Why Polish people should be proud of being Polish?

What the hell are you talking about??

The sadly vast amount of racism on this forum and elsewhere from Polish-Americans :(

You are an idiot, a prickly one too, not least because Poland is as guilty of colonialism as their neighbours. Hop on a tram to the Royal Castle and have a look at the old map on the throne room wall.

What's the point?

Not far back in time it was a great source of pride to actually have an empire!
The Brits still harp back to those good 'ol times...And Germany too was once a good deal
larger, so was Spain, France and yes, Poland too...so were the times, either you feasted on your neighbours (and other continents) or they did feast on you.

Never having gained more land through war ever is...what actually? An admission of being a weakling always??? ;)

Religion on the other hand is for sure no source of pride...but then...I'm a heathen! :)

A fight for territory is not quite the same as colonialism (often combined with extermination of the natives)

Exactly! And the Black Sea coast wasn't something Poland ever needed or was forced to fight for.


More a missed opportunity or a lack of ambition. Poland had neither.

I can acknowledge that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did mistreat Ruthenia, but your claim that the Poles are somehow guilty of the sort of imperial colonialism exercised by Western European states in the 19th and 20th centuries remains ridiculous and you have now also shown yourself to be a mannerless cad.

As far as I gathered did Poland had it's time in the sun once too...during the commonwealth? No?
Poland had been quite big in Europe back then...

Exactly that! From the Baltic to the Black Sea. But for some it's more fun to play the eternal victim than cherish a brief moment of glory.

Remind us, how did Poland treat the minorities in the annexed territories during the inter-war period?

You must have studied history from books made in the Third Reich

They are 'guilty' of the sort of imperial colonialism carried out by the partitioning powers. They just did it earlier, when they had the chance to. But you know that anyway.

Heh:)

I have learned about Polands glory past from Poles themselves...here at this board!
I doubt they needed Nazi-school books for that...

Quite. One day we hear on this forum that Poland was a great European power, from sea to sea, the next day we hear the opposite, that they never conquered anyone.

Said the biggest troll, racist and a scumbag. No educated, rational reader would ever believe in single claim you post. I know, it's apparently your job...keep making a fool of yourself.

[quote=SeanBM]I just don't get you, why do you have to start off with xenophobic slurs[/quote
So, delphia can, Polonius can not? They are a good fit! Everybody needs a good laugh.

What's that got to do with Polish Americans?? Call them Polish Forums Americans but to imply that Polish Americans are racist based on what you see here is just nonsensical. Half the "Poles" here could be Germans or Russians or just teenagers trying to stir things up. Sure, there are a few Jew haters and some haters of Blacks and other minorities on this forum but that's it, a tiny minority of an internet message forum; it has nothing, zero, nada to do with Polish Americans.

According to your logic the American Indians are guilty of extermination of Europeans and Black Africans are guilty of making the white people slaves because sure they WOULD HAVE done it if they'd had the opportunity


I'm sure they didn't tell you we lack ambition ;)

Maybe if you read the whole post before stupidly mouthing off, you'd make a bit more sense. 'According to my logic', the Poles were just as imperialistic as their neighbours, because when they had the chance they took it, and ruled by force from the Baltic to the Black Sea.


Well yes. For centuries there were slave raids from Africa to Europe, as far as Britain and Ireland. Do stick to things you know about.

You see Delphie and Harry have inferiority complexes, they've watched "West Side Story" so many times as kids and dreamed of one day coming to America, yet that day never came.....

Ah, that's it then. It's gotta be it. The childhood scars...There are pills for that, aren't there? :)

Of course yes! If I'd been born to A.Hitler's family with A.Hitler's genes and experiences it is out of doubt I would have been Adolf Hitler. Yet we don't judge people (nations) for what they'd have done. Poland did not have colonies and whether it would've had or wouldn't have had them is a pointless discussion. The fact that Poland was expansive and during some periods the Polish teritory was larger than it is now does not equal colonialism.

