History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

Exactly. The concept of nation states means very little historically. The same for 'blood'. As far as the Enlightenment (and your 'thousands of German Popes') is concerned, Poland wasn't passed by; the cities were as advanced as anywhere else and the countryside every bit as traditional.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

They don't count - they are a handful of nutters and none are German. A couple of Canadians though and a Spanish guy. But congratulations on using Google - the source of inspiration for all trolls.


Well, I've never heard 8 referred to as "the '8' number" but there's also a first time for everything. A bit different from 'hundreds' though, isn't it.

And how does the number of popes a country has produces possibly relate to the Age of Enlightenment?

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

I don't think anyone forgets anything here except perhaps yourself who forgot that there weren't 'hundreds of German Popes' and that the last antipope was in the Fifteenth Century, long before the Enlightenment started by any definition of the Enlightenment.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

And how many hundreds of German anti-popes were there?

Given the number of anti-popes (I can tell you that without googling it), that number of hundreds will test your ability with fractions.

And how on earth does the number of hundreds of German anti-popes relate to the Age of Enlightenment, especially given that the era of anti-popes predates that by a long time?

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]


Hundreds??? How many hundreds of 'German popes' have their been?

Classifieds / Private English Lessons by Experienced Professional Teacher in Poland (Warsaw) [107]

What puzzles me is why she's blowing her own trumpet here. This isn't a place to find students (and if she's so good, whys she advertising - I never had to) and why she thinks she is any better than some of those here who are language trainers; often with stellar qualifications and experience.

Surely a non-native teacher would do better putting a card up in Tesco or on a lamppost.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

I'm frequently offended by some of the craft that people say here about Muslims, Jews or other minorities. Two wrongs don't make a right though.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]


A very pejorative expression. I'm no fan of some of the ways organised religion manifests in society, however it's best to avoid such phrases.

Life / Catholic idol worship in Poland [29]

And very good too. Old traditions die very hard indeed and Poland is an intensely spiritual place. A return to the old gods would be a positive step.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

Why on earth would Poland want what you call 'proper Germanisation for its own sake'? It already has a culture without the Russian things you mention and the Enlightenment in Poland happened very nicely and the effects we see today.

Read up on Ciemnogrod. Although there are those who would positively welcome it, most would doubtless not.

Life / Catholic idol worship in Poland [29]

If you mean the roadside shrines, they're a very long tradition that probably predate Christianity. Rather like the Derbyshire Well Dressings. People like them, and traditions, especially in the countryside die hard. Part of those things that people in villages the world over cherish.

I doubt that what Protestants consider or don't consider enter into it at all.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

Doubtless some were pretty vile - in a challenging environment it's often the psychopaths who rise to the top of the pile and this is the same pretty well everywhere - I'm not sure I'd like to live in rural Sicily even now; however people like the Devil of £ancuch were very much the exception rather than the rule and there were always very cultured people among the elite. Most were somewhere on a continuum between the two extremes.

Even Downton Abbey has been criticised for the way the Family behave positively and decently to their servants and even today at Palm Jumeirah I've seen Arabs and richer Indians treating Filipino serving staff in a way you would not expect to see nowadays in Europe.

It's true that things were primitive in Russia and the rich got away with more however Poland is not Russia. It's also easy to make generalisations without considering variations of time and place - Poland is and was a large and relatively developed society.

Edit.

Looking at your second post of the two, I'd say partly yes, partly no. There has always been a strong liberal tradition in Poland, especially in Warsaw and this goes back centuries, however the society has faced extreme challenges during the Twentieth Century that are barely settling down now and the sink or swim lives that people have had to face has produced some very negative effects. Still, there is culture and decency, even if you yourself may not always notice it.

As Norman Davies wrote, in Poland you can find the absolute best people and the absolute worst people. That's why it's such an interesting place.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

Your first paragraph is close to the truth if a little negative since there was always something to base the construct on, your second would apply to just about every developed society and your third is a picturesque but highly exaggerated analogy - like a Kossak painting without the rosy cheeked girl.

Remember that a


wasnt necessarily much better off that those he would look down on. Much the same in Russia at that time.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

Yes, but remember how the back end of the Enlghtenment coincided with the partitions in Poalnd. This strengthened the national identity among the educated which led to very strong nation building when they got independence back. That sense of national identity (and conscious cohesion) is something we still see today and isn't going away anytime soon.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

Whatever their region was.

Remember people had very little concept of what was going on outside their immediate sphere and many had never been to their nearest town let alone further. News travelled slowly even for the rich and educated. For the peasantry major changes outside their region barely touched them.

History / Frederick the Great governments from Poland's perspective [24]

He actually abolished serfdom to weaken the strength of the Polish upper-classes and was no friend of the country for a whole lot of reasons. And yes, his Germanisation did partly succeed.

An absolute tyrant in some ways (Carlyle, also no lover of the First Polish Republic, thought him the epitome of the Great Man theory), but yes, he did achieve a lot and paved the way for some very positive things in Poland.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

Some are very European, and the Russian Aristocracy always had the Gedymin strain from Lithuania as well as the eastern strain. In fact the best families always had both (and when talking about the Enlightenment we are after all talking about those who could afford to patronise the arts). Although the Enlightenment came later to Russia, they were still westward-looking, their Empress was German and there was considerable migration from Poland and Germany.

