Life / Is the word "Polack"rascist? [185]


Isn't Lah the Ruthenian word for a member of the Szlachta? In Sienkiewicz's Trilogy the Tartars and Turks refer to Poland as "Lahistan".

History / Poland during the Renaissance [146]


If one stipulates having had the classics in antiquity as necessary as a necessary condition for renaissance then all of Northern Europe is disqualified, but I think being versed in Greek or Latin and reading the classics and creating writings and speech inspired by them, or enjoying classically inspired visual arts and creating art in their vein, does indeed constitute a rebirth regardless of how much contact one's ancestors had with the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.

History / Poland during the Renaissance [146]


Rich patrons paying hundreds of court painters is precisely what the Renaissance was all about. As for "the thriving middle and trade classes" that were present elsewhere in Europe these little thrifty people had no real classical style when compared to the free and fierce Polish szlachta of the time, and the Renaissance was all about regaining the grand style of the ancients. Indeed when one talks about the rebirth that was the Renaissance, Poland is politically exemplarily because it was a grand aristocracy without an autocrat in the mode of republican Rome.

History / Poland during the Renaissance [146]

It seems our British interlocutors are a bit confused about what participation in the Renaissance means. Judging participation merely by the amount of "things" produced such as paintings or buildings is a truncated criterion, but an understandable mistake from those with a petty bourgeois attachment to things that can be bought and sold. The Polish gentry of the Renaissance lived lives in the mode of the proud patricians of the Roman Republic. In lives lived Poland was the embodiment of the Renaissance.

News / US air base to be in Poland [193]

As long as American foreign policy remains enthralled to Zionism Poland would do well to reject this proposed base. As for Poland being a "3rd world country" perhaps a bit of history regarding the Three World paradigm is in order. The First World comprised the capitalist democracies of Western Europe and North America. The Second World comprised the industrialized countries under Soviet domination and the Third World was everyone else. Poland was a member of the Second World, but the Three World paradigm has been obsolete since the fall of the Soviet Union.

History / When will Russia and Germany return the things they took from the Polish in Poland ? [49]


This is incorrect regarding California. We are happily multicultural here with no tradition of lynching and the few racists we have are social pariahs outside of their little circles.

History / When will Russia and Germany return the things they took from the Polish in Poland ? [49]


I wonder if any polls exist that measure the level of racism of amongst Polonia in our most populous areas like Chicago, Buffalo, etc. I don't live in such an area but my family who do live in one, Detroit, have never seemed overtly racist to me.

History / When will Russia and Germany return the things they took from the Polish in Poland ? [49]

That is a very informative link Softsong. I didn't know that their was a major center of Polonia in Sacramento. One of my University pals is from that area and he has a Polish mother. His family let the band Sublime stay with them when they were touring the area and if you've ever heard the album "Forty Ounces To Freedom" the special thanks they offer in one song to "Mrs. J." is to her.

News / Poland in the 'brave new world'? [10]

Friedman's ridiculous prediction of a Mexican reconquista of the Southwestern United States could contribute to the anti-Latino sentiments already being drummed up by racist demagogues should his prognosticating become renown amongst American idiots.

UK, Ireland / UK: How to create a perfect scapegoat? [54]


Is this really a necessary condition to gain British citizenship? If so how does one go about showing it? By sending her a nice card, or buying her a present, or does a British secret service agent telephone the prospective citizen and pose as a monarch from another country, like Juan Carlos of Spain, and say mean stuff about Liz to see if the prospective citizen objects?

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?

Life / Differences in Polish, American and British mentality [237]


You shouldn't make spurious generalizations about millions of people based on the remarks of some of the few Polish-Americans that post on this forum.

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]


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

News / Victory in 'anti-Polish camps' campaign in US [170]

I am a Polish-American member of the Green Party and I despise both the obnoxious idiots that generalize about Polish-Americans' political leanings on this forum as well as the Polish-American reactionary idiots who spout their racist crap on this forum. A pox on both your houses. I came to this forum to learn about my ancestral homeland, not to be disappointed by my peers, nor to be stereotyped by twits.

News / Victory in 'anti-Polish camps' campaign in US [170]

Regarding the thread topic I would hardly call the removal of the word "Polish" from "Deathcamps" as a victory, because Poland will still be thought of as an anti-Semitic place, because it is in the interests of Zionist elements in the media to continually portray it that way. It rationalizes their crimes in Palestine because their former homeland was so cruel to them.

History / What nation do Poles feel closer to? [74]

I remember Czesław Miłosz writing somewhere that the two nations Poles have the most affection for are the Serbs and the Hungarians, so my guess is the Magyars.

History / What nation do Poles feel closer to? [74]


Attila was an actual Hun, the Magyars arrived in Hungary several centuries after than him.

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.

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]


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 / 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."

Language / Polish nationality insults in Polish? [67]

Do the Poles still call the Lithuanians "greybacks" because of their homespun wool garments, or "beet eaters" because of that root's prominence in their diet, or have these appellations become extinct?

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 / 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]


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]


My niece attends a rather hippy-ish private primary school here in California and it bans pirate costumes from its Halloween celebrations because pirates still exist, especially in South-East Asian waters, and they are brutal murderers.

History / Polish pirates [58]


The school my niece attends bans all toy guns and once one little boy was even sent home for the day because he pretended a bent stick was a gun and "shot" at his classmates!

Life / Polish mentality-three fishermen [7]


I like them too but not because I find them at all funny, but rather because as a boy when I found out about them I was horrified to find that I was supposed to be stupid and so from then on I made an effort to always pay attention in school and to read a lot of books so that no one would be able make Polish jokes at my expense. I wouldn't say that Polish jokes are entirely responsible for making me a scholar but they sure helped. Once a young woman impressed by my learning asked about my ethnicity and when I told her I was Polish she told me that the valedictorian at her high school was too, and that she believed Polish jokes exist not because Polish people tend to be stupid but rather because Polish people tend to be brilliant and the jokes are thus merely wishful thinking on the part of jealous non-Polish dummies.

News / POLES FEEL LIKE JEWS HAVE TOO MUCH CONTROL IN POLAND - TRUE? [209]


I agree that Nietzsche was very wise but his family's belief in their noble Polish roots has been made highly suspect by genealogical researchers. The surname "Nietzsche" is not a Polish surname and it is the paternal side of his family that is supposed to have hailed from Poland. The family legend claimed that they had been szlachta that had adopted Lutheranism and then left Poland because they were persecuted for it. It is true that much of the szlachta did convert to Protestantism during the Reformation but almost all these families returned to Catholicism during the Counter-Reformation so perhaps some level of persecution could've occurred. Nietzsche's father as well as his paternal grand-father and great-grandfather had been Lutheran pastors, but older generations Nietzsche's paternal line had all been butchers. So for Nietzsche's family legend to be true then the following unlikely scenario must be true: That a noble Polish family moved to Swabia, because of their Lutheranism, and then took up the lowly trade of butcher for several generations before becoming Lutheran clergymen. I do however agree that Nietzsche's philosophy is Polish in spirit and so perhaps his atavistic claims may actually be true.