Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]


"Hindu" (adjective) is "hinduistyczny" in Polish.
"Indian" (adjective) is "hinduski".
"Indian" (nationality) is "Hindus".

History / "Westerner's" most ridiculous beliefs about the time of communism in Poland [73]


I don't think my parents would fit the right age bracket, as they were children during WW2 or immediately after.
Also, I was speaking about MY experiences as a teenager, OK? And I would "rush" to see Enter the Dragon, Star Wars, and a bunch of other western "crap" ;-)

History / "Westerner's" most ridiculous beliefs about the time of communism in Poland [73]

Lots of movies were shown, westerns would actually be in the minority ;-)
Apart from that, we had something called Dyskusyjne Kluby Filmowe (Film Discussion Clubs) where the more esoteric stuff would be shown and a discussion held afterwards. Plus "film festivals" which meant e.g. a week of British films at a given cinema, or a month of Pasolini films, etc. etc. I used to be quite the moviegoer, but now can't remember the names of the Warsaw cinemas that would host events like that... ;-(

History / "Westerner's" most ridiculous beliefs about the time of communism in Poland [73]


Sorry, man, I was born into a world with tape recorders already in it ;-)

History / "Westerner's" most ridiculous beliefs about the time of communism in Poland [73]


Radio Station "Trójka" - MiniMax weekly programme - a DJ would proceed to broadcast the full extent of the newest and most interesting albums he had managed to buy abroad. All you had to do was rig your tape recorders and press "record". :-)

I was a teenager in the eighties and I never felt left out of the global music culture. It was a pain buying enough good cassettes though!

Old stuff like the Beatles or Rolling Stones, or classic performers like Dylan, you could simply buy in the shops. Plus a smattering of newer and more explosive stuff as well. Can't remember the name of the distributor(s).

Later on, you also got whatever you wanted from pirates ;-) Cheap and rather good quality, actually...

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]

"Czarny" sounds much more racist in Polish than "murzyn", which is absolutely neutral. Murzyn is an old word, filtered through Latin and Spanish, and simply means "coming from Maghreb", which of course is an anachronism, but because most people don't even know about this etymology, it's no big deal.

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]


Haven't you just contradicted yourself there a little bit?

Also, "murzyn" originally describes a place of origin (Maghreb), not skin colour.

History / What do Poles owe to Czechs? [83]


Who are "They"? Can you point fingers when you haven't been there? The Red Army was a motley crew of battle-hardened desperadoes, many of them taken straight from the Gulag... But they ploughed onwards and did their job. It "helped" that very often, they had guns pointed at their backs as well. I'm not idealising them. But I think it is only fair that we don't spit on their graves. How would you behave in their place, I wonder?

History / What do Poles owe to Czechs? [83]

I know that in a twisted way what you just said is "right" but to me it is extremely unpalatable.

History / What do Poles owe to Czechs? [83]


Can you prove that? The USA had valuable resources freed up in 1944 - 1945 precisely because the Soviets were doing a lot of the fighting for them. What if the Soviets just stayed put - or even attacked the Allies?

History / What do Poles owe to Czechs? [83]

If you mean liberate as "get ready of the Germans" than yes, it was exactly the same thing. Remember that at the time, the USSR belonged to the Allies. And the Allies would not have made it without the USSR. Try to be realistic. What happened next is a completely different story. And if you want to talk about what happened next, why not spare a thought for all those Russian soldiers who made it to Berlin and then were herded back to Russia and fed into the Gulag system?

History / What do Poles owe to Czechs? [83]

It actually makes it much worse for them if they didn't have a choice. The dead have no voice and they cannot defend themselves. It is up to us to behave like human beings.

History / What do Poles owe to Czechs? [83]


They deserve the utmost respect. They gave up their lives, end of story. Stop trolling.

Love / Polish Pet Names For Girls. [156]


Maybe I'm just having a bad day. Sorry and all that - I might have been barking up a slightly wrong tree here.

Love / Polish Pet Names For Girls. [156]


Fair enough, so why did you quote a ton of diminutives which are clearly called obsolete ("do dawnych zdrobnień zaliczała się")? Within the last century or so, "Marusia" or "Maruśka" are AFAIK the only possible sources for "Marushka", and these diminutives both come from the name Maria.

Love / Polish Pet Names For Girls. [156]


I have never come across any of the above being used as diminutives of Marta. To be honest, Marucha and Marocha sound almost obscene and I would never call them diminutives - where on earth have you heard them used?

Pet names derived from Marta - Martusia, Martunia, Marteczka, Martuchna.

As for Maria - Marysia, Marusia, Maryśka, Maruśka, Marysieńka, Marynka, Marylka, Mania, Maniusia, Marysiunia... the variations are almost endless ;-)

Love / Polish Pet Names For Girls. [156]


That would be Maria.

