Life in Partitioned Poland (Specifically in the Prussian Partition)

Silesia is still there, the people aren't anymore...

There is a very good book on that. Its title is "Czarna legenda Polski" ("Black legend of Poland") and it describes how the Prussian Partition of Poland and the Polish there were seen by the Prussian administration and Prussian people immediately after the Prussian Kingdom moved into these lands. It also shows how the Polish people saw the occupant or in fact their new state. It uses extensively the Prussian official statistics of the time and the memoirs of the people of both nations and other nations of this epoch. It was published in Poznań in the 1990s and has a summary in German and English. The book is fascinating, scientific and fair to the point of view of both sides.

Remember that the borders of 1772-1795 had not survived until the Duchy of Warsaw was called into existence by Napoleon in 1807, and it is the period of up until that year that the book deals with. I think this book is something you are looking for.

Good question.

After WWII, many Germanized Poles in Silesia and elsewhere found themselves in a sort of no-man's land.

From Wikipedia:


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_from_Pola nd_during_and_after_World_War_II#.22Autochthones.22

That sounds interesting, do you have a link?

And it's not as pretty as you portray it, BB.


Poland could get a chance to develop in whatever direction on it's own if it was independent. And it was our business whether we would have a middle class or not. Independence isn't something that one gives up for a middle class o_O


So what? LOL
They didn't have any choice.


Germanization was stopping them.


Are you that naive? If your country disappears from the map, you're taught in German at school, you're thaught German history from the German point of view, you have to speak in German to your classmates, pray in German at religion classes, deal in offices in German... In a second or third generation - how much there's left of your "Polishness"?


Not really, in many countries there are more then one official language.


I'm not like that. I'm giving you facts only. And it seems you can't face those facts.
You must understand that Poles won't view Prussia as you do. It was opressive as it was occupying Poland. If Turkey would occupy Germany you would have the same feelings about Turkey. It's natural.


"Wasn't perfect"... "integrating such a hostile minority "... LOL
I think I'm starting to hate you...


No, that's a really f*cked up demagogy.


I make of it that Germans sowed Hitler. Poland was partitioned for so many years, and it didn't sow Hiler-like monster. Oh no, sweetie, you won't blame Poles for German sins.

Well...for it's time it was very pretty! :)


Nothing worse than the Poles did.


It still is only about language. You can still speak polish at home, write polish books and read them etc.


Not in many actually...


Propaganda makes sure of it. But why can't you accept the proof I brought? Even your Norman Davies paints a quite fair image of Prussian Poland.

How fits growing polish wealth and influence in your image of an opressive Prussia?


Oh boy....you said yourself earlier that you are a halfwit when it comes to history...admitting not knowing much or reading much even as I point you to literature and other links where you could learn more.

When you don't want your prejudices and half knowledge destroyed please refrain from taking part in historical discussions in the first place!

Bye

It's not about facts or links, BB. It's about your attitude.


I'm not prejudiced. I don't hate or even dislike Germans or Germany.
I'm starting to dislike you because of your attitude which is very similar to the attitude of Russian nationalists and stalinists.

I'll answer the rest of your post a bit later.

If we cahnge the german to polish and the Polishness to Silesianess.

We have what?

Right. Were it not for Poland, you'd be speaking Russian fluently now, and you'd be much better versed in Marxism than you might consider it healthy these days. The 1920 war prevented the Red Army from taking over Germany, with German working classes eagerly awaiting the liberation from the blood-sucking bourgeoisie.

Imagine it happened.

Russia was amidst a bloody civil war...I reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreal lly doubt they would had been able to take Germany over....

And IF somehow Soviet Russia had taken over both Poland and Germany it would had surely compelled our both people to ally and to fight them.....imagine that! :)

No, it didn't need it. Somebody already mentioned £ódź. The Russian part of the partitions was the most economically developed part of the whole Russia.. Poles did it by themselves. With a lil' bit of help from their Jewish friends.

For a middle class it surely needs urbanization. And urbanization needs industrialisation..
A middle class developes with modernization, something Berlin supported and developed in polish Prussia!

