History / Polish pirates [58]


Geographically they were from a region of Poland. Ethnically they were Slavs as are Poles. They are recognizably Polish on both counts, a branch of the great Slavic People that many on this forum seem intent on belittling, but to no avail. The thread is titled “Polish Pirates” and you insist that the only relevant pirates are the ones which included few or no Poles in their ranks. It is the Caribbean Pirates, in their fruity garments, that are irrelevant to this thread, not the Slavic pirates of the Adriatic.

History / Polish pirates [58]

They may be uninteresting to you, but others perusing this Polish discussion forum may find the story of Slavs leaving Poland and marching thirty days to reach the sea and become aquatic brigands quite interesting. I know I found it so when I first read about it.

History / Polish pirates [58]


No read post #8 Slavs from Poland did engage in piracy in the Adriatic. There were Polish pirates. Their lack of rum, parrots, and shoes with big buckles does not exclude them.

History / How much Poles trust to France? [93]


One hundred and ninety nine years ago of which the poet wrote: "O spring! Happy is he who beheld thee then in our country! Memorable spring of war, spring of harvest! O spring, happy is he who beheld how thou didst bloom with corn and grass, but glittered with men; how thou wert rich in events and big with hope! I see thee still, fair phantom of my dream! Born in slavery and chained in my swaddling bands, I have had but one such spring in my whole life."

History / Polish pirates [58]


It is the fifty fifth chapter. Don't tell people what to do you are not the boss of this forum. "....yet the Sclavonian pirates were still frequent and dangerous; and it was not before the close of the tenth century that the freedom and sovereignty of the Gulf were effectually vindicated by the Venetian Republic." The Sclavonian pirates had emigrated from "....the inland regions of Silesia and Little Poland, thirty days journey, according to the Greek computation, from the sea of darkness."

History / Polish pirates [58]


Yeah right Poles just magically sprang into existence in the 10th century, get over yourself. Moreover Gibbons great work covers the period up to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks so that shows how much you know.

History / Polish pirates [58]

Piracy is an ancient tradition and if Edward Gibbon is to be believed Slavs from the mountainous region of the area later to be known as Małapolska did go South and take up piracy in the Adriatic. I will provide the number of the chapter in which this mentioned in The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire if i can find my copy.

UK, Ireland / Does everyone know about countess Markiewicz? Polish connection. [16]


It says that about the anthem in the link you posted at the thread's start.

UK, Ireland / Does everyone know about countess Markiewicz? Polish connection. [16]


Is the Anglican Church in Ireland still called the "Church of Ireland"? Here in the USA Anglicans are called Episcopalians.

UK, Ireland / Does everyone know about countess Markiewicz? Polish connection. [16]

I see that she converted to Catholicism but she'd been an Irish republican nationalist for years before that. I know W.B. Yeats was a Protestant and an Irish nationalist too. Were these two quite anomalous at the time? Are there many Protestants in Irish nationalist parties today?

Food / Eat goulash from a cat and a steak from a dog in Poland! [114]


Whales are magnificent creatures. Does anyone really need money that much?

Life / What is Poland's view on obesity? How healthy, fit are Poles? [166]

I've heard that the French lack many obese people because both snacking in between meals and taking second helpings during meals are considered taboo. An interesting historical precedent for developing a svelte society is found in the Spartan Constitution devised by Lycurgus. He made citizens eat their meals together in communal dining halls and thus eliminated gluttony because no one wished to be seen acting like a pig in full view of their neighbors.

Food / Eat goulash from a cat and a steak from a dog in Poland! [114]

I said dolphins as well as larger fish. I never said that dolphins are fish.

Food / Eat goulash from a cat and a steak from a dog in Poland! [114]

It is true that Dolphns as well as larger fish, like swordfish, often do have toxic levels of mercury in their systems because they are at the top of a food chain in which mercury is more and more concentrated in the bodies of bigger fish eating smaller fish. Most whales feed on plankton rather than fish, and thus they have far lower levels of mercury. Mercury in the seas is a result of the smoke unleashed by burning coal.

Food / Eat goulash from a cat and a steak from a dog in Poland! [114]

The method that some use to slaughter dogs for human consumption is rather clever if also rather cruel. They starve the dog for a few days and then set a large bowl of uncooked rice before it. The dogs wolfs it all down and then the rice expands after absorbing the dog's gastric juices eventually causing the dogs stomach to burst killing it. Then its fur and viscera are removed and the dog is roasted and the people eat it and its rice stuffing. Man's "best friend" has saved the cook some labor by participating in its own preparation!

Food / Eat goulash from a cat and a steak from a dog in Poland! [114]


No i mean that like the bull (a vegetarian animal) we are large, muscled and we charge.
youtube.com/watch?v=OGronVtmq-o

Food / Eat goulash from a cat and a steak from a dog in Poland! [114]


No need to apologize, but some of us vegetarians are really more like bulls.

