated locations) for the last 7000-8000 years, everyone is mixed with half a dozen or more other 'tribes/groups' that are now impossible to follow/date, given that it'd be like trying to differentiate cavemen societies.

Ehm, you're somehow trapping yourself. The argument proposed by you was initially:

Huns took Poland and that has been the greates Empire Poland has ever been part of.

Then, Tortilla said:

The people weren't even Slavic back then.

You said something like:

Doesn't matter. Poland's a geographical term.

He said a bit later:

If Tenochtitlan was razed, Mexico was still representated by the Aztecs.

You say now it's a Eurocentric view, as the cultures are completely different.
*****
Well, Poland now is not what it was back then. It didn't even exist when Attila conquered the area or whatsoever. Does that make Poland a previous part of the Huns? Maybe. But remember, Mexico is also a geographical term, so technically they are representated by the Aztecs. And well, the Spanish today in some level.

Hmmm. perhaps they didnt do much travelling.

For eg, Indians new of all lands up to northern China at one end, jungle islands of indonesia on the other, from Chinese coast at one end to Gaul at the other as early as 700 BC. Greeks knew of India &Ethiopia as early as 400-500 BC. Rome was very well familiar with all lands up to India by 200 BC.

That Polish would somehow restrict their worldview to Europe a thousand years or more later, seems to be a very small/narrow worldview.

The thing is, Europe 'forgot' the far away lands. Heck, even the Vikings 'discovered' America, but did a single Norseman remember they came first when Columbus walked on American soil? No, the previous Viking explorations were not as glorious as they were before.

EDIT: Oh, and stop with the Race part. It's kinda offensive and show you somehow has a narrow view, just as 'the Europeans has'. Where are you from?

 

[RedRalph]

Here comes the actual problem coming from a few centuries of racism.
And the main question : are Poles the true heirs of Attila ?

Please, lets not go down that road (particularly on a topic SPECIFICALLY meant to be about Poland)

 

[Spearthrower]

About Egypt, Athen... Ancient Egyptians were not black, maybe darker than now.

They showed morphological likenesses far more distinct to sub-saharan peoples than to any others. While I agree they weren't "black" in the sense we are talking about, they were much closer than the present middle-eastern hybrid.

It seems that a lot of people in this thread don't realise that arabic peoples spread across the north of Africa in what was the medieval period of Europe.... prior to that, the Romans did the same - thereby mixing with the native populaces.... go far enough back and I assure you, the skull morphology of Egyptians was a lot closer to sub-saharan peoples than it is today.

Aside from it being in gold (hehe) look at this mask of Tut - the bridge of the nose and the cheekbones in particular.

http://www.prometheus-imports.com/E-151Wtut-plaque.jpg

About "Black Athena", I haven't read this book but i read some things about. I read that the author preferred the title "African Athena" but the editor choose Black. In fact this book says that before Indo-Europeans came, there were Phoenicians cities in Greece, so this mix became ancient Greeks. Greeks has been really influenced by some old asiatic myths (from middle east) like were Egyptians. The author believe that a lot of greek words came from old egyptian, and some divinities too. Therefore it's more a semitic/north-african/middle-eastern influence that is described in the book. Not really "Black".

If you look at the subtitle it clearly states: "The Afro-Asiatic roots of classical civilisation".... the Greeks were heavily influenced by Egypt and Babylon in the areas of science, philosophy, mathematics, religion etc. They built from that.... but they also achieved a lot of distinctive things of their own merit, I wouldn't deny that... I love this period and further back into the murkier and murkier past!!



Edit:

I assume that there was a system in place in Egypt similar to many countries of the world today (Japan, Thailand etc). The poor people working the fields retained their natural colouring, while one of the ways in which the rich or elite could show their status was by the relative whiteness of their skin. This secondary or elite subclass was made stronger by constant selective breeding (oh the Egyptians liked to keep it in the family!!) resulting in some skull morphology which made the famous characters of the time (the ones we typically see pictures/statues of) look less and less like the peasants they ruled. However, there are too many other pieces of supporting evidence to show that the normal Egyptian was far more black than white.


