Life in Partitioned Poland (Specifically in the Prussian Partition)

Erm...you live in Denmark, don't you??? ;)


Maybe one needs the other?

Maybe there is a reason why highly restrictive countries are more successfull than chaotic, unorderly ones? (Which then have to be saved by the restrictive ones)Hmmmm...

;)

Norway!! Norwegen!! :p
Norge-Noreg (ahh I had to write it bleeh)


The basic, yes every civilized country should have rules, laws but FFS I want my dog in my apartment and in my life!!! :(

I don't like this mofo socialists! :(

Darn....sorry....but one can mix up these countries up north... ;)


Socialists aren't successful!

as a Norwegian I feel insulted but my Polish side understand you fully 100%

Cinnabar, I have another book for you, but I don't know if you'll be able to find it in English:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spring_to_Come

It is set in the years 1914 - 1924.

A film based on this novel:
filmweb.pl/film/Przedwio%C5%9Bnie-2001-1450

imdb.com/title/tt0272263


Listen, BB, Poland was invaded and oppressed for the most of the last three centuries. If the ancestors of today's Germans, Russians, Austrians hadn't done what they had done there wouldn't be any victimhood to bathe in. So maybe, just for a change, direct your grievances towards them?

If Germany is invaded and oppressed for MOST of the time of another three centuries, then we will talk about victimhood, OK?
Sheesh...

Ok Ok, I feel more calm now

Although I got a question BB, what you think about that wagon and Drzymała or what ever he is called

Another good suggestion, thanks for your continued input Paulina.

Unfortunatley, I've looked for this before. The only Zeromski in translation that I can find is The Faithful River, which would be good (will get round to reading it), but not as useful as The Spring to Come. Back to learning Polish I suppose...


I never said I had left school did I? In fact, I'm here asking to be schooled... That comment is, if you don't mind me saying, extremely condescending.

It doesn't really matter whether it was meant as anti-polish or not. What matters though is that polish people were banned on their own soil in a predominantly polish environment from using their own language. Is that ok for you?


That Prussia gets a bad press here and that we are a little bit exaggerating the whole thing is true. But if everything was so fine and dandy as you portray here why would there be a Greater Poland's Uprising? You must admit that people don't risk their lives if everything is fine, no?

As it was Prussia and not Poland sure....quite logically actually!
Not to mention that these cases where by far more rare than the contrary, polish and non-polish Prussians living peacefully side by side..


Nationalism running rampant.

But I agree that nobody should try to reign about a hostile minority...it's much to much hassle and the bigger majority always looks bad.

But it was only a minority, a loud and volatile but still only a minority then if you count all the millions of Poles who over the centuries made their choice with their feet westwards into Prussia/Germany it really couldn't have been that bad as many try to portray it here.

There was a movie based on this book, so that might act as a substitute(:

BB in his element again lol.
Bismarck's views on the Polish question can be compared with Adolf Hitler only - both great and successful German politicians.
However I have to agree: Hitler proved to be more pragmatic.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck
His policies concerning the Poles of Prussia were generally unfavourable to them,[21] furthering enmity between the German and Polish peoples. The policies were usually motivated by Bismarck's view that Polish existence was a threat to the German state; Bismarck, who himself spoke Polish,[22] wrote about Poles: "One shoots the wolves if one can."[23] He also said: "Beat Poles until they lose faith in a sense of living. Personally, I pity the situation they're in. However, if we want to survive - we've got only one option - to exterminate them.[24]

Bismarck’s Speech to the Prussian House of Deputies on the ―Polish Question (January 28, 1886)

The Germans' good nature and admiration for all things foreign, a kind of envy with which our countrymen regard those who have lived abroad and who have adopted certain foreign allures, and then also the German tradition of battling their own government for which they were always certain to find willing allies among the Poles (“hear, hear” on the right). Finally, [there was] the peculiar capacity of Germans, not found among other nations, to not only get out of their own skin but to get into that of a foreigner (laughter) and completely to become, in a word, something like a Pole, Frenchman, or American. I remember from my childhood learning the most popular melodies in Berlin about the old Polish general:

Remember, my brave Lagienka; (laughter)
Ask no one of my destiny;
My Fatherland . . .

Yeah....Poles in the parliament...Poles getting wealthy and influential...Poles having the same voting rights...

You never had it so good! How Hitlerian of him!

Maybe he should have expelled all the Poles living on prussian territory and deny their existence for 50 years....oopsie...that was more a polish thing to do!


Did they tell them of the betterment of the life circumstances? Of better education, of more and better labor laws, of state welfare, of voting rights, of modernization, of industrialization???

Nope??? Wonder why...