That was one of the main reasons for the silesian uprisings as orchestrated by Warsaw btw. They wanted the highly (prussian) industrialized silesian region all for themselves, forcing the League of Nations to give it to them, regardless of the ethnic make up of the region.

Pierogis. A good thing, actually...

Are you that naive? If your country disappears from the map, you're taught in Polish at school, you're thaught Polish history from the Polish point of view, you have to speak in Polish to your classmates, pray in Polish at religion classes, deal in offices in Polish... In a second or third generation - how much there's left of your "Silesianess"?

I told you, there isn't.
Silesia is still on the maps, but the german Silesians were ethnical cleansed or emigrated later and the population had been exchanged with those from eastern Poland which became Russia/Ukraine.

Can't be made undone anymore...

Russia was advancing West, with amazing speed, thanks to Tuchaczewski. Germany suffered small local commie revolutions, just waiting to join forces with the Fatherland of the Working Class. Germany, as such, was a rather destroyed country, wasn't it. Like, look how easily the Poles took over in Poznań (Posen), the first successful Polish insurrection.

Poles would not defend Germany for the sweet memories of the Prussian hospitality during the partitions, would they...


Like in £ódź, innit. Somehow Prussians were not involved.


And Poles are organically incapable of spontaneously modernising, nor even of voluntarily adopting modernisation, is what you're saying?


There was no Warsaw then to orchestrate the uprisings, all went East. Polish Silesians were completely on their own, and felt bitter about it. And the ethnic make up - you know that, BB, the reason for the 3rd uprising was the unjust result of the plebiscite. Masurians didn't make it, Silesians did.

Poland was not a result of the Treaty. Were it not for the Legions, and the 1920, and the will just to have it, there would be no Poland. We took it, we kept it. And we took only the lands that were Polish before the partitions, and not even quite all of them, to be precise.

But there are still some left. They missed a few. I have seen they singing on U Tube. And in the News.

Yeah...I wonder about that too! :)

And there are some in Germany, longing. Could be done, provided it is like recreating (part of) the past traditions of the land, and not stomping on people who didn't really choose for their grandparents to move from the other side of the country.

Not for Poles at that time.



That's no excuse.


But you have to know Polish language to do this! And you have to have a reason to learn it. If you're surrounded everywhere by German, after a while Polish becomes a foreign language. Add to this learning German history from German point of view, etc. and Poles are brainwashed into Germans.

Besides, why would Poles be satisfied with speaking Polish language only at home if they had their own country before and back then they could educate their children in their own language?


Well, it's more than one, it's nothing that exotic, really.


In your case also, judging by your attitude :S


It fits, I was taught how each partition looked like at school - what was the level of development, how it changed, which one was richer and better off, what was the legislation, etc., etc., etc. I'm not denying that Prussian partition was more developed than the rest. We are taught this at school! After all Germans thought of those lands as their own at that time, so why wouldn't they develop them?


Not enough :)


And it probably would be the same with Poland - it couldn't be undone if Poland would remain a part of Germany, Russia, Austria for longer.


Silesia was never a seperate state, although it had an autonomy more than once in history. The same thing is happening to them as to Karels in Russia or Finland... unfortunately... most of them just blend into Poles...

Silesians have their language, books for teaching Silesian, their radio, I think (?), so maybe there's some hope they won't disappear entirely...

They are not only in Germany. There are Silesian's around the the world watching. You can not just wipe a place off the map and hope everyone forgets it was there.

This book sounds perfect. If you have any more information on where I might be able to obtain a copy then that would be much appreciated. Also, do you know who the author is? It's frustrating that I seem to always run out of sources in English. All of the best books are (unsurprisingly) written in Polish. I'd gladly learn Polish, but it may take me a bit of time! Anyway, the summary in English sounds really good. This is a bit off topic, but as a general comment I would like to see more English translations of Polish texts, especially the classics of Polish literature. It's very hard to get hold of any translations, let alone decent ones.

Also, thanks for reminding me about the impact of the Duchy of Warsaw, I was overlooking that rather large and important detail.

