Poland after WWII

[Fanatic Noob]

We can also start Polish language lessons threat if there would be interested people to learn it. But I do not think so much are interested? Does they?

 

[TheLastOne36]

Just so you, I'm Russian (born in St. Petersburg), and I know my geography.

Central Europe is a term reserved for the Germanic peoples of Germany and Austria. Eastern Europe encompasses all the Slavs, of which, Poland is included.

Terrible definition IMO.

Yes we are slavic, but culturally we share so many ties with Germanics to our west, it'd be ridiculous to say we aren't Central European culturally.

Also, I am so glad there are more Poles on here. Before it was just me, and a Czech guy named Winner and occasionally Squonk defending Central Europe.

But it is unfortunate that people on here can't comprehend Poland not being Eastern. I've defended pages and pages in the past giving many good reasons for why it is so, most of my postcount comes from it. At the end, they have no argument for Poland being eastern, so they just claim it was communist in the past and think they win the argument.

 

[TheLastOne36]

The fact that Poland owned some lands hundreds, if not thousands of years ago has no relevance as to whether they should own them now. Poland is not 'entitled' to Lvov any more than England is entitled to Calais, Italy is entitled to Egypt or France is entitled to Dalmatia.

Completely different.

It is like Savoy being French rather then Italian, or Rousillon being French rather then Catalonian/Spanish, except much more recent, as it was just a bit more then half a century ago where Lwow was Polish.

Plus add to that Calais and Egypt or Dalmatia were never important parts of England or France outside of tactical reasons. Lwow was a huge city and one of the major centers of Polish culture. (Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan, Lodz, Gdansk, Lwow, and Wilno) Many important parts of Polish history and culture are from Lwow, such as our Football Association, which was founded in Lwow, to list a more recent one.

It is as if England lost Liverpool or Manchester.

 

[Chieftess]

We can also start Polish language lessons threat if there would be interested people to learn it. But I do not think so much are interested? Does they?

Polish langauge lesson threat? I'll start off by making you learn to pronounce my Polish last name, which has to do with herding ducks. You silly geese!

 

[Aquila SPQR]

At the end, they have no argument for Poland being eastern, so they just claim it was communist in the past and think they win the argument.

1989 killed last (and in fact - the only ) remaining argument. Right now it's just a troll's talk

But hey, some trolls can be very amusing

We can also start Polish language lessons threat if there would be interested people to learn it.

I doubt it. It's just too difficult for them

I'll start off by making you learn to pronounce my Polish last name, which has to do with herding ducks

Gąsiewski? Gęsicki? Pasigąśny? There are no difficult names in Polish, only people who can't pronounce it.

 

[Chieftess]

Gąsiewski? Gęsicki? Pasigąśny?

First one, but obviously spelled differently. (there's a village in northern Poland, which I suppose it's literally "Gooseville". I'm guessing is where some of my ancestors came from).

There are no difficult names in Polish, only people who can't pronounce it.

I had a (Russian - Ukrainian) co-worker who said something similar. It's like there's a Slavic Name Club here or something when you meet someone else with a long Polish name.

Trivia tidbit - in my family at family reunions, we always talk about ancestors who came from the German partition or Russian partition. (I guess no one was from the Austrian partition)

 

[choxorn]

Completely different.

It is like Savoy being French rather then Italian, or Rousillon being French rather then Catalonian/Spanish, except much more recent, as it was just a bit more then half a century ago where Lwow was Polish.

Plus add to that Calais and Egypt or Dalmatia were never important parts of England or France outside of tactical reasons. Lwow was a huge city and one of the major centers of Polish culture. (Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan, Lodz, Gdansk, Lwow, and Wilno) Many important parts of Polish history and culture are from Lwow, such as our Football Association, which was founded in Lwow, to list a more recent one.

It is as if England lost Liverpool or Manchester.

I'll give you Lwow/Lviv, but Vilnius is probably more Lithuanian than Polish.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

there's a village in northern Poland, which I suppose it's literally "Gooseville". I'm guessing is where some of my ancestors came from

If it's just a guess, then it may be completely wrong. Names like that were very common and cannot be traced to any particular village. Goose herders lived almost everywhere. There are examples of peasants who did not have any surename at all and received one from office worker during partitions. Sometimes those office workers created a bit... funny surenames

There's also a guy whose surename is Cyps Albo Zyps (Cyps Or Zyps). Probably because one office worker had no idea how to write his surename in the documents and wrote "Cyps or Zyps". That later became a surename.

