UK, Ireland / British people more intelligent than the Poles? [53]

Brits are brainy, but not as brainy as the Poles, according to Professor Richard Lynn of the University of Ulster.

Average adult IQ in Europe:

1. Germany and the Netherlands: 107
2. Poland: 106
3. Sweden: 104
4. Italy: 102
5. Austria and Switzerland: 101
6. Britain: 100
...France and Romania: 94
...Serbia (lowest): 89

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-381057/European-IQ-map-proves-Brits-brain y.html

Lynn published his research in 2006 and didn't take into account a large influx of Poles to Britain. The question is: has the influx od brainy Poles improved the British IQ score or not?

Language / Mushroom: pieczarka vs grzyb [24]

Zupa pieczarkowa is usually made from cultivated agaricus mushrooms. Zupa grzybowa is usually made from wild mushrooms. Every pieczarkowa is grzybowa, but not every grzybowa is pieczarkowa.

UK, Ireland / British people more intelligent than the Poles? [53]

Since you know the answer, why do you ask the question?

Genealogy / Mongolian the Golden Horde - do Poles have Mongolian ancestry? [256]

Mongolian admixture in Poland is a myth: polishgenes.blogspot.com/2013/03/no-mongolian-admixture-in-poland.html

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]

@ Vlad:

-->Which Polish towns/villages those students are from and why did they choose to study in Ukraine?
Does Poland even recognize Ukrainian diplomas?

Ukrainian diplomas are recognized by Poland and vice versa by governmental agreements. 600 Poles study in Lviv alone. Main reason: money, nice city and people. 6000 Ukrainians study in Poland and their number tripled in the last few years. Quarter of all foreign students in Poland are from Ukraine. Source:

..w.edukacjawpolsce.pl/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=arti cle&sid=604

As to similarities and differences between Russians and Poles, I'd put them this way:

1. Genetically, Poles and especially south Russians are very close, almost identical. North Russians are more Finnic.
2. Linguistically, Polish and Russian languages are very close. If you wrote Russian in Polish alphabet, most Poles would understand it easily (say 80% of it) without prior knowledge of Russian. However, a Pole who never studied Russian would likely not understand spoken Russian easily because of different melody, accents, etc.

3. The biggest differences are cultural (Rome versus Bizantium thing) and political (Polish democracy and distrast of all governmental powers versus Russian permanent experience of absolutist, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes only.

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]


Don't have scientific sources at hand to answer you. But the differences among Poles are not as great as between south and north Russians. Poles are pretty much mixed up. But because of ethnic cleansing one may guess that western Poles (originally from eastern Poland) are the closest to south Russians. North-east Poles are closer to Balts (extinct Old Prussians). North Poles are closer to Scandinavians, Germans, Dutch, Scots. Incidentally, neolithic Swedes were closer to present day Poles than to present day Swedes. Vikings were latecomers to Scandinavia, just as Russians were latecomers to North Russia.

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]


Maybe. Maybe I'm biased because I studied Russian in school. I can no longer speak it, but I can read Russian newspapers without much difficulty. I gave you a link to a text in Polish. Can you read it?

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]


Poles are not close to Italians, but are close to Hungarians and even Austrians. This is because Hungarians and Austrians are to a large degree magyarized and germanized Slavs.

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]


The link stopped working. Sorry. How about Pan Tadeusz by Mickiewicz, the best known book in Polish:

Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie.
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie,
Kto cię stracił. Dziś piękność twą w całej ozdobie
Widzę i opisuję, bo tęsknię po tobie.

Литва! О родина! Ты — как здоровье. Тот
Тебя воистину оценит и поймет,
Кто потерял тебя. Теперь живописую
Тебя во всей красе, затем, что я тоскую.

Isn't it more than 60% similar. 70%?

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]


I agree. Genetic research is useful in explaining migrations in prehistory. Today, genetic closeness of nations is meaningless. There are no pure races or ethnic groups in Europe or Americas. To whom are Americans genetically close? As a nation of immigrants - to everyone.

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]

I read Polish newspapers and I watch Polish films and I have never encountered anything of this sort. Any examples? Poles don't like Russia as a state, but have nothing against Russians. The only problem that Poles have with Ukraine is Ukrainian nationalism of the Bandera sort and that's it.


I have never met a Pole claiming that Polish people are Germanics. It's absurd. Don't base your opinions on some comments by trolls on this or other forums. Most commentators here are not Polish. Not that it matters because some trolls here are Polish, and some foreigners who live in Poland and comment here have pretty good understanding of Poles and Poland.


