Poland is and was culturally much closer to its eastern neighbors then its western
Actually, even this statement isn't quite correct, I think... As far as spoken language and ethnicity are concerned we're closer to Slavs in the East than Romance and Germanic nations in the West, North and South or Hungarians and Greeks.
However, we share the same alphabet (Latin) and religion (Catholic) with the West, as opposed to Eastern Slavs whose alphabet (Cyrillic script) and religion (Orthodox Christianity) stem from the Byzantine culture, not the Latin one.
You've heard about the Great Schism?:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Schism
Take a look at Polish architecture, for example. It always embraced Western styles while adding some minor local details. There was no Gothic style in Russia, for example. Russia didn't embrace the dramatic style of Baroque architecture either, because why would it do that? There was no Counter-Reformation there.
Polish church:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kosciol_mariacki_krakow.jpg
Russian church:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moscow_July_2011-4a.jpg
And where would you put the poor Hungarians? ;) They're not Slavic, so...?
No, i meant the political division after WW2.
No that "recent", is it?
And not correct anymore, either. If the Cold War division put Poland in the minds of Westerners in Eastern Europe (or rather outside of Europe, as at the time of joining the EU we were told by the Western media, that we were coming back to EUROPE, as if the EU was Europe lol :)))) then where are we now? Politically we're in the EU. So what does it make us? lol (no that I care, to be honest)