I have a question.. Why is it that any other countries than Poland, dosn't lean the kids about Polish history ?
Well, I think that our history is quite well known in Eastern Europe. It`s only the people in Western Europe who associate Poland only with Solidarity, the WWII defeat and the partitions. Whereby that last issue is quite well known becaouse of the German/Russian propaganda, who after Poland was gone for a while from the map - during the XIX century both the Russians and the Germans had plenty of time to spread various propaganda about us (some elements of that XIX century propaganda is still present in various stereotypes about us) as well as to promote their achievments and their history over ours.
Beside the schoolsystem in many Western European countries dosn`t put much impact on history overall. I know that in many cases the children in Germany and the UK beside the most basic facts don`t know about the history of THEIR countries and if the aren`t interested in history by their own their school isn`t going to provide them any information beyoned the most basic issues (or in some cases even the most basic issues are omited)
And why Polish history isn`t known outside of Europe very well - European history outside of Europe isn`t very well known to non-Europeans. They know/are interested in the European history as much as we are know/are interested in the American/Chinese/Japanese/Indian/Persian/Arab history.
The history tells us Poland and Poles are to do the dirty job - then when the job is done, other nations forget about it and take all the splendor (and money)...
Well, the same can be said about Americans. They saved Europe only 61 and 88 years ago.
We`ve saved Europe 86 and 323 years ago. In both cases noone really cares about it
Beside it`s interesting to see how some countries - those who were very powerful during the XIX century had hijacked the European history and the effect of this that you can see untill this day. It`s not only the Polish history that has been treated this way the same you can say also i.e. about the Turks - who for almost 500 years ruled over one of the Worlds most powerful Empires, that could fight with a combined force of most European countries for a very long time.. The Portugese, who for a very long time had one of the world`s largest mercantile/colonial empires.. Sweden, who for a very long time as was a military superpower (and I`m not talking here about the Vigings - but about the XVII-XVIII century).. or Spain, who perhaps is a little bit more known in England, but here (Poland) Spain is only being associated with the Reconquista, Inqisition, Columbus and the Spanish Civil War (well probably in some other countries in Europe Spain is being associated even with less)