News / Czechs most liked by Poles! [35]

I'm Polish and I don't know anybody who's Czech but my Slovak friends say they are still one nation and Czechoslovakia is still alive. The Slovaks are top on my list (might be because I once fell in love with one and still haven't entirely recovered ;) I also like the Hungarians because they are our brothers and every decent Pole is meant to like them; and the Ukrainians because of their language which is an amazing mixture of Polish and Russian and I can understand almost every word although have never studied it. I like the African people, especially the black ones because of their warmth and some sort of strength that I've never seen in anybody else. I don't really dislike anybody, but I must say although I have a few very good Indian friends, if I was to speak about the nation in general there is something in them that is so foreign to me, some trait that I can't quite grasp or name, that I do not like. And that trait they have in common with the English. As for Americans - the ones I've met were quite loud and maybe a bit overwhelming but generally ok.

News / Czechs most liked by Poles! [35]

The thing about Hungarians I said half-seriously, Vlad. Nobody seems to know where exactly this brotherhood has come from, but somehow we know it exists ;) And because of it we're supposed to like each other :) It might be that we are surrounded by people who dislike us: Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Russian, German, even those far away from us don't like us - the British, the Dutch etc. But Hungarian people like us. God knows why. So we like them too :) Although in fact I know a few Hungarians and have never noticed anything particular about them that I could find annoying or weird, what could put me off them. So maybe there is some mutual compatibility between Poles and Hungarians, like sometimes when you meet a person and within hours you feel as you've known them your whole life, maybe there is something like that on a national level as well.

Maybe we don't like the English because they are too different from us and we find them strange and we don't like the Russians because they are too similar to us and we see in them our own flaws. But Hungarians seem neither too different, nor too similar, but just right :)

News / Czechs most liked by Poles! [35]

Thank you Des Essientes for the explanation. It does make sense. It could also indirectly explain why the fact that Britain is a monarchy gets so badly on my nerves and I just can't, just can't comprehend why the British simply put up with that and don't try to make some decent revolution or something...

Language / Polish slang phrases - most popular. [606]


skóra is about leather - like leather jacket or leather seat upholstery in his fura

Travel / Completely random views of Poland, a co! [80]

Random in Polish

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  spódzielnia inwalidów - fajne chłopaki
  
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  zimny drań
  
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  cześć - szufla
  
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  pan tu nie stał
  

Language / Dupa - what a beautiful Polish word [103]


It's called dupa biskupa :)

Love / Do you think these renowned Poles are hot? [150]

S. Nowak is hot in that old-fashioned pre-war way

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  Slawomir_Nowak_Nowak.jpg
  
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  kariera3.jpg
  

Life / Polish females who made it [29]

Irena Sendlerowa, who smuggled 2500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and gave them false identity documents. Eventually she was found out by the Nazis and tortured but managed to escape and continued her work. She and her team saved twice as many Jewish people as Oskar Schindler. She was awarded as one of the Righteous among the Nations.

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  Irena Sendlerowa
  

Life / Polish females who made it [29]

Tamara £empicka - Art Deco painter, whose name lives forever in one of the loveliest perfume in the world :)

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Language / Dupa - what a beautiful Polish word [103]

:) I don't know if it's the same game. I've never heard of/played dziura w dupie, so I'm assuming it must be a variation of the name dupa biskupa. The rules are accurately described by Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupa_Biskupa. What do you say? Is it the same?

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

I'm happy for Poland to be counted as an Eastern European country, in fact, I'm quite proud of it. Every part of Europe has its own atmosphere and its own beauty, and it's natural that people get more attracted to one than to another. For example the Italians are generally liked for being warm and extrovet, but I've come across people who found the Italians mainly loud and rude.

Eastern Europe has its specific charm too, but it doesn't and does not have to appeal to everyone. To me there is something dark and mysterious in Eastern Europe - and I see it more vividly when I look at the countries further to the east of Poland; the West (or/and Central Europe as you prefer to call it, APF) is more organized, more focused on the material world, on facts, action; the ego. The East of Europe is more instinctual, there's a lot more of a "feeling", but different from the "feeling" of spontaneous nations like the Italians or the Spanish. If Western Europe is focused on the ego, Eastern Europe is more like the Id - the dark, the disordered, the powerful instinct. It's scary for some, fascinating for others. I like it :)

And as much as the ego and the id might oppose each other, they form a whole, where one cannot exist without another




Maria Skłodowska WAS Polish, so was Fryderyk Szopen

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


Szopen was born and brought up in Poland, and had a Polish mother; his father was French but lived in Poland since he was 16. Szopen is the way his surname is commonly spelled in Polish


Perhaps. But she was Polish and not some mixed French.
Perhaps Adolf Hitler couldn't have done what he did and become famous if he had stayed in Austria, but we can only guess...

