Can a nation totally change its characteristics and national character throughout history?

Hitler was an Austrian!

That's a main fail about nationalist stereotypes, putting it into ever changing borders....as if a community only a few metres left out of current borders can have totally different/even contrary characteristics!

Germany's borders changed so often, the old HRE was so much bigger, only for example....but somehow most of it's then citizens would never be compared to german stereotypes today...just because they don't fit into modern, actual german borders.

That way lays madness!

Then you're doubtless acquainted with that infamous quip
that the Austrians wanted to convince the world that Hitler was a
German and Beethoven was an Austrian! :-)

The Anschluss or Annexation of Austria into the German Reich was
merely Hitler's desperate attempt to incorporate the so-called "Ostmark"
into the singular generic "Volksgemeinschaft" or "German National [read Racially pure..] Community".

Question....what about the many Poles with german heritage??? Or the other way around, Germans with polish heritage....there are so many of them!

German stereotypes or polish stereotypes? Which would you assign them?

Not sure of your question, B.B.
To my mind, Poles of German heritage who were born in Poland and speak exclusively
Polish as their sole mother tongue (including even those raised in a bilingual home)
are Poles, and not Germans!

Germans born in Germany, Austrians born in Austria, for example, but of foreign parentage
are Germans and Austrians, even if their forebearers were Czechs, Poles or what have you.

I know of English people, born in the heart of England, some in London, some elsewhere in the country, but who are completely
English or British in language, spirit, and identity.

I guess there you have your answer....there is no such thing as hereditary characteristics if they can vanish only due place of birth!

I didn't mean individuals but nations as a whole. Of course, individual people will develop based on many particular factors but I still think that there is something like national character in general.

I mean, if you look at history from the perspective not of one generation, but let's say 10 generations... or 20. I think you can definitely see patterns of character and behaviour. For example, one who knows history, could very well predict different ways Poles and Czechs would react to threats and military pressure. Or one could easily see what would be the effect of the Church trying to exert more pressure on the societies of said countries; or deduce from their past the willingness of coming generations to emigrate when economic conditions worsen etc.

I suppose that if you leave Finns in peace for a 100 years, their society will still be pretty much the same after that period, and their characteristics, national traits, virtues and faults in general will be the same. Nations, societies, don't change by themselves - they need to be changed by something (like the neo-marxist LGBT movement); serious pressure needs to be applied in order for them to change and sometimes even that doesn't work - why? Because they have their inborn traits and characteristics.

@Torq
So your thinking about group mentality and "instinct" what a certain amount of people do while grouped together without question and/or without much willingness to contest it and easily subdued by group pressure compared to other things or values that no group pressure would help?

That's what differentiates one group from another Torq!!! This is why we talk about Ukrainians and not Poles! Ukrainians have a more savage streak then Poles! Just as anybody more east of Ukraine too! Why do you think the more east you go people are more willing to have a central authority?! To keep this savagery at bay of course!

Ukrainians want to change and are willing to, as far as shedding blood for it (with many trying to be smart about it and outplay U.S.A, Europe, Poland and Russia at the same time to everyone's dissatisfaction but, that is ALSO part of Ukrainians!)

I just don't get it, you really think everyone around are like Poles? Or even close? Many people mistakenly attribute cultural values as human values (I have seen this among Poles and Norwegians, which I just *facepalm* and shame my head around internally). It seems like you are going through this right now with this thread.

So I am warning you and trying to tell you. Do not expect Germans to be Polish, do not expect Ukrainians to be Polish, do not expect Russians to be Polish.

Expect Russians to be Russians, Ukrainians to be Ukrainians and Germans to be Germans.

You cannot change their core (God can as proven with Polish history) so no use focusing on that.

One can influence the flavour, change a few ingredients. Cake is still cake, bread is bread and oranges are oranges

That's basically my point, Grunni - people can change (but not that much, and it takes time) but nations remain basically the same for a very long time.

Those are myths, at best those are stories told in the 18th and 19th centuries, stories that people of every nation are fed since childhood,

There are certain general characteristics due to historical and economic realities as well as a part of a greater community - civilizations - i.e. a moral code. But that's about it. all the rest are just secondary and not that important.

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Also, what are we talking about here? Who are Poles? What they are?
Nation-building myth has it that Poland is IRP that was reborn like Phenix after partitions. Let's get real here IRP was a country that included today's Lithunuians, Belrusans, Ukrainians, and Poles. So do they have the same national characteristics, are they nations or not?

The thing Poland partitions was a different country and the context of what they were saying, claiming, and acting was such that today we seldom understand it as they understood it at the time.

To sum it up, based on the First Republic emerged a few 'modern' entities or nations including Poles, who took as their own IRP legacy, and a few remaining aristocratic families whose roots and origins not always are Polish as we understand it today.

Irony has it that the Ukrainians or Lithuanians created their nation-building myth in opposition to the Poishness and legacy of the IRP, when in fact modern Polish nation is on par with them in same ways and shouldn't take all the blame or all the praise.

