GERMANS WANT TO GERMANIZE KOPERNIK (COPERNICUS)! OUTRAGE!

The Holy Roman Empire had 14 universities around 1500, among them Prague, Vienna, Cologne, Leipzig and Heidelberg. Names that immediately come to mind are Gutenberg, Luther, Agricola, Behaim, Dürer or Holbein.

This conversation reminds me recent talk about Malaysian plane shot down over Ukraine. People in radio were saying that it won't be possible to say weather Russians, Ukrainians or Rebels did it. It's so because it's not very obvious who is one of them. There are Ukrainian soldiers who deserted and became rebels, there are Russians with Ukrainian double citizenship. Even if some Russian admitted that he did it, Russia could say that he's not their citizen...

Kopernik's mother was purely German, he himself looked German, and his father also had German ancestry, they all spoke German as well.

You cannot deny superiority.

i checked in Wikipedia in Serbian, in both Cyrillic and Latin. It nicely says that he was Polish. He even looks Polish to me. To say- Slavic.


Slavic?

Copernicus was German, not Polish. He spoke Latin and German fluently. There is no hard evidence he could speak Polish fluently.

Mikołaj Kopernik is considered Polish by many people. He was a citizen of Toruń - city which was a part of Kingdom of Poland. This is what mattered back then. This debate goes on and on between Polish and German scientists. We won't solve it here. For Polish people he was Polish.

Moreover, I heard that he was a polyglot, he could have spoken fluently not only German and Latin as you said. It is very possible that he spoke Polish too.

Kopernigk aka Copernick aka Kopernikuś was a POLE, as Fate would have it, born in Thorn which was/is actually still Toruń untill renamed by the Germans, but in Poland, not Germany!

Still too much doubt to call it one way or another.

What kind of doubt is it?

There is no doubt. Kopernik was of Polish ethnic origin. Born Polish. He never denied that. So, telling that he wasn`t Polish, in my opinion, represent insult on the first place to Kopernik himself. What does it matter if he was exposed to some other influences than it was just Polish? That situation is considered something normal, even in our time. Tomorrow, people may travel in space, all over the solar system, or farther. Still, even those future people would be able to be aware of their ethnicity and origin. Only if one denies his ethnicity, others may decide to respect his decision. What i know for Kopernik, he never denied his Polish ethnicity. That`s it. He was Polish.

He never denied being Albanian, does that make him Albanian?

Mikołaj Kopernik. Neither his name, neither his surname was Albanian. He was Polish.

As for Albanians, their ethnic name isn't `Albanian`. They call themselves Shiftari. Still, in last 150 years some western European powers insist that Shiftari start to call itself Albanians. Go figure that.

he had never been to Albania nor he had any Albanian ancessors so your example with "Albamia" is completely out of context

Care to show us an example of him using that name for himself? Good luck with that: in no available document at all does he ever use either the name 'Mikołaj' or 'Kopernik'.

So there are precisely as many documents in which he refers to himself as 'Mikołaj' as there are in which he refers to himself as 'Nikollë'.

One does have to wonder why, if he thought he was Polish, he appears to have always used forms of his name other than the Polish form.

Is that so?

Well, speaking in general, when exposed to interest circles from the west of Europe or north of America, Slavs are under certain pressure. If they want to exist and work they sometimes must be ready for compromises. Compromises are healthy. We all making compromises every day. Take for example yourself Harry. You made your compromise but, you are still on Polishforums. Now, only God knows what is in your head.

Crow, you seem to be a guy with knowledge. I like your posts. I would like to tell you that there's no point in talking with Harry. I have been told a few times already on this forum not to get into conversations with him too.

If crow has so much knowledge, perhaps he can refer us to a document in which Nicolas Copernicus refers to himself by either the name 'Mikołaj' or 'Kopernik'? Or even says that he's Polish?

Feel free to carry on discussing the messenger when you can't argue with the accuracy of the message.

Evidently nationality (which didn't exist then as it does now) was so unimportant for him that he didn't bother to write about it.

Exactly, he was a loyal subject of the Polish king, and he was of Germanic stock. Nations didn't exist back then, first in the 18th century the idea of a nation crystallizes.

And just to remind all the chicken-brained, froth at the mouth, nationalists and so-called patriots on this forum; nationalism is --- taking pride in sh!t you haven't done and hating people you've never met.

good morning

We all know that nations didn't exist. As you said, he was a subject of the Polish king. This is what mattered back then. Therefore, he was Polish in this context. Seriously, we won't solve it here. Even historians can't do it Let's drop it.


Another troll. Have a good day.

Exactly. Too complicated however if both countries want to put him on postage stamps, why not? A huge shared history in that region anyway.


Spot on. Such things are just an irrelevance and anyway the world is getting smaller day by day - life is too valuble to hate peole :-)

Claiming that Copernicus was Polish because he was a subject of the king of Poland and might have had a Polish parent is like claiming that Keanu Reeves is British because he's a subject of Queen Elizabeth II and has a British parent. Although in Reeves' case we know that he has a British parent, we aren't just guessing.

Oh, and as far as I'm aware, Reeves has never denied being British and so, using the Crow nationality test™, he must be British.


But what do they have to take pride in which they have done themselves?

Name Mikolaj is nice archaic Slaveno-Polish name. His Polish parents loved Mikolaj very much when they gave him such a name.

Seen the birth certificate have you?

The answer is, to the Germans he's German, to the Poles he's Polish. It's really quite simpleLOL

Fact remains, the Poles claim for example Chopin as a Pole, while the French (because of his birth father Nicolas!) are more than willing to concede that he's French:-)

Actually, both Chopin's parents were French (his mother stopped being Polish when she married). And he chose to live the majority of his adult life as a Frenchman.

As for 'Mikolaj', there's as much proof that Copernicus ever used that name as there is proof he went by the name 'Susan', but of course, crow, you can call him Susan if it makes you happy.

Yes, Chopin's heart and love of France was so great that he wrote many mazurkas and polonaises in France's honor, oh wait...........

As to Copernicus; that point has been made in these forums years ago. Newcomers should read the old threads.........especially mine :)

@Harry,

You never "stop being" any particular nationality/ethnicity/religion into which you were born and raised! That's just plain silly. Does a horse cease to be a horse if only because it happened to be conceived in a chicken coop? Because somebody marries into someone else's culture doesn't really mean they forfeit their own. Chopin's mother obviously wished to please Chopin's father (her husband) and so became a French citizen, that's all. Deep down though, she was a Pole "z krwi i kości"!! A Catholic who converts to Judaism still remains a Catholic, as well as vice-versa:-)

@Zimmy,

Indeed Chopin glorified Polish national music, put her on the map, he did. Yet, he shared two different heritages, was BORN however in Poland (in Zelazowa Wola, to be exact), not in France. Herein lies the difference!

Exatly Lyzko, I was born in Poland, speak the language perfekcyjnie and I know rthe history etc.. yet Iv been living in the UK for 8 years now, but still I am not English but Polish and the same applies to Chopin or Copernmicu these figures were Polish since they were born in Poland and their "souls" or "hearts" were Polish and let no "foreigner" tell you differently... Once a Pole always a Pole!

Tak jest, goofy! Spot on, matey:-)

Yet a gentle exception might be made for Joseph Conrad. A trained seaman, he was born in and lived in Poland until his twenties, at which time he acquired the English language. Despite the fact that he spoke English like a Pole and not a Brit, he WROTE English with such stylistic conviction, most English aka Anglophones out there think he's English, when in fact he wasn't!