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


The Western culture is the dominant one and it has been for at least a thousand years. It has destroyed many other cultures with deepest contempt so you shouldn't expect too much of appreciation. They can look down at us and many will do (although often not consciously), but it's up to us whether we comply and feel inferior or understand the uniqueness of our world and learn to value it for what it is, with its strength and its weakness

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do" Samuel Huntington

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


I wanted to illustrate what I meant by dark, disordered, powerful Slavic instinct. And why I love it.


I don't have a clue what this is about


Oops, haven't noticed that before. Thank you :)

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

I watched the movie long time ago and quite forgot Horpyna. I didn't even know she was Ukrainian. But I remember Bohun very well :)

News / Dirty deeds of foreign guys in Poland [98]


So when Germans do stupid things, it's because they are not true Germans, but "multicultural". Germans just don't happen to be stupid.

You know APF, I like Germans, the ones I've met were great people, but you're being a disgrace to them

By the way, what does APF stand for? Is it not Anti-Polish Forum?

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


You don't need to be sorry, the more we know about the West the happier we are to be Eastern Europeans

And it seems to me that the West of Europe recently has been becoming more and more Eastern too, hasn't it?

By the way, what is your culture - the xfactor?

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


I bet I know more about it than Hudsonhicks

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


No, it doesn't. Why do you think the word eastern is derogatory? By saying something like that you are showing disrespect for all the great cultures and nations from Ukraine to Japan. It is just a name and it's neutral. I don't understand what's the problem with Poland being a part of Eastern Europe, it actually is, it's not Western Europe for sure, and I'm fine with that, why can't you be?

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

I'm getting dizzy from looking at this map

Vlad123: The term Eastern isn't exclusive to Ukraine and Russia

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

the future of Europe

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History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


I am Polish, Monia, and very happy to be. But if there's one thing I sincerely dislike about Poles it's that constant need of some for getting patronising pats on the back from the West and being told "Well done,you've become so Western now". Why do we need to become Western? We are Eastern Europe, we are stigmatised by communism. That's who we are. Unless you see the value of who you are, no one else will see it. Cudze chwalicie, swego nie znacie - ciągle aktualne.


In what exactly are we backwards? I've lived in "the West" for years and I can't see in what way they are so forward comparing to us. They are just different. And richer as countries (not so much as individual people), but that's another story.

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

why no one seems to have noticed my map? I think it's great :D I find it particularly accurate...

Edit: Oh, thanks Legend ;)


I like the name Passive-Aggressive Kingdom though. Very apt

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


No offence Monia, but you're talking rubbish

When people say they are proud, I'm always tempted to ask: why? Because most people don't know the answer. "Poland is great, because I'm Polish" "England is great because I'm English" "Pakistan is great because I'm Pakistani" - that's the root of nationalism. I'm not proud, I don't think being Polish is something special or better than being anybody else. But I quite like being Polish :)

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


;)


Goodnight

History / Churchill and Poland [120]


you're such a softie, citizen67, if you think what you read on this forum is hatred for the British, there's much more hatred for the Polish on here and we don't cry, do we? And you think people in Poland hate Churchill? Seriously, they don't care about him enough to hate him. Just relax a bit and tame your imperial sense of self-importance

Travel / Completely random views of Poland, a co! [80]


noo, that's spooky! Just today I was thinking of him and listening to his songs :) That's of course obywatel Grzegorz Ciechowski

youtube.com/watch?v=69mH32dGOWA

Life / Polish sentimental ballads [38]

No, you cannot go now
You're taking the last water from me
I'm burning like ember

Merciless, fawn emptiness
I have cracked, dry lips
My kiss is blood

No, you cannot go now
When I'm all hunger
For your eyes, hands of yours
Tell me, tell me that you are going to stay
Before you take my air away
Before I go in for a big nothing

No, you cannot go now
I'm a red-hot ice
I'll do anything, just be
Stay, stay a little while, a moment
I'm burning, I'm burning
With cold fire of black suns

No, you cannot go now
Look at the leaves so young
Before the autumn rust and death
Please be on the bridge of goodbyes
Do not kill this love
Let it die in peace

Please be on the bridge of goodbyes
Do not kill this love
Let it die in peace

Let it die in peace

Hanna Banaszak
My father's favourite song :)



There is a wind, which slits the nostrils of a man;
There is a wind like that.
There is a frost, which turns man's jaw into marble;
There is a frost like that.
To me you're not a thyme or a rose
Nor "a romantic moment under the moon" -
But the dark wind,
But the white frost.

The title of this poem is Upojenie, which means Ecstasy or Intoxication, both accurate I reckon

Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]


I agree with that. Having lived in the UK one must find Poland rude. I find it rude now, lol :D But on the other side we don't tend to burp out loud as often, at least the women

History / What do Poles think about Turks? [761]


LOL Ranger, since when all women in Poland are "yours"? If you have a problem with your woman going out with a Turkish or other guy then first of all you should have a serious chat with your woman