Czech and Polish character in World War two

So you are saying, that one of the main architects of so called Munich agreement, where they sacrificed their ally, got angry and didn't help Poland in 39, because Poland, after the result of Munich were known, decided to pressure the same country basically ruined by them, to give back a small disputed area populated mainly by Polish people ? I'm afraid that's not logical.

Could you perhaps specify which country you are referring to here?

Nauru.

First of all, according to Wikipedia the Olsa Territory was populated by Poles, Czechs and some Germans -- and Poles were not the majority! Since Polish and Czech are West Slavic languages and there is a dialect continuum between Poland and Czechia I guess people there could change nationality easily if necessary. Is Wikipedia wrong about that? Then what are your sources that you claim Poles were the majority in Olsa territory?

The only reason for Great Britain to negotiate with Germany in Munich was not to be forced to go to war. It was not their heartfelt wish to maul the last democartic state in Central Europe (besides Switzerland). And Polands flat-footed behaviour towards Czechoslowakia indeed alienated British politicians and the public opion in a way that they thought "The Poles are not better than the Germans so why should we fight for them!". When WW2 broke out there was a huge anti-war movement in France and their slogan was "Faut-il mourir pour Dantzig? (Do we have to die for Gdansk/Danzig?)". They all claimed for the fact that the Polish state itself relentlessly tried to gain as much territory as possible from her neighbours.

Of course I wasn't alive in 1938 so all I know about the Munich Agreement is from various sources like books, the internet and television documentaries, which all might be biased.

But there are several sources that prove that Hitler shouted with joy when he learned that Poland would support Germany and Hungary in their territorital claims and would make claims herself agains Czechoslowakia, because it was his opinion it would isolate Poland from its Western Allies.

Magda, tell us more about it.

What is there to tell? Polish dad, Czech mum, mixed PL/CZ upbringing in Poland :-)

That is wonderful. You must be a beautiful woman from Polish Czech parents.

Right you are! ;-)

But it also means I'm forever sitting on the fence.

Are you as beautiful as Halina Mlynkova, Czech-born Polish singer?:






Come on, bi-nationalism and bi-culturalism is an asset, not drawback.

No, I look completely different :-) Also, isn't Halina Polish, only born in the Czech Republic?


I agree. But it backfires sometimes, too. E.g. Polish people sometimes attack Czechs or laugh at them or their language around me (not knowing, ofc, that I am half Czech myself). I never know what to do then. Should I "reveal" my ethnicity and make them feel ashamed? Should I let things be? I feel uncomfortable either way. Then I go to Bohemia and experience the same thing, only the other way round. ;-(

Her father is definitely Polish, but her mother - not sure. But - if she was Polish, wouldn't she be Młynkowa?

(unless the Czechs have some funny rules about spelling too...?)

I seem to remember an interview with her back in the day where she explained that the Mlynkova thing was a bit of a marketing ploy (to make her seem more exotic).


The Czech alphabet has no "ł" or "w" that's for sure. So yes, if she were born there, they might have spelt her surname Mlynková. I used to have a similarly formed surname myself :-)

Makes sense, I suppose.


But - they recognise Polish as a minority language, so surely people can keep their real names there?

(I was exploring Cesky Tesin and the surrounding area a few weeks ago. Very, very strange place linguistically...)

I wouldn't know about the Těšín area. I was born in the Czech heartland :-) And there, they would probably insist that their spelling was the real one, just like the Polish authorities who tormented me with various "polonised" versions of my surname when I moved to Poland ;-)

That depends on when the consensus was done. In 1919, the Polish were the majority in the whole entity of the former Duchy of Tscheschen (this not being part of the former Kingdom of Bohemia), and pretty much possibly they were also the majority in the Olsa Territory (Zaolzie, the left bank of the river Olsa). I'm sure that Boletus, if he passes through this thread will be able to provide the statistics, he's very good at finding old ones). Things have changed over time, however, and if in 1945 Poles formed a very significant part of the Zaolzie population (I believe still the majority at that time), their number has been constantly coming dowm until today when they are truly a minority.

People should really learn to laugh at it rather than feel ashamed. Helena Vondrackova and Maryla Rodowicz once performed a song in Sopot singing together the song "Laska nebeska" and both waving a blue stick around. The audience were laughing good-heartedly, and nobody felt ashamed. Until the crash of Poland in 1795, the Masovians were the subject of constant and wide-spread mockery all around the rest of the country because of their dialect whose certain features were judged extremely silly in all other regions (e.g. telling 'ziamia' instead of 'ziemia'), so anti-Slavic language mockery in Poland may not be particularly directed at the Czech language.


Why was it so for you then?

What if the laughter is nasty? I can tell good-natured banter from unpleasant, snide remarks, and the good-natured banter is pretty thin on the ground, believe me... What some Polish people think of as "funny" rarely translates well into Czech. E.g. the ubiquitous lists of supposedly Czech vocabulary that float around the internet (szmaticzku na paticzku, dachowy obsraniec etc). They have nothing to do with the Czech language and everything to do with a very immature and frankly tasteless sense of humour. When Czechs poke fun (in a much gentler way, BTW) at Polish though, the Poles are usually indignant! ;-p

BS
Poland fought the Russians and Ukrainians as early as 1919


Quite a silly comment, yes they did fight in WW1, and i can assure they suffered a lot more than the British, since the eastern front in WW1 was located on Polish territory.

Poles where in in the quiet uncomfortable situation that they had to fight against each other, since they were drafted into the German, Austrian and Russian armies.

The German army tried to put all "German" soldiers of Polish ethnicity to the Western front because they feared a loyality conflict when "German" Poles had to fight "Russian" Poles on the Eastern Front, but this fact was not taken into account always.

I must say I couldn't stop laughing when I read 'szmaticzku na paticzku'. But it was a good-natured laughter (the expression is supposed to means 'parasol', isn't it). It reminded me of another, a Japanese one this time: sam-go-pcham-go, which was intended to mean 'car'.

Magdalena... (asking in a sickly sweet voice) - would you tell me more? :)

There was a claim repeatedly made by certain people that Poland didn't interfere with people's surnames - so it's interesting that they did to you :)

Well, they basically messed with my -ová ending. It either came off altogether, was changed to -ova, or to -owa. This might seem like a small issue, but it did mean my actual surname would not match e.g. school documentation, so I spent a lot of time rectifying things. ;-(