Not to mention that in Ireland police gave almost 50 tickets to a polish man called "Prawo Jazdy". They had no idea that "Prawo Jazdy" means... "Driver's License".

I'll give you Lwow/Lviv, but Vilnius is probably more Lithuanian than Polish.

After a long recent and still ongoing anti-polish campaign - probably. It's amazing how far a nation can go to deny it's history. There are still places in Lithuania where Lithuanians are minority though.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I'll give you Lwow/Lviv, but Vilnius is probably more Lithuanian than Polish.

Now it is.

In the past is had majority Polish. (and Polish Jews)

There were very few Lithuanians in "Lithuania" before second world war. Many Lithuanians today are Polish or other in ancestry, no matter how much they hate to admit it.

Vilnius historically is undoubtedly 'Polish'. Heck, other Lithuanian cities which were long considered to be part of 'Lithuanian homeland' like Kaunas, had a very strong Polish(and Jewish) minority.

 

[Lord Baal]

Wow, another nationalistic masturbation thread! Just what we need at CFC!

/sarcasm

Poland's border changes in 1945 were decided by Russia and the US, with the UK and France basically coerced into agreeing with those two. Stalin had several aims with regards to Poland.

Firstly, he wanted to keep it as a buffer state between Germany and the USSR. That meant not simply partitioning or annexing it as he'd done with other Eastern European territories - please, for the sake of avoiding an argument I really don't give a crap about, just assume I'm splitting Europe in half here, between East and West, rather than into thirds - but keeping it as an independent, sovereign state.

Secondly, since Poland was intended as a buffer state, it made sense to push its borders westward at the expense of Germany. This would both increase the buffer between German territory and Soviet territory, whilst simlutaneously weakening Germany, which Stalin still saw as a potential future threat.

Thirdly, the USSR wanted to push its own borders westwards, primarily to consolidate its own territory but also partially for propaganda reasons. The USSR had long claimed territories in Eastern Poland and it would look bad for it to abandon those claims, even if Poland was now an ally. Therefore, the USSR took possession of Poland's eastern territories. This also had the added benefit of creating a buffer between the USSR's important industrial and agricultural centres in the event that Poland became a threat in the future.

Fourthly, Poland was to be weakened so as to not become a future threat. Taking away its Eastern territories decreased the chances of this happening, but the best way to eliminate Poland as a threat was to make it a puppet of Moscow. This is what happened, not just with Poland but also with East Germany, but don't make the mistake of assuming that just because this is what Stalin ended up doing that this must have been his goal all along.

Stalin was an opportunist; he saw the opportunity to install a puppet regime in Lvov and later Warsaw, and he seized it. But if this opportunity had not presented itself, he would have gladly sought to marginalise Poland as he did with Finland and Austria, or install a friendly-but-independent government there. If necessary, he'd have withdrawn to his own borders and left Poland an independent and sovereign state, ut only if the rewards for doing so outweighed the risks. Stalin was an excellent proponent of realpolitick in his relations with his neighbours.

This is what happened in Poland, and also briefly why; as to whether or not is was "fair:" life isn't required to be fair. I'm a Palestinian Jew on one side of my family; part of me has a claim on the land of Palestine by basis of my ethnicity, the other by the basis of my religion. And you know what? Neither one of those claims mean a damn thing. Because I don't deserve to be there more than the current inhabitants.

In a perfect Wilsonian world, everyone would have the right to choose their own government, system of government, nation-state, etc.. But the world isn't perfect (never mind how imperfect Wilsonian thought is). Poles may have been the majority in those territories in 1945; I don't know, I haven't researched it as much as I have the post-war situation in Israel. But they most certainly are not the majority now. So if you value the right to self-determination (which for the record, I don't) then those territories obviously belong to Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania, just like Poland's western territories are no longer German, but Polish. If you don't, then this is nothing but mindless revanchism, by which standards those states have just as much right to those territories as Poland does, and as both Germany and Russia have to large tracts of Polish territory now.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I'm pretty sure none of us are all that serious about this.

Just dwelling on past territories. Today only Brest and Grodno have large Polish minorities.

Also, yes those were the reasons our borders were decided, nobody is debating that, only that it wasn't the 'True' Polish borders at the time.

 

[Lord Baal]

I'm pretty sure none of us are all that serious about this.

Just dwelling on past territories. Today only Brest and Grodno have large Polish minorities.

Also, yes those were the reasons our borders were decided, nobody is debating that, only that it wasn't the 'True' Polish borders at the time.

