Kashubians are nation in Poland?

Nations are very new...our ancestors roamed Europe freely, no need for borders. THAT is the old european way, not nation states!
Most of the problems/wars/all around b*itching and hate stem from borders...just read around PF...it's often all about borders...


I never said it will happen overnight...it will take generations, I agree.

Nations in one form or another existed for as long as recorded history, before that there were tribes.


That was when we owned goats, wives and not much more, right now we own a lot, we've got a civilization all the way back to ancient Rome thats about control, domination and ownership, thats not going to go away now or soon, personally i believe that EU as an idea will be dropped soon for decades, maybe even a century and picked up by a different generation with much more success.

Of course, but I mean nation states as we know them and are used to.


Why dropping in the first place and not changing now what's wrong?

Doesnt matter, nation states are just a form of distiction and division, before them their existed another one, the less property the less division, we cant live in some hippy communist state of course so it will take a mental evolution of sorts, that requires current system to collapse into crisis though.


We are not going to drop it, the first major crisis will drop it, EU is an alliance that can work only in optimal conditions.

Kashubians a nation in Poland?
Well... We have got our own language, our own culture, our own borders... So under those points of view we are a nation. I have nothing against Poles, but how can the majority claim that we Kashubs are Poles? Just because the language is quiet similar? Are then Czechs and Slovaks also Poles? Definitive not. I hope that one day all Kashubs wake up and find their real Kashubian identity. Since their teaching Kashubian in our schools and many Kashubs are interested in their Kashubian Ancestry signs aren't even that bad...

Mòrsczi Púrtk

P.S.:
eurominority.eu/version/eng/minority-map.asp
On this site we are considered as a (stateless) nation. There are a few mistakes on this site, like the second "ë" in "Kaszëbë" is missing and the map is a bit wrong, but I really like the idea.

Really? I've never met a Kashubian border guard in my life and I've travelled
through the region on countless occasions for over 20 years now.


Yeah - just like Górale, Mazurzy, Kurpie, £emkowie, Warmiacy, £owiczanie etc. etc.
Are they not Poles either?


Wake up and do what? I think Kaszubi are very much aware of their identity, just
like Mazowszanie or Krakowiacy - there's nothing wrong with their identity.


Well, I don't. It wouldn't serve Europe well if we were to have hundreds of tiny
statelets of every historical region in our continent. There's no coming back to
Middle Ages, sorry diabełku morski - wliź se na blize i zliź ale nie bredź jak potłuczony.

Although I agree with you, that statement is a double-edged sword in my eyes. Would you deny a people whose country is occupied the right to fight for its freedom and independence? Remember how Poland regained its independence? The Basques would definitely disagree with us for example.

Of course not. However, Kaszuby is not a country. It never was (and Kaszubi
are not a separate nation - just like Kurpie aren't).


Poland was a country for well over eight centuries before it lost it's independence
and Poles were persecuted, killed or send to Siberian exile, Polish language was
forbidden etc. etc. This is not the case with Kaszubi, who have their own language
(OK - let's call it a language :-)) that is taught in schools and nobody persecutes
them in any way in Poland (which, of course, wouldn't make sense as they are Poles).


I admit that I know too little about the Basques issue to discuss it.

Of course not.
But the future of the EU lies in the regions, and there is surely place for a kashubian region too! :)

Sure thing - they already have their language recognised officialy in areas with
significant Kashubian minority, their own organisations, pritning houses etc. etc.
All the Kashubs in Poland live in the borders of Pomorskie Vojvodship in which they
form a big 26% minority (600 thousand out of 2.25 million people living in the vojvodship).

Still, they are no more a separate "nation" than Górale, Mazurzy, Warmiacy or Kurpie.

Maybe because you are.


That's one reason; there are many more.


Speaking only for myself, I've always considered them 'Polish-light'. You know, like the difference between regular and skim milk?


You've been reading too many Che Guevara books.


C'm here and sit down and have a piwo on me, have two. Tell us about your failure to adjust to the other kids at school.

Torq

“Really? I've never met a Kashubian border guard in my life and I've travelled
through the region on countless occasions for over 20 years now.”

Border was maybe the wrong word, but I hope that you could imagin what I was talking about.

“Yeah - just like Górale, Mazurzy, Kurpie, £emkowie, Warmiacy, £owiczanie etc. etc.
Are they not Poles either?”

If they have their own languages and allways kept their traditions of course they are not.