You Poles should thank Bismarck and Prussia on your knees....you even profited after your newly founding after WWI from the take over of former prussian regions...compared to your hopelessly backwards and agrarian eastern regions (the reasons for the "uprisings" btw, getting those by Prussian work highly industrialized regions into the new Poland - thiefs anybody?)!

I read those excerpts from Bismarck's speeches. Now make a mental experiment, BB, and compare them to Hitler's speeches about the Jewish danger. They would have to be scaled up in intensity, of course, or Hitler's speeches muchly mellowed, but the actual sense is like similar, isn't it?


As compared to the neighbouring free Poland? Or as compared to the previous century?


You are forgetting it was the old Poland (edit: the richest part of the old Poland). You took it, you invested, you lost the investment after it has been retaken. Happens all the time. And do not forget what those 'happily getting rich under Preussen' Poles did there themselves.

The only adequate parliament for Poles is Polish sejm.


Purely agricultural territories with exception of the ex-Austrian Silesia robbed by Prussians kings.

....market place certainly would be a better place for them, however, there is no such market which could have matched Polish sejm in buffoonery....

Hello again, our dear ConstantineK. Did you know that president Medvedev is going to pay an official visit to Poland on the 6th of December this year. Shall we all hope that you will be included into the delegation to express your most interesting views on Russian-Polish co-operation and friendship?

Visit Poland? You are joking Zmienowich! You ought to pay me....

So who pays president Medvedev to visit Poland? Is it Gazprom or is it the North Stream Consortium?

If his plane crashes ( God forbid), everyone knows it will have been the pilot's fault.

That would depend on whether or not he has a track record for ordering pilots to land where it isn't safe and then calling for their heads when they refuse to do so.

Alas, it is one of the president's duties. Somebody has to soothe insane. Let's think it as unpleasant but indispensable ward round in Bedlam.

No, nott, I see he isn't all right. Actually he's one of my biggest internet disappointments :/


You're welcome :)


Oh... Bummer :/


Ah, yes, I also thought about this one but didn't remember the title :)


There's a book about the times of World War II in Warsaw - "Początek" by Andrzej Szczypiorski. It was translated into German (the title in German "Die schöne Frau Seidenman" - "The beautiful Mrs Seidenman") so maybe there's a chance to find in English. And I'm sure "The Tin Drum" by Günter Grass was translated into English.

I've remembered at last what's the title of the book I read at school (about growing up in partitioned Poland). It is set in my city - Kielce, where the author of the novel was attending school. In Polish the book is called "Syzyfowe prace" ("Labors of Sisyphus"): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzyfowe_prace But the author is, again, Stefan Żeromski, so no English edition I guess :/

Also Gustaw Herling-Grudziński was born in Kielce: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaw_Herling-Grudzi%C5%84ski

He wrote "Inny świat" ("A World Apart"): /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_Apart_%28book%29
I think it's worth reading.

A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II, Penguin Books, reprint edition, 1996, pp. 284, ISBN 0140251847.

There is also a series of short stories written by Tadeusz Borowski about his experiences as prisoner at Auschwitz. They are... worth reading... One of the things that stayed in my mind for a long time (and still it is there).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Borowski

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Way_for_the_Gas,_Ladies_and_Gentlemen

You can read it in English here (I don't know if all stories are included)

dismantled Polish state was high due to racial discrimination and unemployment on traditionally Polish lands

Thats a quote from Bratwurst Boy quoting a source in another thread. While Prussia may not have been as bad as the Russian partition, it was still not a wonderful place. Dont say there was no discrimination or persecution.

On a side note I seem to be finding that the Austrian partition was the best for Poles.

Well, hard to imagine, but than it is quite possible that you are high.


Non of the country's which took part is partition was good for Poles.


better not to have expectations !

What are you saying here?

Also I was just saying that the Austrian partition was the the most liberal, not good.

I'm saying that state cannot be high!


Well, there was times that some other partition was the most liberal for a time being,but yes Austrian was the most liberal of them all from 1867 to 1914.

Seems to me that knowing how and when the canals & dikes were built, when the industrial revolution started (steam engine & spinning jenny), when the first railroad was built (Berlin to Potsdam), and the religious aspects (Protestant domination) of the governing bodies, are digested that the right perspective is found. Without question the railroads provided the means to maintain some kind of order, troops could be sent to most areas quickly and put down insurrection. The railroads gave rise to the German Empire about 1871. The city of Thorn (Torun) is just one example of the New Age. German, Russian & Austro-Hungary Powers were destined to collide and cause chaos & destruction. What a waste, man's inhumanity to mankind, was it growing pains and will it happen again? 140 years of destruction beyond imagination gives me reason to question the next 20 big time.