In Poland however, they wee much more westward looking. Increased trade (some of it to/from Russia) passed through Poland and there were strong links with the UK, France and the Netherlands. There were also Polish figures like Kosciuszko and others who took part in the revolutionary spirit of the age. Freemasonry, very fashionable then, was particularly popular among the better educated in Warsaw and there was a great flowering of architecture and art.

The social structure in Poland with the szlachty (gentlefolk) making up between 12 and 18% of the population. Though some of them were coarse, it does mean that there was a class of people who valued learning.

The peasantry of course were poor, illiterate, religious, didn't travel and didn't necessarily consider themselves Polish, identifying more with their region - this was normal for those times.

Life / Polish Belly-Roll? Some males in Poland rolling up their shirts. [6]

Probably your visit coincided with the annual conference of the Polish belly-rollers association.

Seriously, I haven't seen this, however Poland is the land of the bigos belly so perhaps they were just cooling their gut in the heatwave.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

There was also quite a lot going on in Kraków a couple of centuries before. There was the Reformation, before in Poland it was cursed with becoming the counter reformation and there was Dr Dee plus other distinguished visitors. The Enlightenment did however become very significant in Warsaw with Russia opening up and Warsaw being on the route. Both Casanova and Cagliostro spent a lot of time there as I think did a young (wasn't he always young) Comte de St. German.

Also musicians like Elsner, writers like ETA Hoffman as well as great cultural influences from France.

History / Age of Enlightenment in Poland? [80]

There was a lot of culture and deep thought in Europe, especially in the richer and more populated parts, long before the enlightenment however in Poland, that's when it mostly started. There was a great flowering of learning and liberal thought in the late Eighteenth Century.

Just look at Lazienki Palace in Warsaw, the plays of Fredro, the National Education Commission, Cardinal Podolski et al.

Classifieds / Private English Lessons by Experienced Professional Teacher in Poland (Warsaw) [107]

Vincent, there's an interesting phenomena much discussed by linguists but no consensus yet. Noam Chomsky argues about it a lot. That is that someone can learn a language from a teacher with really ingrained errors without picking up those same errors.

Nobody knows why, but certainly something to do with natural language acquisition.

Travel / My First Visit To Poland, Warsaw. Invited There As Part Of Photography Programme. [5]

Yes, that's a lot in Indian terms. You'd also need a letter from them for the visit visa. I'll have a look at the site (hard now, I'm in a fairly unusual (but very photogenic) place overlooking Palm Jumeirah from the top floor!) later and give my opinion, but looking at the website address it does sound genuine.

$300 isn't a lot for Poland but it is doable and worth it if you can.

Edit. I had a quick look (and like your photo). I think it's genuine. Vistula University is real, though a private one, and the competition is genuine. I suspect they didn't expect entrants from so far away.

I think your first step should be to print off the emails you got from them and contact the Polish consulate in New Delhi to see about a visa. Email the consul in person if you can find the address. And if they're sympathetic, then you should go for it if you can.

Classifieds / Private English Lessons by Experienced Professional Teacher in Poland (Warsaw) [107]

There are many, plus bad ones too. I think I'd always prefer language lessons from a native unless I was lucky enough to find an excellent non-native. There are however some great teachers who aren't native speakers. Not many, but some.

It's all about how good a teacher is at getting someone to learn.

Travel / My First Visit To Poland, Warsaw. Invited There As Part Of Photography Programme. [5]

It's very worth looking into further - how did you hear about the competition? Flights to Poland etc on low-cost airlines like Wizzair are very cheap, however if you're middle class, $300 (which $?) should be small change - what country are you from?

The competition (can't easily copy your link, I'm on an iPad) is probably genuine, however $300 isn't much much for a stay in Poland - do they offer any bursary or is it just a free place on this thing?

News / Poland's PIS go back to their old ways [194]


'Flaky libertine loons', Pol3? What are you on? If that's the best you can manage, Poland's rural far-right will have to try very hard indeed.

It looks very much like they'll survive rather well. We'll have to watch by the way PSL. As ever, they could be the deciding factor.

News / Poland's PIS go back to their old ways [194]

What a load of old nonsense. If there's any consolation, the PiSuarz electoral demographic is dying off and even if they get in this time, it's likely to be like their last brief and disastrous truncated term of office - mercifully short.

News / Poland's PIS go back to their old ways [194]


Why would a non-executive president have a 'plan'? The government have an electoral programme, and this has been a great success.

Classifieds / Private English Lessons by Experienced Professional Teacher in Poland (Warsaw) [107]

I've known some absolutely excellent non-native teachers. Oddly enough it isn't even their ability to speak English that's the key; it's their ability to teach.

They are however the exception rather than the rule.

News / Poland's PIS go back to their old ways [194]

In what way does Adam Michnik, one of Poland's most respected figures try to "hush up" anything? Especially since the issues you pretend he tried to "hush up" are very well known, in the public domain, and do not reflect badly on him in any way. If anything they reflect well on him as a former jailed dissident.

Whereas Duda, a man who has already broken election promises deserves further scrutiny.

By the way, if you really favour


why are you so hostile to a political tendency that has the support of millions? And why would you support Duda and the other PiS flappers since they are the most aggressive, regressive and argumentative political grouping ever to emerge in post-1989 Poland? In what way do you think there's anything even slightly


about Jaroslaw Kaczynski etc?

UK, Ireland / Polish striking due to anti-Polish UK feeling [58]

And less likely to claim benefits in the UK than someone born there. The recent Polish migration, like immigration in general, has brought economic benefits.