Chris R
18 Jul 2012
History / Poland and Polish Anti-Semitism, c. 1918-1939 [148]
More Ipse dixit from Harry...
According to an earlier version of The Language and Travel Guide to Ukraine, by Linda Hodges and George Chum which I read, before the war Lwow was roughly 40% Polish, 30% Ukrainian, and 30% Jewish. See the book for more specific numbers:
Maybe this is another book that Harry needs to read!
The difference between the two sources may be that historically Ukrainians needed to be Orthodox, so those speaking a dialect of the Ukrainian language but attending a Catholic Church were placed in another category, i.e., Ruthenian or Polish. While not advertised in modern Ukraine where the Cossack rebellion is praised, the Cossacks rebelled against the Poles and refused to accept seats in the Sejm because the Polish king refused to abolish the Catholic churches in Ukraine. Religious tolerance was the law in the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Of course, no one would know that Ukies were a minority there before the war if they had visited the History of Lwow Museum, which has very little actual history of Lwow, and is filled with Ukrainian Nationalist Propaganda. No one would understand this from visiting the Lwow Opera House, which was designed by the Polish architect Zygmunt Gorgolewsk and built 1897-1900 during the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph. The "restored" Opera House is filled with statues of Ukrainian cultural figures and Cyrillic lettering which was clearly not original. Nor is there a statute, bust or portrait of the Emperor, which surely must have been present in the original building. The "Ukrainian architecture" of the Opera House and other famous buildings remains a point of controversy for Polish tourists visiting a city which had been Polish for 600 years.
Utter bollocks. Jews accounted for a third of the population of Warsaw. For the same proportion in Lodz. For 42% of the population in Lwow. 45% in Wilno. Yes, some Jews did live in closed, tightly knit, isolated communities but the majority did not: more than three quarters of Jews lived in cities and towns.
More Ipse dixit from Harry...
According to the Statistical Yearbook of 1931 the percentage of nationalities in the population of Lwow in 1930 was as follows: 67% Poles, Jews 22%, Ukrainians 9%, Germany 2% [Ed. This more likely ethnic Austrians from the Galician period
According to an earlier version of The Language and Travel Guide to Ukraine, by Linda Hodges and George Chum which I read, before the war Lwow was roughly 40% Polish, 30% Ukrainian, and 30% Jewish. See the book for more specific numbers:
Maybe this is another book that Harry needs to read!
The difference between the two sources may be that historically Ukrainians needed to be Orthodox, so those speaking a dialect of the Ukrainian language but attending a Catholic Church were placed in another category, i.e., Ruthenian or Polish. While not advertised in modern Ukraine where the Cossack rebellion is praised, the Cossacks rebelled against the Poles and refused to accept seats in the Sejm because the Polish king refused to abolish the Catholic churches in Ukraine. Religious tolerance was the law in the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Of course, no one would know that Ukies were a minority there before the war if they had visited the History of Lwow Museum, which has very little actual history of Lwow, and is filled with Ukrainian Nationalist Propaganda. No one would understand this from visiting the Lwow Opera House, which was designed by the Polish architect Zygmunt Gorgolewsk and built 1897-1900 during the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph. The "restored" Opera House is filled with statues of Ukrainian cultural figures and Cyrillic lettering which was clearly not original. Nor is there a statute, bust or portrait of the Emperor, which surely must have been present in the original building. The "Ukrainian architecture" of the Opera House and other famous buildings remains a point of controversy for Polish tourists visiting a city which had been Polish for 600 years.