Norman Davies - the Brit who loves Poland and becomes one of Us

LOL. Tourists being former occupiers of that very land, Danzig ;) There was just widespread complacence. I'd've been on my guard too if I witnessed sb as vociferous as Adolf.

You forget one thing: "Poland wants war with Germany and Germany will not be able to avoid it even if she wants to."

In 1933, that might have been valid but there was no archived evidence that Piłsudski went to France to discuss a pre-emptive war. I detect sarcasm ;) ;)

Poland received regular intel communiques from Britain. I believe that GB knew, to a fair extent, what Hitler was up to. Our Foreign Secretary at that time had a good nose and Poland, according to official accounts, was kept largely in the loop.

A lesson in the drawbacks of passivity :(

It's not my comment: it is a quote from August 1939 and was said by Edward Śmigły-Rydz, the Commander-in-Chief of Polish Armed Forces.

Oh yeah, the guy that learned NOTHING from Piłsudski's wisdom from just before his death in 1935.

She is a b!tch

I seem to recall reading that one of the reasons Davies doesn't focus so much on Jewish history is that he feels it is already well covered by other specialists. What I did find interesting was in one discussion about pogroms in £odż (I believe) at the turn of 19th/20th century, he asked how it could be called a 'pogrom' when it also targetted other ethnicities, like Ukrainians. Of course, that earned him some backlash.

I am an elderly Brit, living in Ukraine, and a big fan of Norman Davies as historian, writer and person. I discovered this forum this evening - your comment is the best. I could NOT understand the first comment, about his Poland-PHOBIA!!?? Yes, his wife is Polish and he speaks Polish, but also Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian/Belorussian, some Romanian, etc, etc. For the Western European reader, his best feature is in compensating for the absurd biases among most W.E. Historians - who ignore Eastern Europe completely, because of their ignorance.

don't like vs hate is quite different buddy
Also remember that Poles (especially in the Russian occupation sphere) could been persuaded to think something close to their occupant when the occupier did pogroms towards Jews.

Jews were a problem in such way that they never were 100% with somebody. They had many factions and were everywhere, but never constituted an important majority. The thing I know atleast is that Piłsudski didn't burn Jews on stake like they were witches. That makes me more then pleased :)

The Jews maybe didn't have a paradise, but neither did the Poles have it either...

I am glad atleast that it wasn't forbidden for the Jews to be/enter Poland in her constitution...
Compared to an other country...

I'm afraid Davies's books on Poland are getting dated, and so is the occasionally full of pathos, compassionate-for-the-wretched attitude of his towards the Poles.

His recent hostile remarks about the PiS seem to show he doesn't understand the political situation in Poland today, or has joined in the Polonophobic camp.

As for his alleged love for Poland and becoming one of us, it seems he mostly loves Britain, and especially his native Wales ( he doesn't seem to be too fond of England - see "Isles"), and actually doesn't become any one else, but remains firmly British-Welsh.

Davies seems to have been an authority on Polish history and matters mostly during the Cold War, when the American and British (and zionist) propaganda depicted Poland and Poles virulently negatively. - Davies was the one who began describing Poland and Poles more positively. Today every one can come to Poland, get to know us directly, and be his own expert on Polish matters.

Still Davies looks like a great Polish patriot when compared to the alleged "expert" on things Polish - the Polonophobic Timothy Garton Ash of The Guardian....

:)

Is this forum still active? My first-ever entry was #198 (23/4/11) in reply to #8 - of 2007 as I noticed later. True that Davies' books are showing signs of age in places - for example, his eulogies in praise of Ireland's 'success' in the EU, before the financial crash and bail-out - but his basic strengths as an historian remain. I am now reading Europe East & West, mainly lectures from about 10 to 15 years ago, some of which seriously need updating - because a LOT has happened in those years. So history becomes journalism?

A brilliant question. It's rhetorical one, of course. Yes, facts seem to show that history indeed becomes journalism.

