Whats the French Huguenots history in Poland? where did they settle Poland?

My Polish great aunt said her mother (My great grandmother) was part french .. anyway just wanted to know about the Huguenot history in poland and french people in Poland in general

Any help ?

thanks

They didn't settle in Poland, but in Brandenburg/Prussia (amongst others): /wiki/Huguenot#Germany_and_Scandinavia

The French might have never been a very large minority in Poland, but I do believe some what are now some of the very northwesterly areas were settled by some Huguenots. Do you know where in Poland your great grandmother came from, or that general side of your family?

You may be interested to know that there exists a Polish Huguenot Society affiliating the Polish descendants of Huguenot religious refugees.
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polskie_Towarzystwo_Hugenockie

I remember having read somewhere that there existed a large community of Walloons (now French-speaking Belgians) somewhere in the South-west of Poland, but I cannot remember where.

Hi! I heard and read several times that in that area there were some (Polish) coal miners retired from Belgian and French coal mines.
As to Huguenots, they of course escaped to protestant countries (Holland, England, Germany and also often to South Africa where they developed the wine industry and a lot of South Africans have French names). It woud have make no sense to escape to another catholic country and therefore they did not come to Poland. They may have come to parts now in Poland but which were German in those days and thus protestant - which makes a different story.

That is correct. They settled after the war in the Wałbrzych area. They were lured by the PRL there, and afterwards many of them bitterly regretted their decision - when it was too late to return.

"They were lured by the PRL there, and afterwards many of them bitterly regretted their decision - when it was too late to return."

Many of them(probably 99,99%) were actually french from polish origin.

Huguenot were french nobles who migrated outside France after french religious war to germany/uk.

Sadly Sobieski died several months ago, so he won't be around to answer you

They weren't nobility. They were prosperous, industrious,middle class business men, craftsmen and artisans.


They came to Ireland. There are still people in Ireland with Huguenot surnames and there is a beautifully preserved Huguenot cemetery in Dublin city centre. The people today who bear Huguenot names are largely Catholic as they gradually intermarried with the locals.

Many were nobles from i know. Even Henri IV a noble man, who became king of France, was huguenot.
He renounced his faith for catholicism but made "edith de Nantes" . It was a bill to enforce tolerance to all chistian faith in France.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot
The new teaching attracted sizeable portions of the nobility and urban bourgeoisie.

First the nobles converted then usually they pass on their religion to their subjects.
South of France was notoriously a protestantism fort.

Atch : They came to Ireland, Uk and even Germany.
Thomas de Mazière, actual minister of defense in Germany, come from a noble Huguenot family.

Nobles in France is was about 1% of the population. So 'many' is just a question of perspective.

Those two statements are quite different. The second one is more accurate but still a bit of a stretch. As Ironside says the nobility comprised only a small percentage of the population. Nobility always tended to favour the established religion and generally the religion followed by the Monarch was that of the nobility as clearly that was in their best interests, financially, socially etc. The Huguenots themselves only accounted for about 5% of the French population.

But in any case it's misleading to say that 'Huguenots were nobles'. Some of them were, but as a whole they were largely middle class and associated with skilled crafts and trades as their history abroad shows. I think you'll find this interesting:

oldbaileyonline.org/static/Huguenot.jsp

Pravda ,huguenot is not strictly equal to nobles . But I learned they were mostly nobles but you got me there.

Nobility comprised a small portion of the population. However huguenot people was a group with high percentage of nobles.
Whether they are nobles or not they had high economic value at the time and it was a loss for France.
France was very catholic at the time like Spain and had no tolerance for other religions.
Poland was very tolerant in comparaison at the very same time even with protestants or jews..

There's no "V" in Polish alphabet.

Very true.


Also true :))


Now what's interesting is that in Poland that was certainly the case. Huguenots were essentially Calvinists and Calvinism never really caught on in Poland except among the upper classes.


Prawda!