Poland is the best friend Ukraine has got in Europe today. It's in Polish geopolitical interest that Ukraine is a democratic and sovereign country as close to the European Union as possible. Ukraine back in Russian hands is a Polish nightmare.

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]

@ Vlad:

Sorry, but you've got it all wrong. The films are by Jerzy Hoffman, the most pro-Ukrainian film director in Poland. His wife is Ukrainian, by the way. In With Fire and Sward, Hoffman portrays Polish lords savagely raping Ukraine. The film was very well received in Ukraine. In Battle of Warsaw 1920, he's anti-bolshevik, not anti-Russian. He also made Ukraine - The Birth of a Nation in 2008, a long and well-researched documentary based on Kuchma's book Ukraine is not Russia.

In the link "Polish radio hosts fired after insulting Ukrainian women" the point is he got fired. Insulting immigrants is common in Europe. Poles are constantly insultet by anti-immigration British press and no one gets fired. What else is new?

There are probably as many videos of Polish drunkards as Russian drunkards on youtube. Etc. Etc.


I think you're wrong, but not completely wrong. Ukraine is key to Putin's imperial ambitions. He can't rebuild the Russian Empire without Ukraine. However, Ukraine's constant problem is its inability to create a strong state. Historically, the coutry was a playground of stronger powers: Russia, Turkey, Poland. After gaining independence, Ukraine remains a weak state for two reasons. Economically, it's 3 times as poor as Russia and Poland and so it lacks economic influence. While Poland and Russia have political traditions of clearly defined national interests with which the political classes and the people can agree on Ukraine lacks such tradition and its politicians and the people still can't work out what Ukraine's interests are. Are they in the West, in the East or in between and how? I'm afraid nothing will change in Ukraine soon because Ukrainians are divided along cultural and political lines and they don't know what they want as one nation.

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]

@ Vlad:

The film With Fire and Sward is based on a historical fiction novel by Sienkiewicz. The book was designed as a pro-Polish propaganda enertainment to keep Polish spirits up when Poland was not on the map of Europe. In the book Poles are always the good guys and everybody else the bad guys, including Ukrainians. What Hoffman did he removed some of that bias and also showed the Ukrainian perspective. Most historical narratives are biased and so you will always have Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Soviets, Jews looking differently at Kmelnytsky uprising. Check this out:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohdan_Khmelnytsky#Khmelnytsky_in_Ukrainian_history


That's not correct. Wiśniowiecki is portayed as a brute burning Ukrainian villages. On the other hand, the film does not portray Polish and Jewish suffering to such extent, as far as I remember. Polish and Jewish losses were huge.


Because some of them were. They murdered tens of thousands of Poles and Jews.

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]


I'm pessimistic. There are two ways to unite a nation. One is to have a strong political and intellectual elite which, despite differences among themselves, can unite behind a common national interest and influence the people behind that cause. You don't have that and it takes generations to produce such elite. The other is to have a dictator like Lukashenko or Putin impose their own vision of a state, crushing all opposition to it along the way. I don't think you'd like a dictator, and you haven't created a strong and united intelligentia on a state-building mission yet. So it seems Ukraine is permanently doomed to what it is now: a failed state up for grabs. Sorry to say.

Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]


There are some estimates based on historical research in Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising#Casualties


You can't erase history and you can't falsify history for long. If you want national reconciliation, it has to be based on truth, not on myths. Katyń, about Soviet crimes, was an important film for both Poles and Russians. A recent Polish film Pokłosie, about Polish crimes agains Jews, was important for Poles and Jews. I'd love to see a good film, true to history, about Kmelnytsky uprising, Volhynian slaughter of Poles (and Ukrainians) or Akcja Wisła, about ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians by Poles.


Mostly private money. The Polish goverment does not produce any fictional movies, but it supports cinematography to a small degree.


I don't believe in friendship between nations and between states. States have interests, not friends, and nations are abstractions devoid of human emotions. But film about friendship between a specific Ukrainian and a specific Pole, why not, if interesting as a film.


I don't know, but I think I understand your way of thinking. You'd rather get rid of bad history (forget it) and concentrate on building good relations based only on what's going on in the present. I don't think it's possible because history is alive in the heads of Ukrainians and Poles. And you can't stop teaching history because without history there is no identity. Without identity (national identity) there is no state. So the state has to teach history to perpetuate itself. Without Ukrainian history there would bo no Ukrainians and consequently no Ukraine as their nation-state. Acknowledging bad history and dealing with it honestly does not have to be an obstacle. Look at Germans who have dealt with their nasty history frankly and openly and now have the strongest state in Europe. Compared to Germans, Poles still have a long way to go in honest dealing with their history. But a lot shorter than Ukrainians :-)

Genealogy / Do you think all Slavs are white? [178]

Slavs are people speaking slavic languages. It's principally a linguistic characterization, not ethnic or racial.

