Things you might not know about Poland

#1 The luxury watch makers Patek Phillipe was co-founded by a Pole, Francois Czapek.

#2 There are more bars per square metre in Krakow than in Manhattan, New York.

#3 Esperanto was invented by a Polish Jew.

#4

What's up man?!

Thanks for the facts :)

Marie Sklodowska-curie, and Copernicus were polsih

Good facts they never mention in US schools :( I'm teaching people half the time :)

#5 Metal detector was invented by a Pole

#6 Poles invented windhsiled wipers, we couldn't stand the goddamn snow!!!

Pat Benatar and Belinda Carlisle are Polish.

Alicia Molik the aussie tennis star is also Polish.

Joseph Conrad was Polish :)

drivers never stop for people in a crosswalk/zebra

- whenever you see two Poles, you will hear three opinions.
- walkie-talkie (precursor of cellphone) was invented by a Pole.

What about vodka man?

Well that is a matter of debate, isn't it? He was most certainly ethnically German and there's no evidence he spoke Polish.

Anyway, cotton buds (q-tips) were certainly invented by a Pole.

His nationality is actually disputed. No certain facts are known about either his father or mother, so let him speak for himself:

Copernicus also oversaw the defense of the castle of Olsztyn (Allenstein) at the head of Royal Polish forces when the town was besieged by the forces of Albrecht Hohenzollern, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order during the Polish-Teutonic War (1519–1521).

^ Polish-Teutonic war, not Polish-German war.

And if you want to get really picky, the fact that he was born and spent the majority of his life in a place called Prussia.

BTW: Father: Niklas Koppernigk, a merchant and baker from Cracow, who migrated to Torun not later than 1458. He married Barbara Watzenrode, daugther of a wealthy Torun merchant.

And Teutons where who...? (Hint: they used to call themselves "Deutscher Orden")


So was he Prussian? Or (using the same argument - was Joseph Conrad English?


No certain data exists. Some say the father was likely Polish, some say he was possibly a Germanized Pole.

Nice selective quoting there. Let’s see, born in Prussia, spent most of his life in Prussia (by choice) and died in Prussia. Could he be Prussian?


Hmm, we seem to have gone from “no certain facts are known about his father or mother” to "no certain data exists". Would you like to deny that Lucas Watzenrode was Copernicus’ uncle? Or do you just mean that no certain data exists because you don’t like the data which does exist?

Honest mistake. Apologies.


Nice selective biography :)


Some Polish historians recognize German aspects of his life, some German source recognize Polish aspects of his life. So I'd say that yes, no certain data exists.


The fact that one of his uncles was German doesn't make him German. If he had Polish uncles too, that fact doesn't make him Polish either.

His uncle was German (or Prussian anyway) and so was his mother and so were all of his maternal grandparents. Thorn council kept quite good records of their citizens.

You mean that no conclusive proof exists, certain data most definitely exists.

So let's recap: he's known to have had a Prussian mother and grandparents; we are not completely sure where his father was from but know that he chose to live in Prussia; he himself was born in Prussia, chose to live most of his life there despite being able to live in both Krakow and Italy, and died in Prussia; we know he spoke German but there's no evidence he spoke Polish. At best he's an ethnically German Pole!

Yes, if your mother is of certain ethnicity then naturally, at least two of your grandparents are of the same ethnicity.


We know he was a merchant from Cracow, who moved to Prussia. Died when Copernicus was about 10.


That part of Prussia was under Polish crown, so technically he lived within Polish territories.


That is irrelevant


His main language of communication was Latin (was he a Roman?)
Despite his fluency in German, he did defend Olsztyn against Germans. He also did not accept Protestantism, but instead remained loyal to his Catholic superiors and the King of Poland


Or at worst.

Do we? I thought you said that there are no certain facts about his father.

Let's put it this way: if he lived today he would probably not qualify for a Polish passport (doesn't speak the language) but would certainly get a German one.

Copernicus was born in Royal Prussia, i.e. under Polish jurisdiction. Polish citizneship is based on ius sanguinis and ius soli. Therefore he would get a Polish passport.

Martha Stewart and George Burns too.

Barbara Piasecka Johnson (Johnson & Johnson)

Polish citizenship is not in the slightest bit based on jus soli. A child born in Poland to parents who are not Polish has no right to a Polish passport unless it would otherwise be stateless. So even if we agree that Royal Prussia was actually part of Poland (which is a bit of a stretch, would you like to claim that another well-known Prussian, Field Marshall Hinderburg, is also a Pole?), merely being born on Polish soil would not have given Copernicus Polish citizenship.

Would he qualify under jus sanguinis? Probably not. As you have said before, we know little about his father's early years. However we do know that he accepted public office in another country (Royal Prussia) and before 1951 that automatically resulted in loss of Polish nationality. As his father took office before Nic Junior was born, he did not have a Polish father because his father's Polish citizenship had been taken away. What about his mother's line? Well her parents were not Polish: Lucas Watzenrode the Elder was the child of a German trader and his wife was named Katharina von Rüdiger, not the most Polish of names, if they were not the children of Polish citizens (they were not) and they had not naturalised as Polish citizens (they had not), Barbara was not Polish.