There is a different issue a fair divide of assets and land that is left as the IRP legacy. I say that Poland was robbed after WWII and hasn't got its fair share of what it's own.

WTF are you talking about? Those are some made-up lame excuses for murder. You are an idiot.
Anyway even if you were right about it (which you are not) it doesn't justify genocide.
According to that logic, any population that would feel wronged by any other group or politician has the right to rise and burn them all and their families.

Hey, you just dissolved Hiler and Germany from any guilt or moral fault, those Jews had it coming didn't they, that what Hitler claimed all along all those Jewish bankers screwing over German people - Jews have to pay for it.

Thank you pawian for making it clear you are a totalitarian Nazi supporter in your heart.

Once again, people, history determines collectively observed national characteristics.
One size definitely doesn't fit all.
For instance, had the Poles not suffered the ignominy of being
surrounded on all sides by bullying elitist industrialist neighbors,
they scarcely would have developed the noticeable inferiority complex
of being forever labeled as "stupid", "slow-witted", and "backward".
For instance, the Irish were able to laugh it all off and became known
for their resiliant, often truculent, sense of humor. Once more, their
history determined certain national characteristics.

Germans, Russians as well, were usually the ones doing the bullying and
this too left a mark on their national character, the Germans in particular.

This dualism is amasing, isn`t it?? :):):)


I think that`s what Poles practised in their multiple risings in history. :):):)

I don't think that even they went after all groups of people and their families. Which make all the difference you apologist of genocide.

Ahh, so now you think the Russians were very gentlemanly for quietly taking some several thousand officers into the forest and shooting them?

No women, no children. No nailing people to crosses. Just quiet, methodical killing in a basement. Of a people that you fought 20 years before, and who will almost definitely organize to resist you again if you let them live.

Well, they send them to Siberia or other lovely places in the wilderness to fend for themselves in the middle of the winter. Yeah but still it is a tad better than indiscriminate slaughter. Gentlemanly they are not no lol!

Like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Just trying to add a reference point...For the record, I wish the US had more than just two.

So you're calling for a full NATO invasion of russia to prevent it from invading neighbors in the future.... noted.

I don't see how that would apply? You must have very disorganised mind. If you want to learn something there is one condition to apply before you make a comparison or provide something that supposed to be an analogy in you mind:

- context
Its look easy at it face value but in fact it is a very tricky little bugger and demands a lot of knowledge.

Think we've gotten way, way off the discussion thread!

They evolve constantly. To suggest that the Poles of today have much in common with those of 300 years ago is bizarre. In another 300 years time, if Poles exist as a group, there's no reason why they'd have much in common with those of today.

So you know little about the history of Polish Ukraine.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Ukrainians_in_Eastern_Galicia

The pacification involved the search of private homes as well as buildings in which Ukrainian organizations (including the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church) were based. During the search, the buildings, belongings, and property of Ukrainians were destroyed and the inhabitants were often beaten and arrested. Several Ukrainian schools (in Rohat, Drohobycz, Lwów, Tarnopol and Stanisławów) were closed and the Ukrainian Youth Scout organization Plast was delegalized. On 10 September, five deputies of Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance were arrested.

See how nobly Poles treated Ukrainians before the war. I will soon write about it in Apology thread.

@pawian
You can also add why it happened? ;)
Wasn't it a series of terrorist attacks that finally put an end on tolerant assimilation policies?

Oh no!


Is there no end to Polish lawlessness?


Being beaten and arrested, is a little bit different than to have your skull crushed by a sledgehammer after witnessing your wife and daughter being raped.

That was founded by the ChechSlovakian government of all things, Our friendly neighbor.
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I see how you bring up some lame excuses for murder and racist, xenophobic ethnic cleansing ideology. Good for you!
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lol!

Don't mind Pawian, Bobi. He's a disgusting genocide justifier.

Don't mind Torq, bobi.... he's in denial about how you support russians doing those things in Ukraine.

Exactly!!! Ukrainian terrorists attacked the representatives of the state which occupied Western Ukraine: politicians, police officers, soldiers. etc

But but!!!! Can you also add why it happened???
I will tell you = coz from mid 1920, Poles started the campaign of polonisation in Western Ukraine. The Polish occupiers intended to turn Ukrainians into another nation against their will.

How do you think it ended???? :):):)


That`s what Russians did and still do.


Of course he shouldn`t mind me. Both of you are lame imperialists who hate Ukraine and love/support Russia. In case of Bobko it is understandable. But why is Torq playing such trecherous games is a mystery to me. Is that traitor Polish at all????


Russian boot licker in denial. :):):)

Oh yes!! Bobko, I have just recalled that a few months ago you solemnly declared your boycott of me after I had insulted your stalinist grandpa who "liberated" Poland during WW2.

Why did you decide to go back on your word??? Amasing!! :):):):)

It was a hard decision - I'm not gonna lie.

I have private reasons.

To start with...War with Japan was not necessary since Japan was not planning to invade the US. From PE on, everything the US did was optional. H and N included.