History / What do Polish people think about Greeks ? [18]

Is it reasonable to ask what 38 million people think of 11 million people or what 11 million people think of 38 million people? No. But I can tell you what I think of Greek feta cheese. I like it.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]

KAMROWSKI: the ending "wski" suggests a toponimic name, however, on the list of all Polish localities nothing comes close to the root "Kamr" like "Kamry", Kamrów", etc. According to this site

stankiewicze.com/index.php?kat=44&sub=541

your name comes from German personal name Kamer, Kammer, Kammeres - from Old German word "kammerer", which means "chamberlain" or a person in charge of the noble houshold. See here:

houseofnames.com/kamer-family-crest

Of the same origin are similar Polish names such as Kamrański, Kamrek, Kamrańczyk, Kamraj, Kamracki, Kamraczewski. Kamrowski would mean a son of Kamer.

There are 649 people named Kamrowski in Poland, living mostly south of Gdańsk aka Danzig. See here:

moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/kamrowski.html

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]

Volnick..or Wolnich: In proper Polish these names are written Wolnik and Wolnicz. Both come from "wolny" or "free". The ending "nik" and "(n)(w)icz" mean "son of wolny". "Nik" is more popular in southern Poland, "icz" in eastern. 1848 people in Poland are named Wolnik and 16 Wolnicz.

Work / Salary and cost of living information - Krakow [257]

5000 zl before taxes is OK to live comfortably in Krakow. Small apartments rent for less than 2000, see here:

dom.gratka.pl/mieszkania/krakow/wynajem

Nice city, good night life, etc.. I say, go for it.

Study / Review of the Poznan University of Economics? [18]


I don't agree. In the USA for example, a degree from a Polish state university can be valued more than from an American university. Polish matura is commonly recognized as equivalent to 2 years of American college. 3 years from the Jagiellonian University gets you easily accepted to any Ph.D. program as a transfer student. With a M.A. from the University of Warsaw you probably have a better chance of getting to Harvard Law School than with a B.A. from Harvard. Polish public universities are very good at teaching, and that is recognized worldwide. However, on the lists of best universities Polish schools don't do well for two reasons. They don't help you find a job. Secondly, Polish professors work in a lazy system which does not force them to "publish or perish", so they don't publish, are not quoted in scientific papers, which lowers the scores of Polish schools. They are not prolific scientists, but good academic teachers. There are thousands of Poles with Polish degrees teaching in American Universities.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]

Światłowski, from światło (light) or a village with such root word. Today, 611 people in Poland are named Światłowski. The name sounds Polish, but anyone could use it: a Catholic, Jew, Protestant, agnostic, Armenian, Tartat.

Lazaruk (4 in Poland) or £azaruk (119), from Hebrew Eliza, Latinized to Lazarus, then Polonized to Lazaruk, £azaruk. Planty of similar sounding names. The name first documented in the 13 century. Same story: anyone could use it.

Note that Jews in Poland traditionally used only one name. In court documents of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a patronimic could be added to distinguish Izaak son of Dawid (Izaak Dawidowicz) from Izaak son of Abraham (Izaak Abrahamowicz) or Izaak from Kraków (Izaak Krakowski) from Izaak from Tarnów (Izaak Tarnowski). Only after the partition of Poland Jews were forced to use a second name (19 century) by Austria, Prusssia and Russia. Austrian soldiers forced Jews in Galicia (stretching from Kraków to Lwów) to buy Germanized names from preselected lists of names. Nice sounding names were purposely expensive. Ridiculous sounding names (to the Austrian soldiers) - such as Bloomberg, Rosenblatt, etc. - were the cheapest. This is the reason why so many Polish Jews have German names, and not because they had them when they migrated to Poland from Germany centurier earlier.

Life / Living Costs and life in Poznan? [70]


1. Poles eat the most fruits and vegetables in Europe, so there's planty to choose from for vegetarian dishes.

2. Food in Poland is the least expensive in EU (61% of the EU average, according to Eurostat).

History / History of Poland in a pill - illustrated [37]


A good history of the Polish state. Let's try a history of the Polish Nation, which is quite different:

1. Baptism. Mieszko, a tribal duke of unknown ethnicity, forces baptism onto his tribe of uknown name (there is no scientific proof that Polanie ever existed in western Poland). No Polish Nation at that time.