I wrote a book which has just been published loosely based on my family's ancestry intertwined with the history of Poland. I used Norman Davies God's Playground and Adam Zamoyski's The Polish Way extensively to assist me in the telling of Poland's long and often triumphant history. The title of my book is The Women Debrowska. It is available now on Amazon, Kindle, Smashwords (50% of it can be viewed for free!) and Lulu.com. I found both authors enormously respectful. My readers have expressed great regard for Poland's hsitory, and thanked me for telling them a story of a nation of which they had known little.

ok i was getting this feeling too and wanted confirmation, i was imagining he was a babyboomer product trying to explain awa britians faults during ww2, he has a polish wife oh ofcourse that explains everything

i have read rising 44 and now gods playground and another i cant remember, i think he downplays poland to a fault, it angers me as i read one paragraph on the batle of grunwald, unless im missing something he reads like this:

"well they were inept and unoriginal but succeedd in their efforts and they have no real skills of any sort yet they are the best at it"

im picking up all this backhanded contempt and it becomes a problem when he is the confirmed authoritarian.

anyway thanks krynski you said what i was looking for.


serious, you can choose which history you prefer and i always have this feeling its all wrong, i dont believe anyone is objective imo, would you like the polish version or russian or british or how about the polish version of the history of britian? where can i find that? not from norman davies.

Is he related to Ray Davies?

and on anti semitism, davies says jews were around since the beginning bt he cant say when the beginning was.

they lived in segregated towns by choice and were allowed to do so by the country, given special rights over peasents, where is there anti semitism?

No they did not. Or perhap you can explain why for the vast majority of the time that Poland was an independent country until 1918 no Jews lived in Warsaw?

If you make such a claim , prove it Harry !

I think it was quite different , Jews have lived together with Polish nationals peacefully in Warsaw for centuries . I don`t want to argue with you , but look, you always claim something what contradicts my knowledge , so I just want you to give me a source of such statement .

Can you or it is just because you want to contradict everything what is pro-Polish .

Don't, he's just frustrated.

Patriots shouldn't write scientific books. And Ash is a Germanophile, but hardly Polonophobic. Otherwise you could also say Davies is Germanophob, but, like Ash with Poland, he just has no clue about the western neighbour. Most obvious in his book about Wroclaw btw., which is ridiculously bad.

Of course I can. I refer you to "The Warsaw ghetto: a guide to the perished city" by Barbara Engelking-Boni, Jacek Leociak. From page 4 onwards the authors provide a very nice history of Jews near Warsaw, the explusions of course starting in 1527 when King Zygmunt the Old issued the first De non tolerandis Judaeis decree for the capital city. Here is a link.

books.google.co.uk/books?id=-1f9IMMvTc0C&pg=PA4&lpg


I don't care what you think; I care about historical fact. And the historical facts show that Jews were not allowed to live in the city of Warsaw for the majority of the time that the city was the capital of pre-1918 independent Poland.


I can and I have. By the way, lying about Polish history is in no way 'pro-Polish'.

Yes they did. And Warsaw was just one of the cities which obtained royal privilege of not accepting Jewish settlement, due to Jews being a competition to Christian merchants. Elsewhere Jews lived wherever they chose, and they most often chose to live in close-knit communities, as any other minority with no burning desire to assimilate. Some of those Jewish quarters did obtain similar royal privileges of not accepting Christians. And this, Harry, similarly doesn't mean that Christians were locked in ghettos.

Now what term would describe your mental qualities, as indicated by your kind of logic? You know I'm not a native speaker, please help me out.


My my, Harry happened to say something actually very true. A flu, or something?

I think you have got some distorted information about those facts from writers who are incompetent and maybe have bigoted views, thats why they don`t show real facts .