"From the horse's mouth" so to speak - the hieroglyphs are translated into modern usage.

 

[Ethric]

I think that Poland should be in the game if "civs" like The Netherlands or Vikings, Native Americans or others are in.

Comparing poland to the Vikings...

 

[Tortilla Boy]

Not really "Black".

Here comes Beach Boy :

Comparing those two: Alex from Civ1 and Civ4 i must say that former one is Fergie's style "My humps" and latter - Alanis' style

 

[Arlborn]

MY GOD, ARE WE STILL HERE?????

Heck, I am sure that at least 1/3 of the people that keep replying to this thread did read the following link:

http://www.chiprowe.com/articles/net/net3.html

 

[Angst]

MY GOD, ARE WE STILL HERE?????

Heck, I am sure that at least 1/3 of the people that keep replying to this thread did read the following link:

http://www.chiprowe.com/articles/net/net3.html

Haha good link xD

 

[Arlborn]

Well, this part is debatable, but it requires knowledge of economic development of Europe. It's like saying "USA is the richest country of the World now". Yes, it is, if you could say that man who went to the bank and borrowed 10 trillion $ (and came back for 1 trillion each year) is rich.
What Poland did in that time is the same thing but made by different means - firstly: owning gold mines in gold dependent currency system. Secondly: selling wood, tar for ships, deforestation (that one on unimaginable scale). Thirdly: extensive grain production, pushing it to the limits - came in cost of labour investment - all Europe (excluding Prussia and everything to the east) went then through the process of developing puting-out system (also called - no wonder - cottage system). This process started also in Poland in XVI cent. but XVII's grain prices stimulated building up huge farming possesions (like current US farms) instead and compulsory employment in agrary part. Poland reverted from cottage economy. And then - in late XVII - prices of grain came back to normal. Not counting in war-weariness and war destruction and depopulation, because it wasn't so important as the process itself.
Also, note that only 3% of all grain production was exported, mainly to Netherlands.

ITKA this unique and colorful custom is referred to as generating the goggles.

No, they didn't, this culture used up itself for internal purpouse, integrating country itself - like polonisation of Germans in Polish territories, religious tolerance, christianization of Lithuania, colonization of Ukraine, relations with Russia, Bohemia, Ottomans and Hungary. All of them admired us in some aspects, at some point of time and in XIX century Polish problem was one of important ones in Europe (debates at French and English parliaments, mass manifestations).

ATMI you can't expect me to believe you were only denting the statue.

It's not just "some" country. Some Americans MAYBE even remember Kosciuszko or Pulawski. They even might find Ladislaus Jagiello statue in Central Park. So, where is the statue of Bismarck in the USA? Or who admires Aztek composer in Japan now? Which great Sumer astronomer actually did change way of thinking about the universe?
I'm not a religious type, but John Paul II also made Vatican something more recognizable (in terms of pop-culture).
Oh! And I also recall that in Civ 2 there was "Solidarnosc" march photo for modern revolutions taking place. Mentioning this because I know that we are discussing here only pop-culture stuff that would fit just this game, not the "how my country is important stuff" because otherwise I could just bore you with hundreds of people important for history who are irrecognizable just like Sten Sture means nothing to statistical Frenchman. It's only pop-culture and I treat that discussion only in theoretical aspect (not like "you must include Poland", cause it's silly), but "I don't recall" is still not an argument, even in this terms (you might not recall just right now because you are to lazy, for instance). "It's so boring" is also a type of lame argument - go bore yourself somewhere else - boredom is a state of the mind after all, not of the real object.

IKRM I feel like chucking the flounder FOP.

This one, perhaps?

Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca - The great human diasporas : the history of diversity and evolution

Helsinki local libraries have had one copy of this, which is missing . Oh well..

LOPM this is killing the paper, OOP.

there is a difference with Poland and those two --> Portugal and netherlands. those two controlled overseas empires.

okay, so then comes the Courland argument.

that was just a little bit of land that didn't last all too long.