Of course, we could agree that Royal Prussia was in fact Poland and because Copernicus lived there he could have applied for a Polish passport as a naturalised citizen. Well, he could if there was any evidence that he spoke Polish. There isn't, and knowledge of Polish is a requirement for naturalising. Oops.

Of course, with a German mother he would have got a German passport without any problem....

@Harry,

well, let's see what his German contemporaries thought about our little topic:


The word "sarmatic" was equivalent to Polish/Polack at the time.

Doesn't seem like Germans were willing to recognize the "Pollock" as one of their own, does it?

source is here: archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/volltexte/2003/3254/pdf/PSDissertation.pdf (Page 117)

pownd! lol

1. The population of Poland is 39 million.

2. The six biggest cities in Poland are Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Wroclaw, Poznan, and Gdansk

3. The highest point in Poland is Rysy in the Tatra Mountains (2,499m)

4. The coldest part of Poland is in the the North-East and the warmest is in the South-west.

5. The most popular name for a dog in Poland is Burek (meaning a brownish-grey colour)!

6. Poland is the the ninth biggest country in Europe and it shares frontiers with seven countries: Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Germany.

7. Poland's capitals have been Gniezno, Poznan, Krakow and Warsaw. Lublin has twice served as Poland's temporary capital, after both the First and Second World Wars.

8. Geographically, Poland is not in the Eastern Europe. It is in the very centre of Europe.

9. In Poland most Poles consider their name day (in Polish: "imieniny") more important than their birthdays. People with the same day celebrate on the same day each year.

10. The national symbol of Poland is the White tailed Eagle.

also poland has a sea coast, mountains, area below sea level, a desert and a lakes region; it also home to the prehistoric horse Tarpan (the pure bread ones are extinct though) and the European Bison.

- Lutheran Church in Swidnica is the largest wooden church in Europe. It can accomodate 7500 persons (3000 of them can be seated)

- St. Mary's Basilica (Kosciol Mariacki) is the largest brick church in the world.

- Kraków's Stare Miasto (Rynek) is the largest medieval town square of any European city

- Poland used the following curency names in its history: denar, grosz, dukat, talar, tynt, szeląg, marka polska (Polish Mark) , złoty.

- According to Polish census of 2002 there were 1215 Polish women over the age of 100.

- Polish astronomer, Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) published the earliest exact maps of the moon.

- The name "Poland" (in Polish "Polska") comes from the name of the tribe "Polanie", who used to inhabit the western part of today's country. It used to mean: people living in open fields.

- now commonly used Polish word "kobieta" (woman) was a pejorative term in the 17th and 18th centuries. Correct words were: białogłowa, pani, niewiasta, dama, dzieweczka, panna, or (humorously) podwika.

- Fortifications around West Point (the Oldest American Military Academy) were designed by Tadeusz Kościuszko.

- Polish King Stefan Batory, never spoke Polish. He communicated in Sejm (Polish Parliament) in Latin.

- The first Constitution in Europe was adopted in Poland on May, 3. 1791 in Warsaw.

^ That list seems to be missing Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, author of Derishat Zion and one of the founders of Zionism. Despite being born in what is now Poland (i.e. Poznan) and spending almost all of his life in what is now Poland (i.e. Torun), he is almost always referred to as a German rabbi. I wonder why that might be....

Perhaps that's because both Poznan (Ger. Posen) and Torun (Ger. Thorn) were technically in Prussia at the time?

So he is German. OK.

But Marie Curie was born in Imperial Russia (Vistulan Country to be exact) and never lived in Poland. So she must be Russian. And Chopin was born in the Duchy of Warsaw, which was part of the French Empire, so he must be French. Or is he Russian because he lived most of his life in Russia?


Wow! A German speaking about somebody he doesn't like and wants to call that person a Pole instead of a German. Who would have thought that was possible! Unfortunately, your translation appears to be at odds with that of other people. Hermann Kesten (Copernicus and His World, NY: 1945, p.309) and Will Durant (The Reformation, vol. 6, The Story of Civilization, 1967, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1957, p. 859) both quote Melanchthon as saying "Prussian".

But instead of just listening to other people's opinions, let's look at the facts:
Name at birth: Niclas Kopernik, not Mikołaj as Poles say, Copernicus never signed his name with an M, always with an N.
Father: Niclas Kopernik, the family name can be traced to the town of Koppernigk near Neisse in Silesia. Birth place not known. Not a Polish citizen at the time of Copernicus' birth.

Mother: German. Like her parents.
Birthplace: Thorun, Prussia.
Name when at Krakow university: Nicolaus Nicolai de Thorunia, not Mikołaj
At Bologna university he joined the German school especially established by the Vatican to educate German clergy, the "Natio Germanorum".
There is no evidence that he spoke Polish, lots of evidence that he spoke German.
In his memorandum on coin reform in Prussia he wrote about Prussia as "Us".
On several occasions he called himself "Prussian".

I'm not seeing a lot of reasons here to call him a Pole.

I'll sum up your argument: Copernicus is Polish because he was born in a place which is historically Prussian but was at the time under Polish jurisdiction at the time of his birth and because his father might have been Polish (because he might have been born in Poland but we don't know for sure where he was born). By that same logical Marie Curie is Russian: she was born in a place which at the time (1867) was under Russian jurisdiction and both her father and mother were also born in what at the time (1832 and 1834) under Russian jurisdiction so they were Russian too.