History / Introduction to Polish history! From a Polish perspective [94]

Obviously there are exception, B.B., you know that! You ought to know me by this time. However, the Poles have typically been the opposite of the Germans.

At numerous Holocaust rememberance cerememonies over the years, the Germans have been the sole bearers of responsibility, carrying the show as it were; in all instances, both the Poles and the Austrian reps in attendance, said NOTHING!!

Off-Topic / Public Supports Biological Perspective of Sex Gender [31]

Johnny, the entire problem is one of perspective and balance! We've lost a sense of standard and therefore rationalize unacceptable public behavior!!

This confirms my FIVE (5) coffin nails theory on the slow demise of the US: the rampant spread of suburbia since the end of the '50's, the Woodstock Era, the EST-movement of the '70's, Reaganism, and of course, the digital (anti-)revolution which threatens traditional literacy every day.

History / Introduction to Polish history! From a Polish perspective [94]

Every nation interprets their own history in accordance with what makes THEM come out smelling like a rose!

Rarely is the opposite the case:-)

History / The Two Saddest Nations on Earth... Poles and Jews [243]

Perhaps not the saddest, but surely among the most antithetical by nature:

Jews (pious shtettl living) - cautious, typically risk averse, hidebound by kosher mandates, Talmudically complex often neglecting positive action, culturally isolated.....

Poles (aka Polish-born gentiles!) - venturesome, instinctive, above all impetuous, overtly passionate, unafraid of error, NOT hidebound by a set of dietary mandates.....

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

At best.
For my money, I'll take Chopin any day of the week..
a pity it's only seven days long!

Off-Topic / Public Supports Biological Perspective of Sex Gender [31]

Not peculiar, AntV, literate.
I was born in 1960, however, to slightly older parents who were in their late 30's when they had me, rather than teenagers who got knocked up behind some cabbage patch somewhere in the boonies and started making babies right then and there!

Check out how folks in their thirties and forties expressed themselves by listening to early to mid-60's TV shows or prior black/white Hollywood movies and it'll also be a shock to your system because it sounds like English:-)

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

Among the Polish "moderns", I never much cared for the little Penderecki I've heard.

History / POLISH AND RUSSIAN FRIENDSHIP WILL LAST FOREVER [513]

For every Jean Moulin, there was one Witold Pilecki.
Then there was Janusz Korczak, nee Goldstajn (??), who accompanied his own Jewish orphans willingly into the gas chambers, unless this story is apocryphal, which
I suspect it isn't.

Off-Topic / Public Supports Biological Perspective of Sex Gender [31]

Society since the end of the 1950's has chosen to give vent to any and all prurient feelings of sexuality (including public masturbation, even group groping), culminating in full throttle LGBTQ as well as transgender exhibitionism which I find repulsive!

Forcing such unconventionality upon the junior set, usually lacking in developed judgement is to my mind unconscionable and lacking in proper taste.

While I do feel that all's "fair" in the bedroom or the bathroom, the same certainly cannot be said for the public domain.

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

Point well taken, under represented perhaps here in the States.
Moniuszko's still admired in Poland and this I know for a fact because an acquaintance who claims to know the tenor Jan Beczala, told me that "Halina" is often performed once or so a year.

As far as Polish being an awkward language to sing in, the same might well go for English, especially in a non-Rock venue, save naturally, for G & S!!

Personally, I find certain Polish songs tear-jerkingly beautiful, for instance "Warszawianka" etc.

History / What makes you feel Polish? [167]

And by the same token, Rich, there's not anti-Polonism either, right?
Merely throwing your logic back to you. LOL

@Cojestdocholery,
Like Crow (although slightly less so now, thank heaven), you use lots and lots of English, but mostly, it's like listening to Carmen Miranda speaking English in one of those old '40's musicals; she spoke in English, but Portuguese was coming out:-)

History / POLISH AND RUSSIAN FRIENDSHIP WILL LAST FOREVER [513]

I agree, Milo, so kindly don't dump me into that unfortunate category, if you wouldn't mind:-)
No offense, mate.

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

Right? An underrated as well as under represented composer.

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

Oops, I meant Moniuszko:-)
However, the early 20th century composer Karol Szymanowski wrote some touching piano pieces, quite affecting, I must say.

