Life / Famous Polish people (that we have actually heard of) [231]

My type: Stefan Banach (read story about him and Lwow Mathematic School, Scotisch Cafe (Kawiarnia Szkocka) etc. It's totally fascinating!

About nationality of Kopernik vel Kopperniggk vel Coppernicus - his mother was definetely German (her name was Watzenrode), nationality of his father is not determined, but it is very possible that he was Pole - "koper" in Polish name for "dill". So it is quite possible that natively he was half Polish, half German. BUT - we have to remember that in Kopernik's times people didn't mind much about nationality, ethnicity etc. More important thing was which King was whose master. In written form Kopernik obviously was using Latin - lingua franca of medieval Europe (neither German nor Polish).

Another thing to mention: sientists living in Kopernik's times always described him as POLISH astronomer, so this is rather close the truth. Another thing to remember is that being Pole is not necessary to be Polish scientist. Joseph Conrad (pol. Teodor Józef Konrad Korzeniowski) was 100% of Polish origin, but he was NOT Polish writer - he was English writer, because he was writting in English, among English culture etc.

Life / Famous Polish people (that we have actually heard of) [231]

I agrre that now Nobel Price in the field of Literature is not worth anything. It's too much politics in it.

Life / Famous Polish people (that we have actually heard of) [231]


Name Barbara Watzenrode you can find in plenty of publications, in Wikipedia for example.

Life / Famous Polish people (that we have actually heard of) [231]

Puzzler: ok, so let's forget Wikipedia. If you read any biography of Kopernik you will find that lastname. Belive me, I am last person to agrue that Kpernik's mother was German because for me, as for the Pole, it would be even better if she was Polish ;D. But fact is a fact.

Could you give more info about book you mentioned?

Genealogy / I am 1/8 Polish on my mother's side - not Polish enough / Lithuania and Zmudz in Poland's ancestry [110]


You seems to be intelligent and well educated person, but IMO in this case, you are mixing several things and don't understand some. Compare Polish community in Kresy (now western Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania) to German one on former German land (now western Poland). Germans living there were Germans, similarly Poles living in the Kresy were Poles. They called themselves Poles, spoke Polish, were held within Polish culture, had Polish parents, etc.... After hundreds of years of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Poles were emigrating in the east and this fact didn't make Lithuanians of them.

About Mickiewicz: for me he did more bad things to Poles that good, so if Lithuanians want to take him, let them do it :D. We had more noble Poles and it's better to look among mathematicians and engineers rather than poets.

About you: YES, some of your ancestors were Polish (I know it hurts in contemporary Putin-rulled Russia). Remember not to tell it to anybody, it's dangerous for your teeth ;).