2. Kings and queens. The beginning of the Polish Nation. Some knights begin to think of themselves in broader terms than feudal lords and tribal leaders - as Poles. Most kings and queens are not Polish, but are chosen by Polish knights to rule over the domain. Only the knights (probably less than 1% of the population) belong to the Polish Nation.

3. Golden Age. Rapid growth of the Polish Nation. It now consists exclusively of szlachta - about 8% of all inhabitants of the Commonwealth. 92% of the population are non-Poles. Peasants, Jews, city dwellers are not considered Poles or Polish in any way. The Polish Nation is not ethnic as many of the nobles are not ethnic Poles in contemporaty sense.

4. Decline. The Polish Nation (szlachta) goes nuts. It introduces liberum veto which makes it difficult to collect taxes, reform and defend the state. It elects as king a Swede who starts wars with Sweden (the Deluge).

5. Partitions. The Polish Nation still consists of 8% of the population. The Constitution of May 3 tries to expand the Polish Nation, introduce taxation of szlachta and raise an army, but it's too late.

6. Risings. Rapid decline of the Polish Nation. The partitioning powers take away szlachta's privilages reducing its numbers to about 4% of the population. Decapitated szlachta tries to regain privilages and state sovereignty in 2 uprisings. 96% of the population, however, does not join the remnants of szlachta in uprisings.

7. Resurrection. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century the remnants of szlachta evolve into Polish intelligentsia. The abolition of serfdom and free education for peasants creates Poles out of peasants. Peasants stop thinking of themselves as local serfs and discover they are free Poles just like szlachta used to be. Polishness is understood now ethnically. The Polish Nation was thus created little more than 100 years ago.

8. World wars. The newly created ethnic Polish Nation regains sovereignty after World War I. However, over 30% of the population is ethnically non-Polish. The new concept of the Polish Nation arises: all citizens of Poland belong to the Polish Nation (despite attempts of Dmowski and nationalists who prefered ethnic concept of Polishness).

9. Communism. German Holocaust and Soviet ethnic cleansing create Poland practically without ethnic minorities for the first time in Polish history. The Polish Nation is a political nation and at the same time an ethnic nation.

10 EU. Poland loses 2 million citizens who prefer a better place to live. Since 2007, 2500 schools were closed in Poland due to lack of students.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]

Orlenkowicz: From the city of Orleans, France, or a type of light woolen fabrics made in that city and exported to Poland. Possibly, your ancestor was a marchant/vendor of such fabrics or an emmigrant from Orleans (Orlean in Polish). The ending "wicz" means "son of" and is typical of the eastern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth called Kresy. Only 2 people in Poland have this name today. But there are many similar names, sounding Polish-Ukrainian: Orleniuk, Orlenko, Orlenkiewicz, Orleński.

Genealogy / Trying to find Kellis (Keiles) family from Semiatyche (Siemiatycze), Poland [15]


Most likely the name was spelled Kejles as this commemorative plaque to the Jews of Siemiatycze suggests:



It reads: "Here lie the mortal remains of innocent victims murdered by Hitlerite butchers in the year 1942 in the city of Siemiatycze / of children, women, men and the old / 70 people in all / among them Efraim Kejles / Abram Ekstrak / Mejta Lew and others / Remained alive in deep sorrow and conducted the exhumation Joshua Kejles / Honored be their memory

Plenty of info about the Jews of Siemiatycze, for example photos - check Google

History / What does "the second Apocalypse" mean? WW2? [5]


=Poland under Martial Law


=USA and UK betrayed Poland after World War II

Genealogy / Are Poles mixed with Mongols, Turks, and Tatars? [19]

Contrary to popular myths, recent genetic studies show that Poles as well as Russians have no significant Mongolian or Turkic admixture:

polishgenes.blogspot.com/2013/03/no-mongolian-admixture-in-poland.html

Genealogy / POLISH NOBILITY NAMES IN -SKIi [82]

NOKIELSKI: likely toponimic origin from several villages or the city of Nakło nad Notecią (Nakło on the river Noteć). Nokielski is someone from Nakło. Nakło means a turn of the river in old Polish. 117 men in Poland are named Nokielski and 123 women are named Nokielska (female version of Nokielski).

As you can see most live in Silesian and Opole Voivodeships. Several villages in that area are called Nakło:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nak%C5%82o_(disambiguation)

This suggests that your name is most likely associated with one of those villages, and not with the city of Nakło nad Notecią.

Life / The Polish work ethic - or the lack of it [23]

Average annual hours actually worked per worker (2012):

Poland: 1929
UK: 1654
France: 1479
Germany: 1397
Netherlands: 1381

Seems like Poles deserve more time off whenever they can get it.

stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ANHRS