Meh, I've seen plenty of people, even here on CFC, who have mindless nationalistic revanchistic arguments. Particularly regarding Georgia, Albania, Serbia and, you guessed it, Poland. They seem to be the big four for some reason, at least on the parts of the interwebs I frequent.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Meh, I've seen plenty of people, even here on CFC, who have mindless nationalistic revanchistic arguments. Particularly regarding Georgia, Albania, Serbia and, you guessed it, Poland. They seem to be the big four for some reason, at least on the parts of the interwebs I frequent.

Polish nationalism is mild and most of the time humorous.

I think nations like Iran, China, Serbia, Georgia, Russia, Latvia/Lithuania and Albania are much more nationalistic.

 

[Dachs]

There are a grand total of zero notable Latvian nationalists on CFC

compare to four ridiculously hilarious Polish nationalists who have recently posted in CFC WH alone

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Moderator Action: Enough of the commenting on the nationalistic leanings of posters pls.

Back on-topic, thank you.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Split it between Germany and Russia. There you go.

 

[Fanatic Noob]

LOL, Dachs. I never considered myself as Nationalist. But it may look like that when someone debating too long history of their nation with border changes included. Maybe I play also too much Civ4 with mods (ROM+AND+HAND...), where I play Polish Empire and rule almost whole world Also my current chosen civics may say so: Government - Fascism (while I hate name of this one works best, I would rename it to Police State or something), Society - Nationalist, Military - M.A.D. But what to do if they all works best for my huge, strong military empire which still builds their own arsenal even more?

Also BACK TO THE TOPIC as Mods asking. So Poland have very long (more than 1 thousand years), difficult to understand (especially for foreigns) history and our borders changed so often that even Poles who are deep in our nation history would have problems to decide how our borders really should look like based on history. So I think that our nation should leave this boring and difficult topic about change of borders, and should concentrate more about building our economy, and military safety so our borders would NEVER need to be changed again. I think like most foreigns here I think that our current borders give us good chances to grow as they are good and we are big nation in European standards. Maybe Vilnius and Lvov, was once ours but we must understand that they are not ours but our neighbors, and they will never give them back for free, and even if 99% of Russian would say that those cities should belong to us. Because they are now not Russian, but belongs to Ukraine and Lithuania.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

LOL, Dachs. I never considered myself as Nationalist.

Never give him even a hint that you're Polish, because he'll call you a "nationalist" immidately. Well, in every generation there has to be people with... unique beliefs and behaviour.

So I think that our nation should leave this boring and difficult topic about change of borders, and should concentrate more about building our economy, and military safety so our borders would NEVER need to be changed again.

Do you know anyone who seriously is talking about border changing? I do not know anyone like that. Moreover - all people I know are rather happy with the fact that instead of poor eastern regions (belarussian swamps ) we have lands with better infrastructure. And that we are now even more western than before 1939

Maybe Vilnius and Lvov, was once ours but we must understand that they are not ours but our neighbors

As above.

But CFC forum is a rather bad place to discuss such things. It's one of the most trolled forums I've seen. Compare it to TWC forums for example. The other thing is that in the Internet everyone think he's smart etc. while not everyone really is. Discussing about things you know nothing about is a bad idea. Discussing with a prejudiced stereotype lover who know nothing about the topic of discussion is even worse - it's like a listening to an idiot.

I think nations like Iran, China, Serbia, Georgia, Russia, Latvia/Lithuania and Albania are much more nationalistic.

USA#1 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Fanatic Noob]

Moreover - all people I know are rather happy with the fact that instead of poor eastern regions (belarussian swamps ) we have lands with better infrastructure. And that we are now even more western than before 1939

I agree with that in 100%, but also best City in Poland is Poznań And was in Polish borders even before 1939, and was once Capital at the same time as Gniezno (according map I posted), so Poland had in fact two capitals at once.

 

[Dachs]

But CFC forum is a rather bad place to discuss such things. It's one of the most trolled forums I've seen. Compare it to TWC forums for example. The other thing is that in the Internet everyone think he's smart etc. while not everyone really is. Discussing about things you know nothing about is a bad idea. Discussing with a prejudiced stereotype lover who know nothing about the topic of discussion is even worse - it's like a listening to an idiot.

Apparently you haven't been on the TWC forums for very long, because you haven't noticed the incessant Romanian-Hungarian trolling and counter-trolling. It's as integral to the TWC VV's identity as "Poland is in Eastern Europe" is to CFC. And, of course, there's the usual nonsense about China vs. Rome that we've thankfully avoided here (though that seems to have died down a bit in the last several months). You've just got a skewed view of things.