“I think Kaszubi are very much aware of their identity, just
like Mazowszanie or Krakowiacy - there's nothing wrong with their identity.”

If you really think so you should take you time for an other 20 years of travelling through Kashubia and ask Kashubian people if they know a few things about the Kashubian culture and how they would categorize theirself. You’ll see quickly how much they are “aware of their identity”.

“Well, I don't. It wouldn't serve Europe well if we were to have hundreds of tiny
statelets of every historical region in our continent.”

Of course it wouldn’t serve Europe, but all those small states are the “real face” of it.

“wliź se na blize i zliź ale nie bredź jak potłuczony.”

Very impressiv, Torq. How much time did you needed to write it? Did you even wrote it by your own?

ZIMMY

“Speaking only for myself, I've always considered them 'Polish-light'. You know, like the difference between regular and skim milk?”

Ah, I see. So Dutchmen, Englishmen etc. are in your opinion 'German-light', right? I know a few Dutchmen and they wouldn’t like that, ZIMMY. Czechs also … especially Czechs!

“C'm here and sit down and have a piwo on me, have two. Tell us about your failure to adjust to the other kids at school.“

Hmm, there was no failure at school… Do you talk maybe from your own experience right now?

Mòrsczi Púrtk

You're right BB, as they were in... 1772.

Bratwurst Boy:
The problem is that they have started to murder Poles there...
They wouldn't if the borders had stayed as they were!

Since this latest round of geographic musical chairs was started by Germany and the Soviets in 1939 then perhaps Germans can talk the Russians into giving Poland the 'old' eastern borders back; then those displaced Germans might have something to talk about.

Come to think of it, those partitions in the late 1700's were also started by Polands neighbors to the west and east (and Austria too).

[Moved from]: Visiting Hel/Sopot in May. looking for information on Kashubian culture/history

interesed in Kashubian society/culture. any info on history or culture would be great

well, you should read up a bit.. there is plenty of info on the web:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashubians
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashubian_language

Folk groups/children performing Kashubian dances and songs with traditional Kashubian costumes
youtube.com/watch?v=pdIeSCg0DaU
youtube.com/watch?v=3ERrK04SmTY&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=e5UzwzTu80I&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=tD20aTsX3n4&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=6ixQQcrGRAQ&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=OW8oTaXfZ8Y&feature=related

Popular song: Kaszubskie Jeziora (Kashubian Lakes)
youtube.com/watch?v=Cn69CcoqpNc

thks for info!!

They are the descendants of the Goths who migrated from Scandza (Scandinavia) to Gotiscandza (Northern Poland). See the attached map. Look up goths in wikipedia. This knowledge was opressed in Poland by the Soviets for a very long time.

• 
  735pxRoman_Empire_1.jpg
  

Kashubians are not descended from Goths. The Kashubian language is Slavic not Germanic.

Des Essientes:

In South Africa the language is English but the majority of population is still native African. It doesn't mean much. Not that long time ago people in northern Poland spoke German and they owned their own country called Prussia which was in union with Germany for a while. They were my ancestors and my great great grandparents. Some of them moved to Germany after the war but there are still some living there. Those who live there concider themselves Polish and speak Polish. My grandmother spoke only German. People remain, languages change, counties arise and disappear. Look up Wielbark Culture.

"Wielbark culture (German: Wielbark-Willenberg-Kultur, Polish: Kultura wielbarska, was a culture that appeared during the first half of the 1st century CE. It replaced the Oksywie culture, in the area of modern-day Eastern Pomerania around the lower Vistula river, which was related to the Przeworsk culture.

The Wielbark culture has been associated with Jordanes' account of the Goths leaving Scandza (Scandinavia) and their settlement in Gothiscandza
Vistula delta with localization of the archeological sites of Wielbark and Oksywie cultures; actual and 19th-century-names
Wielbark culture was named after a village where a burial place with over 3000 tombs, attributed to the Goths, and Gepids was discovered back in 1873. Unfortunately, many of the cemetery stones were moved, and many graves were damaged by the early German discoverers. The report of the original excavation, lost during World War II was rediscovered only in 2004 and is about to be analysed in a cooperation of Polish scientists from Gdańsk, Warszawa, Kraków and Lublin."

Best Regards my friend.