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

Once heard some of Szymanowski's opera "Halina".
Not bad, I thought. At least I think that he's the composer of the one and only Polish opera.

History / POLISH AND RUSSIAN FRIENDSHIP WILL LAST FOREVER [513]

On the contrary, Milo!
I've already acknowledged that fact on any
number of separate occasions, if you'd bothered to read them:-)

Poland indeed was a safe haven for Jews, as was Lithuania in the years prior to the pogroms during the middle to end of the 19th century.

While Poland did in fact have the most sizeable Jewish population in Europe for numerous years, indeed nearly a century from the mid-1800's until around the early 20th century, that relationship gradually turned sour when far many Poles, especially in the countryside, realized they could play footsies with Hitler in exchange for political favoritism.

Crying pity of it all is of course, that Poland coincidentally had the largest single resistance movement in wartime Europe, perhaps as large as France. To this day, certain Jewish groups continue to label ALL Poles as Anti Semites, which is of course a completely unfair espursion cast over an entire population.

History / What makes you feel Polish? [167]

@Cojestdocholery, what on earth are you babbling about in post #121?
Your English fails you once again:-)

History / What makes you feel Polish? [167]

What makes a Pole feel Polish should be reading "Pan Tadeusz" or select verses of Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz aloud.

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

Ahemm, Brahms or Schumann devotees like yours truly might gently beg to differ on that one, RussianAntiPutin:-)

Chopin does though reflect a deep Polish desire for allowing the passion of the moment to speak loudest! His is not a cerebral utterance a la Beethoven or dramatic grandiloquence a la Wagner and so forth.

Chopin's always at his best spreading the perfumed reverie of personal reflection while strolling in his private garden.
The Italian lust for the in your face expression of opera isn't Chopin's cup of tea either.

Yet his music is often a call to arms, "guns buried in flowers" as Schumann put it, especially his mazurki, polonaise, above all his etudes and scherzi.

News / Strange object over Poland's Silesia [27]

Probably just a Russian testing craft trying to scare people, you guys.

News / NATO expansion in northern Europe - great news for Poland [137]

Much appreciated, Pawian.

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

Yes, exactly!
And yet his piano music is what separates much of Chopin from the rest.
The late Harold C. Schonberg, erstwhile chief music critic for the NYT, once put it like this: "Mozart taught the piano to dance, Beethoven to feel, Schubert to emote and Chopin to sing."

Think that rather sums it up, don't you?

News / NATO expansion in northern Europe - great news for Poland [137]

Geopolitically, perhaps you might explain why Sweden and Finland joining NATO would be to Poland's advantage.

History / What makes you feel Polish? [167]

Polish antisemitism's about as old as the Church in Europe itself.
It all stems naturally from the misreading of Scripture and the alleged crucifying of the Christ by the Jews, rather than the Romans!
The latter did the deed but the former took the blame and not until the first Polish Pope did the Vatican "exonerate" the Jews.

As the Church strictly forbade the Christians from any type of money lending, that thankless task fell to the Jews who were stuck with the role of tax collectors and later pawnbrokers. This created the Frankenstein's Monster into which the Jews were forced through no apparent fault of their own, if only for their sheer survival.

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

You said it!
Attended a function at the General Consulate of Poland quite a few years back and I almost got a rush when I entered the main reception hall: Elegantly appointed tables loaded with kanapki, several varieties of wodka and beer, a coffee urn....... and of course, a gentleman seated at the piano playing hours of Chopin amid all the requisite hand kissing and traditional European formality.

Genealogy / Mothers maiden name - Gladys [17]

Gladys is normally a woman's given name, but today is considered quite outmoded.

Life / Polish Classical Music [101]

I never saw the movie.
However, Chopin as background music has graced more than a handful of Polish films, and very effectively.

Language / Does rz and sz have the same pronounciation? [7]

Ya got me that time, Alien!

Language / Does rz and sz have the same pronounciation? [7]

"W Szczezbrzynie chrzaszcz brzmi w tcicinie" is still excellent practice for foreigners trying to learn Polish pronunciation with humor.

Language / Does rz and sz have the same pronounciation? [7]

Good example.