How would you explain such statement :

Please stop with your lies. Jews were not allowed to live in the city of Warsaw for the majority of the time that the city was the capital of pre-1918 independent Poland. As for cities, there were more than 20, including: Miedzyrzec in 1520, Warsaw in 1525, Sambor in 1542, Grodek in 1550, Vilna in 1551, Bydgoszcz in 1556, Stryj in 1567, Biez, Krosno and Tarnogrod 1569, Pilzno in 1577, Drohobycz in 1578, Mikolajow in 1596, Checiny in 1597. The non tolerandis christianis privileges were given some 50 years after non tolerandis Judaeis started to be introduced (Kazimierz in 1568, the Poznan community in 1633 and all Lithuanian communities in 1645). But to you the ghettoization of Jews was at the choice of Jews. Interesting.


The problem is in no way related to your language skills but is instead entirely related to your inability to tell the truth.

Please stop be a bore.


Yet in 1810 there was 14 000 Jews living there (18% of population). In 1862 they were allowed to settle down in Warsaw. In 1914 there was 337 000 Jews in Warsaw (38,1% population)

If you are desperate to show Polish antisemitism, Harry, better look for a better example.

You're on glue, boy? Warsaw did not have de non tolerandis Judeis privilege?


And what did I say? Sigismundus granted the privilege in, oh, somebody already found it for me:


For me, you moron, not allowing Jews to settle in some Polish towns is not the same as forcing them to live in lagers. And no, Warsaw was not free of Jewish settlement until 1918, as you graciously insinuated.

Less of the name calling please.

Didn't tsar expel Jews from Russia to Warsaw in 19th century, as a punishment for Poles? :D

Well done, unfortunately that in no way disproves the fact that Jews were not allowed to live in the city of Warsaw for the majority of the time that the city was the capital of pre-1918 independent Poland.

In 1862 Warsaw was not the capital of independent Poland and Poles did not decide who could and could not live in Warsaw. In 1914 Warsaw was not the capital of independent Poland and Poles did not decide who could and could not live in Warsaw.

Warsaw did indeed have that 'privilege'. Your lie is that Jews chose to not live in Warsaw.


Agreed. However, your original claim was that Jews chose to live in segregated towns. And now that I've exposed that as a lie you want to back away from your lie. How original.

Could you perhaps quote the post in which I "graciously insinuated" that? Oh, sorry, I forgot that you can not, because as usual you are simply lying about what I said. Given that you get so upset when people point out that you are a liar, why do you lie so much?

This is not a 'privilege', Harry. This is a privilege without quotes. This is a specific form of royal edict, a meaning well known to anybody with any knowledge of history.


Quote me. Nothing has gone to Random yet, and just half a page to search.


The claim stays. Most of them did. Can't see any reason to withdraw it, as yet.


Next time try and do it in here, Harry, this exposing, in this thread, on PF, so I can see it.


Now what do I do now, mod? Yeah, I shut up.


At your service. A typical for you, murky statement suggesting to an unprepared reader that Jews arrived in Warsaw only as late as 1918. Kindly observe my usage of 'insinuated'. You need a link to a dictionary?


Liar lying lie. Only quoting, mod, only quoting. Does it constitute 'name calling'? And unprovoked, to boot, in the context?

Those are not quote marks, they are inverted commas. They are used because I personally do not consider it a privilege for a town to be judenfrei.

With pleasure. Here you say "Yes they did." Either your comment refers to my statement that "No they [Jews] did not [live in segregated towns by choice].", in which case, as shown above, you are clearly lying. Or it refers to my statement that "for the vast majority of the time that Poland was an independent country until 1918 no Jews lived in Warsaw.", in which case, as shown above, you are lying. Now refreshing to see you lying about being caught lying.


Most Jews chose to live in segregates cities? So why did gentile Poles feel the need to ban Jews from living in more than 20 cities?


You mean that you stop lying? Good idea.


For more than a hundred years before 1918 Poland was not an independent country. No wonder you only link to my statement and do not quote from it.


It you lie, you must expect people to point out that you are a liar. It's not 'name calling', just a statement of pure fact.