For a humorous take on the Goths in Pomorshia please see the "Wurzel Mother" chapter of Gunter Grass's The Flounder in which the matriarch Wigga gets them to leave by serving them a bland gruel for lunch and telling them that's the only thing they'll be eating all Winter if they stay.

that Goths lived around Gdańsk Bay at the time you mention is commonly accepted among scientists - however this is no evidence Kashubians are their descendants - Goths most probably moved further south in time as we find them on Dnieper and even the Black Sea in some 3rd century AD - they have left traces along their migration route and even linguistic traces in neighbouring common Slavic speech (a good couple of words borrowed from the Goths by Slavs and perhaps a couple that made the opposite way too) - my guess (I am not that well informed on the subject) they haven't left any populations behind in the course of the migration

Kashubian is most definitely a West-Slavic language, and it is the closest living language to Polish. If the Kashubs were really Goths there would at least be some Old Gothic words in their tongue but there are not. Claiming the Kashubs are Goths is the ridiculous assertion of someone who wants to believe that they are "all German" rather than a mixture of Low German and West Slavic. Gunter Grass was fine with admitting that he was such a mixture and Vicphilly should be too.

Well, anybody can talk about anything, do you hold a degree in archaeology or at least in history ?I'm asking
because, you are talking utter rubbish here and I would like to know if I'm speaking to a layman or a clown ?

This is interesting:

"The Goths in Poland —Where Did They Come from an When did They Leave?

Przemyslaw Urbańczyk
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, PAN, Warsaw

Abstract

Recent archaeological discoveries and reinterpretations of written sources supported by the concepts of historical anthropology allow the creation of a new picture about the Goths. Most of the archaeologists studying the cultural situation in northern Poland during the Roman period admit today that the roots of the Wielbark culture commonly identified with the early Goths are to be sought in local traditions. The results of that proces, which can be explained in terms of change in symbolic consciousness rather, than by a demographic expansion, became archaeologically visible in the mid-first century AD. The decision to leave the Baltic zone could have been taken by a Gothic social elite endangered by tensions resulting from unstable trade relations with the Roman Empire and climatic deterioration. However, a substantial part of the agricultural Wielbark population stayed behind, preferring well-known circumstances than risks of an unpredictable fate in distant lands. Among those people, after some time, the hierarchization process was repeated, leading to the emergence of a new elite, which decided to follow their predecessors by migrating to the south east. They are identified by the sources as the Gepids. There are strong archaeological indications that some part of the Wielbark population must have again stayed behind in Poland maintaiing close contacts With their southern 'cousins'. Archaeologists today suggest that some 'Gothic' groups from the Pontic steppes retuned to the Baltic. The merging of Germanic and traditions resulted in a new cultural formation. In the ninth century AD, its material culture became more and more Prussian but there is evidence for lively contacts with western Europe, Scandinavia and the Abbassid Khalifate. A specific tradition recorded in the oldest Polish chronicles and in the twelfth century epitaph of the first Polish king Boleslav the Brave raises the serious possibility that some memory of the presence of Goths east of the Vistula somehow survived over centuries and it was used for construction of the Piasts' dynastic tradition. "

Best Regards to you

quite interesting actually

Well, interesting angle, but it is nothing new. However you put it saying pointing at Kashubians and saying that they are Goths or their prodigy is an idiot. It doesn't works that way.

Different tribes mixed on those territories, and archaeological evidence is not going to answer layman questions - this is that and that is this .........firstly because nobody knows and secondly because they don't even know right questions.

Des Esseintes: The people I am talking about existed long before Germany or Poland were formed. 1500 BC. I hold three citizenships and I am far from worrying if I am German or not. You are missing the point.

Ironside: I would appreciate a little bit of respect and not calling me an idiot. You may not approve my comments but it is not a reason to call me an idiot. I am only sharing the information I have found. Nobody can tell the details of such far history but I thought it would be interesting to bring up these facts to get the discussion going. Gothic presence on these territories is proven. If you believe that by calling me an idiot you prove yourself superior, you only demonstrate redneck level of culture and primitive mind. I do not call an idiot even though your english is sometimes hard to decode.

VicPhilly, You claimed that the Kashubians are the descendents of the Goths, but nothing you have cited backs up this claim. It is true that the Goths lived in Pomorania for a while, but the historical record shows that they migrated southwards. The Kashubs are a West-Slavic people. Perhaps some Goths did stay behind and interbreed with them, but it is rather hard to believe that a Germanic Scandinavian people completely transformed themselves into a Lechitic Slavic tribe.