That isn't his first French passport.
When was the first issued then?
I have no idea as to what Russian policy in the 1830s was with regard to giving passports to people born in what had recently become (in their eyes) part of the Russian empire.
How do you know he had a Russian passport then?
As for not bowing the knee - at least in the Austrian and German sectors, we saw Poles owning businesses, going to universities, etc etc. I believe they enjoyed relative freedom in the Austrian sector too - Lwów and Kraków certainly flourished under Austrian administration.
Oh, but Warsaw had sewers thanks to Russian partition! Did you know that?? Every Russian nationalist will tell you that! So Warsaw "flourished" too...
lol
Although there is a gradation, of course, the Austrian partition is seen as the best of the three partitions, then comes the German one and Russian is considered the worst.
Sure, TheOther, my forebears were farmers too, just living in the Russian partition. Most of them probably didn't experience any Russification either because... they didn't go to school. They couldn't read nor write.
I suspect they had good relations with neighbours too, although I don't know if any of them were Russians. I don't think Russians had the same policy as Germans - I'm talking about the Prussian Settlement Commission.
If you ask Poles about the PRL times they'll tell you they didn't have anything against Russians either, just against their state...
However, both Germanisation and Russification were historical facts.
And if those succeeded and Poland didn't regain independence there would be no Poland anymore and who knows, maybe there would be no Poles either. I know it wouldn't be a problem for you, delphiandomine, Harry, AdamKadmon, etc. But I am so happy they didn't succeed. I'm glad Poland remained Poland and Poles remained Poles. I'm even more happy about it when I read comments from people like you, delph and AdamKadmon :)
Sorry, I just had to share my joy ;) We've won in the end! :P Ain't that grand or what? ;)
Fits with the romantic ideals over pragmatism.
Pragmatism won in the end, of course. It was called "organic work". That's what every Polish kid learns at school. But how would you know that? You didn't go to Polish school :)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_work
The only uprisings that succeeded were those in the German partition, with the last one being:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Poland_Uprising_(1918%E2%80%9319)Or Slovenia, or Croatia, or many other countries that are new.
Poland isn't "new". It existed before the partitions.
Are we talking about the people or the country?
The lack of a country doesn't stop the history of the people from existing. Poland may have vanished from the map, but the people were still Polish.
Nationality isn't tied to the presence of a nation state.
Well, that's one way of looking at it. Still, in Polish schools we don't have seperate history textbooks titled "The histoy of Poland" and then "The history of Polish People" and then again - "The history of Poland" ;)
The Polish version of history is always correct?
The German/Western/Russian version of history is always correct? :)