Well, I mentioned Warsaw pact not as reasoning, just as reminder that Poland was a part of Eastern block during Cold War and was essentially considered as the most Eastern European country in the world
No, you misunderstand; it was in Central Europe to start with, and, indeed, has always been in Central Europe. The notion that the Eastern bloc was necessarily synonymous with Eastern Europe is a Cold War nonsense; one may as well suggest that Italy is in Central Europe because it was (initially) one of the Central Powers during WW1. It relies on the questionable delineation of Europe into two distinct "Western" and "Eastern" regions; a political fact of the Cold War era, perhaps, but now entirely obsolete. Such a distinction tells you nothing about the nations themselves, nothing about their culture, history or people; all it tells you is which side they took in the Cold War, which is about as useful in objective examination of contemporary Europe as whether they constitute part of the Wine, Beer or Vodka belt, if not less.Well, I mentioned Warsaw pact not as reasoning, just as reminder that Poland was a part of Eastern block during Cold War and was essentially considered as the most Eastern European country in the world
Today it has the same geographical location as before so I don't see the reason to "move" it to the Central Europe.
So what? The point of these regions is to convey some sense of greater identity, or at least a realistic set of identities, not to try and parcel Europe up into even parts. If only three nations can reasonably be considered Eastern European (four, really; Moldavia aligns itself with Eastern, rather than South-Eastern Europe, and that's not even touching the Baltic states), then that is how many need be classified as such.
That's actually a point of disagreement - historically Poland owned at some periods, lands much farther away to the East (up to Smolensk) from its modern eastern border. Even before 1939, it included Western Ukraine and Belorussia. As for distinction between Eastern and Central Europe, the former is populated with Slavs who have their own cultural and linguistic features. Central Europe is generally populated with Germanic people, not with Slavs.
Of limited relevance; modern nation-states are not entirely synonymous with the historic tendency of their feudal predecessors, or even of their relatively modern borders. When I say "Poland", I mean, in essence, "the nation of the Polish peoples", and, more broadly, "the Polish people", rather than referring to the arbitrary geopolitical boundaries.
"Slavs" is a very broad category, and not particularly useful outside of the field of linguistics; one may as well declare that all of Romance Europe is inhabited by "Romans", or that the entirety of Germany, Britain and Scandinavia (barring parts of the Celtic Fringe) is inhabited by "Germans". While not entirely untrue, such distinctions are far too simplistic to give an accurate view of the overall culture of these people, and it is simply a fact that the Western Slavic nations- which is to say Poland, Czechia and Slovakia, traditionally align themselves with Greater Germany, which is to say Germany, Austria and (most of) Switzerland, rather than the East Slavic "axis", if you will, of Russia, Belorus and Ukraine. Other non-Germanic nations also include themselves in Central Europe, such as South Slavic Croatia and Slovenia, or Magyar Hungary, while some West Germanic nations such as the Netherlands and England identify with primarily Romance Western Europe. Meanwhile, Northern Europe comprises North Germanic, Finnic and Baltic nations, while non-Romance nations like Greece and the Basque Country are considered to be part of Southern Europe. Broad linguistic categories, evidently, are of limited use when making the distinctions which we debate.
But yah, that's about right.You said "(Poland) has always been Central Europe" - I just replied to this. Historically, it has always been the most Eastern of all European countries. To the East of it, only Russia which is substantially different from all countries of European family. Or you want to say, Poland ceased to be Eastern European just 20 years ago, when Ukraine and Belarussia appeared on the map?
You can, but it doesn't make sense. We'll have a map consisting of (from West to East) "Western Europe - Central Europe - Russia" for the last ~1000 years. It's the same as building without 13-th floor, because nobody wants to live there.
Such division is not worse than any other, like religion for example. Poland is Catholic, like France and Spain, but not like Germany which is Protestant. Does it mean that Poland is Western Europe?
Russians forced proto-Ukrainians to create their identity by imposing ideologies on them?As Germans may dream about Danzig and Koenigsberg, or Russians about Crimea. Doesn't mean it will ever happen.
Ahem. Russia is the greatest country in the world, Russians are the best and the least nationalistic people!No, no, no. I know that this is thread about nationalists, but you missed something. You, Traitorfish, should write about Wellington, Nelson and Royal Navy; you, red_elk - about Red Army. Poland should be left for TheLastOne36, warpus and me
Poland has just as much claim to Danzig as Germany does. I always wondered this, what does Russia have in common with Crimea? Why do they want the (fairly useless) piece of land so bad?
What about Ukrainian language, Zaporozhian сossacks, Hetmanate? All these are Russian inventions?
What invasion you are talking about? Modern Ukrainian state was indeed "drawn" on the map by Bolsheviks, gifted with Lwow and Western regions by Stalin and with Crimea by Khrushev, but Ukrainian identity existed long before XX century.
And Ukrainians think that they have as much claim to Lwow as Poles do.
Useless piece of land? Want so bad? Don't even know how to comment this
Words "Ruthenians" (русины
and "Russians" (русские, руские were practically synonims. Poles forced "Ruthenian" to be used as separate identity. While in Russia "Ruthenians" (which means people of Rus') became absolute because country name had changed from "Rus" (Русь to "Russia" (Россия and language had evolved and consolidated.The Partitions of Poland I mean.
They could pretend they do. Before the second world war, I believe after Poles and Jews, Germans had the third biggest population in Lwow.
Useless piece of land? Want so bad? Don't even know how to comment this
You might want to read some basic information about history of that region in XVIII - XX centuries.
It doesn't, I guess something that stemmed out of the Central vs Eastern debate last page.
Words "Ruthenians" (русины
