According to your logic, if modern Russia will attack, for example, Ukraine, this aggression will be justified, because there are many russians live, and this territory belonged to Russia for hundreds years.
Again; Soviets themselves declared that partages of Poland were illegal and were cancelled. Both Poland and USSR were new states, and relationship between them, including the boarder, was yet to be defined.
Several hundred years ago maybe, but not at that time. The Ukrainian people weren't very appreciative of it.
Thats twisted logic. It was Poland that started the war.
Yes, still at that time. ukrainians weren't fond of soviet armies as well. Poland entered central Ukraine as ally of independent ukrainian state, fighting against Soviet agression. I see nothing wrong in defending one state's independance.
Poland also took over Vilnius about the same time. There was a coup there that produced a puppet state that Poland later annexed. Vilnius city was mostly Yiddish and Polish speaking but I believe the countryside was mostly Lithuanian-speaking. It was a really complicated situation at the time (there were Belorussians and Russians involved as well) which was mostly resolved after World War II in the same manner as a lot of changes at the time: forced expulsion of inconvenient ethnic groups; in this case the Poles by the Soviets. The Jewish population had been annihilated during World War II.
Vilnius was mostly polish, with Jews the second biggest group. The surrounding region was mostly polish, as it still is today...
When Poland wants to revert the partition, you call it "uprising". When soviets do the same, you call it "aggression". Why?
1) Uprising is against a ruling state. Look it up.
2) Soviets themselves declared partages illegal and void, therefore making polish rule west to Kiev and Smolensk legal...
So invading Ukraine and Bealarus which didn't contain ethnic Poles wasn't aggression?
They did contain many ethnic Poles, in many places a majority.
Must be the very central city core then, since the census of 1909 by the Polish researcher Eduard Czyński found the population of the Vilnius region to be 46.1% Belorussians, 23% Lithuanians and 10% Poles [Eduard Czyński, "Etnograficzno-statystyczny zarys liczebnosci rossiedlenia ludnosci polskiej. Warsawa, 1909"].
This was probably done according to official russian statistics, being very interested in making number of Poles as low as possible, and not at all reliable, even in comparison to Austrian and Prussian numbers when it comes to Poles on their territory. Russians were routinely assigning Poles as (catholic) Belarusians - You can see it on the maps from the era, they show all the polish regions in the Empire, apart from Kingdom, as belarusian, and it is about Vilnius region as well as Podlasie (Bialystok region). That it was false You can say even comparing it to post-ww2 soviet maps, which clearly show Vilnius region as majorly polish...
So? Whatever the Bolshevik intention was, this doesn't change the fact that Vilnius historically AND de jure was a Lithuanian city which had never been Polish (not even during the time of the Commonwealth).
Of course you don't.
First: I do not contest that the Poles were the largest ethnic group of the city of Vilnius. I question if this is true regarding the whole Vilnius region occupied by Poland. Let's be clear that the city of Vilnius is a separate geographical entity that's constitutes only one part of the Vilnius region.
First, You are not aware what Grand Duchy of Lithuania was. Its official language was belarusian, and later polish, not lithuanian. its citizens would never call themselves Poles, because a Pole ment citizen of Crown of Kingdom of Poland. But its gentry became completely polonised, cities too, and large part of the peasantry as well. The situation I usually compare to what has happened with silesian, pomeranian duchies, and Meklemburg as well. They were originally polish (Meklemburg polabian); but with time, they became german states, just like Grand Duchy became a polish state.
That's why someone could consider himself a Lithuanian and adherent of polish culture. That's why we learn from our national epopee that our fatherland is Lithuania. Pilsudski, leader of Poland from the time of the soviet-polish war in question, considered himself Lithuanian as well.
And yes, the entire region around Vilnius was, and to some extent still is, majorly polish. Lwow was a different case, being polish exclave.
Poland haven't cooperated with Nazis, there was no agreement about this part of land. Simply when Germans seized Czechoslovakia, Poles took this (realy small) part of land (we call it "Zaolzie").
), would it be such a crime to attempt to re-claim it when Mexico weakened?