Netherlands had territory in Indonesia, and the Americas - the Dutch East and West Indies, their main territories. and thats a lota islands.

Portugal was one of the very first world empires - they contained a few ports in India, China, a good amount of territory in Africa, and, oh yea, Brazil.

so the thing is there are too many European empires. they all have to, eventually, be included, and by then, theres no room for poor Poland. perhaps taking out the HRE or even the Celts would suffice for Poland's place. maybe Carthage too.

IMT because it is the way of the monkey, OIF.

Plutarch is pretty much the primary source of European/modern knowledge and all he says on the subject is:

"Alexandron de ton Filippou apragmonos oraion legousi genesthai' tin men gar komin anasesyrthai afto, xanthin de einai'"

"Alexander the son of Philip is reported to have possessed a natural beauty: his hair was wavy and fair."...


Fair could mean blond.... but then again it could mean light brown!

There is of course the Pompeii Mosaic from about 200 b.c.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient...llery_07.shtml

Which depicts Alexander as a short, brown haired man (there's plenty of gold colouring in the mosaic if they'd wanted to have his hair that colour!!)

IUFO, he is quite a slammer of butter!

I didn't say controlled most, I said owned much. There's a difference. I stated that Poland had power. And they had. Land areal, yes. Powerful economy, yes. Effecient military, yes. In Civ standards they lack culture somehow, however.

In the European medieval era (I'm talking, well, about 1000 to 1400 at least regarding to your question.), Europe, North Africa and the Middle East = The known world btw. At least the known world in Europe. Poland had an economy which bested countries like Denmark (Not much Denmark, but militarily Denmark was far behind) and Muscowy, and also Austria.

And when it comes to gaming, noone would really dumb the Winged Hussar, would you?

EDIT: Oh, and with owned I meant outbested. Just to say it shortly.

Haha, OPFD is NOT TRUE if it is copying the outright animal in first.

That's a statistical correlation or logical inference, but not necessarily a provable deduction.

For example, perhaps black ink was simply easier to make than blonde ink.

(Never attribute to complex reasoning something that can be explained by simple human laziness. )

Wodan

YYRS, statically saying it is like saying that a horse of white head is a Polish legend. Completely biased.



...................






See people? It shows that you must think before saying anything, and state it with proves. And your comment always must be useful!

 

[Angst]

Ehh, first no offense, but why are you changing our names? Especially mine, I never play as Joao xD

Good idea tbh but still

...

And please make a countercomment instead of talking about animals to the quoting on me you did. Tell us why Poland wasn't powerful in the early and high medieval era.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

Well, Poland now is not what it was back then. It didn't even exist when Attila conquered the area or whatsoever. Does that make Poland a previous part of the Huns? Maybe. But remember, Mexico is also a geographical term, so technically they are representated by the Aztecs. And well, the Spanish today in some level.

So Poland magically rose out of the seas when the first Slav bothered to cast a 'reclaim land' spell ?
I don't see any basis in claiming that there is no cultural continuity between Huns and Slavs, given that Huns and Slavs are closely related, lived along the same expanse, had similar culture & trinkets.

Oh, and stop with the Race part. It's kinda offensive and show you somehow has a narrow view, just as 'the Europeans has'. Where are you from?

But you *ARE* defining history with race- you are saying Poland didn't exist before Slavs came, when it is a fact that wheat cultivating cultures had existed in Poland since 2000 BCE. This is a highly flawed perspective and as i said, Hunnic Poland is just as much of Polish history as Slavic Poland.
I am an Indo-Canadian if you missed that in my previous post.You are associating slavs as the only Poles, which i pointed out is highly ironic because it is all a function of which timescale you look to 'chose' from. For you some reason ( i am tempted to guess though) anything about Poland's history before 1200-1300 years is irrelevant and to yet you took a swipe at the 'germans' for defining your history from 1300-1400 AD onwards ( that whole Gdansk/Danzig example of yours). Both of them are just as bad/flawed as each other and its a pity you cannot see that.