Who knows what they would do had they found themselves under russian occupation with only the Germans left fighting....;)


I have no idea about Lodz but somehow I doubt it had been at the same standards as Prussian towns.


Well...I was only saying that instead of treating Poles and the partition like a colonial subject to exploit and opress Berlin pumped much money, energy and material into it. (Abit like today come to think of it)

:)


The Silesian uprisings were definitely orchestrated by Warsaw, that is no news anymore!


"Unjust result", says it all, doesn't it....Warsaw just didn't want to accept the fact of the german majority at all.


It needed WWI and the Treaty of Versailles, nothing else.

My point is, Germans were not fighting any more. Not as a country. As mobs, they were fighting for the Bright Future. Germany had some problem with quelling those rebellions. So much so that the Western material help for the fighting Poland was successfully held up in German ports.


Possibly not, I don't know. But it was done with a handicap, by Poles, and almost against the then present 'tradition of development'.


Now you are not suggesting that Germans pumped money in developing the Polish middle class... or are you? :) The oppression thing is about, you, know, the soul, and heart, and being who your grandpas were...


Here I'd appreciate some sources, honest.


A bit more, though. I don't think Trocki cared much for the Treaty. And I don't think anybody in the West would care to force the Treaty on him.

It wasn't a land far far away with "brown people" running around. So Germans tried to change those lands into Germany and Poles into Germans.


Geez, no matter what it needed, Poland had and has a right to exist, don't you think?

If Poland has a right to exist. I think Silesia should have a right to exist. The way it is now I need to draw on a map in pen to show younger people where there family was from.

"The" Germans surely not...There were the red chaots, there was the Freikorps and then there still was the Reichswehr.


With modernization comes the middle class...and that was helped by Prussia!


Nope...the outcome of WWI and this treaty made it sure, then there had been the allies supporting the new Poland against any german claims in every way.

PS: Do you know about this guy? One of the organizers of the uprisings


A polish nationalist activist member of the german parliament instead of in a gulag!

Prussian opression my arse!!!

Aah, I know your kind. You'd want Staff, and Miłosz, and what else. Polish TV, right? Streets with Polish names, right? Like 'Grunwaldzka', right? Despicable you.

Thanks to everybody for their posts so far. It's a fascinating response which will take me a while to fully digest. Please keep all your views coming.

I think it's very easy to get sucked into wider debates on Poland's history. I'd like to avoid this if possible, and try and keep things centred on the partitions. As much as possible, I want to try and think about what those original generations felt about changes to the Polish state and its eventual collapse. I'm sure that the Poles would have had certain pre-conceived opinions of Prussians, and the Prussians would have had certain pre-conceived ideas of Poles, but those opinions are likely to be very different to the kinds of opinions we hold today. I also think you have to try and forget about both World Wars for a second. These are huge events that can colour our perception of the history behind them to the detriment of our understanding. Also, we need to be careful to think of history as regional. People didn't necessarily understand the global implications of what was happening to them (they had much cruder, slower forms of communication). I'm sure a lot of what they reacted to was based on rumour and conjecture, and on what was happening in the next town, next village, next farm (like the scenes in Pan Tadeusz where the village is full of rumours about the whereabouts of Napoleon's army etc.).

It's difficult to know how people felt, but I'm sure I would have been very frightened and anxious if I was suddenly left in a land that was no longer my own. I'd be very angry and confused if I was suddenly forced to speak a language that I didn't recognise in order to achieve basic everyday things I'd always taken for granted. Whatever benefits the Polish people derived from being subsumed into the Prussian state (and there probably were some benefits), I'm sure there were vast numbers of people who would have rather lived a life that was self-determined.

Anyway, keep it all coming. Sorry I can't reply to you all individually. I have to go to bed!

With all due respect... it took Poles to stop Tuchaczewski :) Germany didn't have that thing, face it.


I am from Silesia, man...


Right. I said, Germany had an ego, Russia was Asiatic barbarism. Still, he had to fight, didn't he? To fight against 'something', and this something was quite tangible, if it needed fighting, with weapons, wasn't it? And people died fighting, wonder why, if they were so happy.