Food / Taste of food in Poland vs other countries [186]

I think the general lack of spice in Northern European cuisine is consequence of geography. In colder regions food doesn't spoil as quickly and thus it doesn't need spices to mask the flavor of decay nor as preservatives.

Language / Polish texts/stories with audio and English translation? [9]

Here is the link to the Librivox.com Polish pages: librivox.org/list-translated-pages-polish/

Librivox has Ferdinand Ossendowski's epic account of his odyssey throught Siberia, Mongolia, and China in English called Beasts, Men and Gods too: librivox.org/beasts-men-and-gods-by-ferdinand-ossendowski/

History / Was Daniel Fahrenheit a Pole? [138]


Nietzsche's circumstance was that he felt soceities with a strong independent aristocracy were superior and he thus he admired the szlachta and their refusal to submit to autocracy. The German aristocracy had submitted to autocracy and Germany's strongest class was its middle class and Nietzsche despised the paltry middle class virtues of hard work and obedience to authority and in this he was truly Polish. I feel many Polish-Americans on this forum respect productivity and efficiency more than the finer things in life like idleness and aesthetic contemplation and that is why they are Crypto-Germans.

History / Was Daniel Fahrenheit a Pole? [138]



Alan Watts once remarked that American Roman Catholics are really Crypto-Protestants. Could it be that some Polish-Americans on this forum are Crypto-Germans?

History / Was Daniel Fahrenheit a Pole? [138]


You have never read Nietzsche either. He despised the conformist Germans of his time and claimed that their best stock had emigrated, and if really you think that other Germans have never admired Poles then you are sorely mistaken.

History / Was Daniel Fahrenheit a Pole? [138]

Yes Nietzsche's father actually had the family classified as "non-Germans" by the Prussian State because he too believed they were descended from Polish nobles. It seems to have been a family legend with them as the name Nietzsche is not Polish but i think the Poles should "claim" him haha.

History / Was Daniel Fahrenheit a Pole? [138]

Penn boy my post was directed at Guesswho who claimed we have no way of knowing how Schopenhauer felt about nationalism, but we have his writings.

History / Was Daniel Fahrenheit a Pole? [138]

I provided an example of how he felt himself in my original post. I am not going to argue with someone who didn't read and comprehend my post and who obviously hasn't read Schopenhauer. Go to the library and if Schopenhauer's writings are too much for you and you wish to know about Schopenhauer's life I highly recommend Rudigar Safranski's biography of him.

History / Was Daniel Fahrenheit a Pole? [138]

People can "claim" whoever they want but it's still silly and especially silly when those so claimed despise the sorts of people who go about claiming.

History / Was Daniel Fahrenheit a Pole? [138]


It should be noted that although Arthur Schopenhauer was born in Danzig his family moved to Hamburg when he was a boy and they moved because Arthur's ultra-rich merchant father didn't want to live in Prussian ruled Danzig without all the freedom from regulation and taxation that the Polish had allowed. The Schopenhauers were quite cosmopolitan having chosen the name Arthur for their son because of its internationality. I know rabid nationalism is a pastime for some in this forum, but claiming a thinkers like Schopenhauer, or even Fahrenheit, for a nation such as "Germany" is really pointless. Arthur himself compared the Napoleonic wars that ravaged "his" nation to a barroom brawl between louts that was beneath his concern. Great thinkers are a nation unto themselves.

History / Was Daniel Fahrenheit a Pole? [138]

Fahrenheit looks like a Germanic surname.

Life / Why Polish people should be proud of being Polish? [370]


The Ukraine was actually conquered by the pagan Lithuanians and it was after Poland's alliance with the converted Lithuanians that this territory came under Polish sway.

Life / Why Polish people should be proud of being Polish? [370]


To get back to the topic of the thread I'd like to say as a Polish-American the lives of normal people being normally lived in today's Poland do not really interest me in the least. The Poles I am most proud of are the artists. People like Witold Gombrowicz and Stanislaw Lem, both brilliant writers and both atheists (All Polish-Americans are not reactionaries, nor are they all religious fanatics. In fact out here in California many of us are members of the "Liberal Elite"). And of course the glorious history of Renaissance and Baroque Poland interests me but not because the Poles fought "heathens" but rather because the Poles had religious freedom in their exceptional commonwealth, and not because Poland was somehow culturally "pure" but because of the Poles' eclecticism in which, to give a couple examples, they freely adopted aspects of their dress from Asiatics and aspects of their architecture from Italians. I am also proud of the Polish reputation for bravery and drinking prowess, and I am also proud of the beauty of Polish women.