Life / What's wrong with Poland? I don't see anything. [121]


Are you sure you're talking about Muslims here? The cards and beer don't fit. Of course many Muslims do drink alcohol and play cards, but they're not usually very keen on admitting it to the general public ;-)

Life / What's wrong with Poland? I don't see anything. [121]


That's being questioned right now. More and more humanoid remains are being found in Eurasia which simply don't fit the Out of Africa theory.

Genealogy / I have Jewish DNA, but only know of Polish ancestry . [120]


I still don't know how you came to the conclusion. I'm not saying they aren't, I have read your story here on PF, and I cannot find a logical link between the fact that your family comes from Poland and the fact that they are (all!) Jewish. Have you seen any documents to prove this? Like baptismal certificates or documents showing their previous, Jewish identities or origin?


Why would they be kicked off their farm once they became Catholic? Doesn't make sense, unless, it was other (unconverted) family members who kicked them out... Who did that? I'm just curious, because your story is quite interesting and detailed in some places, but in other places I cannot logically piece the info together.

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]

"Too Many German Words in the Polish Language!" I think we should start a new thread ;-p

Life / What's wrong with Poland? I don't see anything. [121]


But we're talking surface here, aren't we? If you get to know another person really well, you also get to see all the quirks and deep-rooted insecurities and flashes of madness they keep deep inside, but they're still John with the brown hair who likes to cycle to work or bookish Mary who can't find a boyfriend to the general public. It's the same with nations, and Poland is no exception :-)


And that's exactly what we should be discussing here - the national "public persona" or whatever it's called. Otherwise, you can't discuss society or nations, you can only discuss the Johns and Marys - and they aren't that simple to describe either ;-)

Life / What's wrong with Poland? I don't see anything. [121]


Why the surprise?

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]

Speaking of the surname Czech - the surname Bem is a nice example of linguistic mixup. It's actually from the German "Bohmisch" and means Czech (someone from Bohemia).

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]


you asked for COMMON surnames of non-Polish origin.
BTW, the surname Czech doesn't have to be Bohemian in origin. A Czech immigrant could be called that by his Polish community, you see ;-p

OK then:

German: Szulc, Krause, Handtke, Miller, Szmyt, Braiter, Toeplitz...
Czech: Hornik, Holoubek, Tichy...
Latin: Cellary
Other: Borzobohaty

That's just off the top of my head.

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]


I know THAT.
I mean "common" in the context of non-Polish origin surnames in Poland. It's not as simple as you might think. Many such surnames stick out and you tend to remember them, so you kind of see them as common, but when you start counting the no. of people you actually know with that surname, you realise it's actually rare. E.g. the surname Szulc. I have known only one person with that surname in my life. And that was in primary school. But when I read your question, it was the first name that sprang to my mind.

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]

Define "common".

History / What do Poles owe to Jews? [586]


But the Gulag did exist, and for much longer, almost for the duration of the USSR, and lots of Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews of all nationalities, Germans (even a smattering of Americans and such) did die in them or at least suffer terribly. Also please remember that the Gulag system incorporated not only labour / concentration camps proper, but also a whole prison system, an interesting criminal code (under the provisions of which almost anything you did - or did not do - could be called a crime), as well as novel approaches to interrogation, torture, and "judgment". Millions of people died, and before they died, suffered the most horrible indignities as well as mental and physical torture. I, for one, do not see how this differs from the Nazi-implemented Holocaust. Actually, some survivors of both systems claimed that though the Nazis were brutal and implacable, they at least had a system and you could take advantage of this in one way or another. On the other hand, the Gulag system was completely unpredictable. Some people within the Gulag were powerful one day and imprisoned as traitors the next, some prisoners spent months shunted from one camp or prison to another without any reason, others were first sent off to die in some forgotten hellhole and then called back to Moscow because they had a background in theoretical physics... and then sent off to the Solovki all over again.

History / What do Poles owe to Jews? [586]


Solzhenitsyn (I hope I got the transcription right) mentions "camps" which were no more than an empty space in the wilderness. Maybe a tent or two would have been put up. Transports of prisoners from Moscow or other far-away places who had miraculously survived their journey (which often lasted weeks) would be told they now must build the camp they had been sent to. Any good (warm) clothing or other luggage would be of course taken away from them. The weather conditions would be rather inclement, as is to be expected near the Arctic circle. In such circumstances I would not split hairs and start deliberating whether this would be a labour camp, a death camp, or a concentration camp.

Love / Sexually liberal ----- Is this a fact or myth for Polish women living in Poland? [61]

There are as many attitudes as there are Polish women. Please stop with the generalisations already.