Read all of the post before trying to argue about it.


Do you think those folks down on the Black Sea coast would agree with you?

EXACTLY.

Over half of the people on the PolishForum ARE NOT of Polish ancestry.

Many people here portray themselves to have identities that are false. There are people here who say they are Polish and then say outrageous things to character assassinate Polish people.

For example, without giving names, I have seen some "Polish people" here make ridiculing and back handed remarks about Polish people, but THEN all of a sudden they become "Polish Patriots" (or have "Polish patriot" sympathies) when it comes to criticizing certain other groups or pushing certain topics.

That sounds exactly like the Poles I know - very self depreciating about Poland, but if anyone else criticises Poland, they instantly become patriots. It's somewhat of a national trait - but then again, you wouldn't know this because YOU DON'T LIVE HERE.


Unlike you, we actually moved to Poland and stayed. On the other hand, you ran away to America with your equally traitorous parents just because life was a bit tough here. Cowards.

When I saw the title of this thread I thought Polonius3 had finally come out

No, definitely no dubious annexations of territory in the past.

And Poland most definitely did not invade Lithuania or Czechoslovakia.

Without wishing to get into a moral debate, isn't the lower divorce rate largely due to social, peer and religious pressure put on (predominantly) women to remain in a bad relationship regardless of their own wishes? I know this partly from the experience of my Polish partner. What is there to be proud of in an aspect of society which pressures women to continue living in misery with a violent drunkard, using religion as a weak excuse for turning a blind eye to their predicament? And surely the statistics for abortion are again down more to similar pressures already mentioned as well as legal obstacles rather than Polish people being inherently more moral thus making Poland a country to be proud of. I think perhaps you might be surprised how many Polish women/girls travel abroad for abortions, numbers that won't appear in Polish statistics.


I think you'll find that it has since been shown that Polish claims were somewhat exaggerated. However we Brits are genuinely grateful for what the Poles, Czechs, Americans, free-French and numerous other nationalities contributed willingly to the war effort. And yes, we were defending our own homeland but Poles (and others) were fighting to regain the homelands they's lost to the Nazis so the motivation was fairly evenly spread I'd say.

Poles do have much to be proud of and many of them have admirable character traits. I'm not being anti-Polish but perhaps looking at your country through rose-tinted glasses doesn't allow you to make objective observations and comparisons.

By the way, I'm probably the first to admit to my own country's failings but I don't have enough time or space to go into that now........

uuuuchhh..........yet another thread of poles trying to think up what poland is....or was good at. are you guys that self conscious? does the general opinions of others affect you THAT badly?

yes....yes of course....Poland is a REAL country, CENTRAL Europe, in the EU.....yes yes......we get it.

There's nothing contradictory in these two statements. The vast territories in the east had not been conquered, but came to be known as 'Poland' through a series of union acts with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the most latest of them, in Lublin in 1569, it was agreed [peacefully] that the lands of Ukraine and Podlachia would thereupon be attached to the Kingdom of Poland, so the Duchy shrinked to the territory of the present Lithuania and Belarus. It was stated that the Kingdom and the Duchy would continue as one commonwealth, each state within it having separate army, treasury, justice and administration, but with a common parliament, the Seym, and a common monarch, the king of Poland and the grand duke of Lithuania.

Some of them, yes.


I remember back in the 80s there was a fairly short lived TV show in the UK called 'Do they mean us', showing foreign TV news reports about Britain, mostly for humorous reasons and with quite a witty commentary. It was of passing interest and no more. In Poland however, such things are a staple of the media and not a week goes by without reports of what "foreigners think of us". Usually with a hefty dose of outrage thrown in.


How dare you, Sir! It is a mythical ethnic Shangri-La, where rosy-cheeked maidens live in idyllic villages, rolling out pierogi dough and bleeding ducks dry all day, where noble moustachioed cavalrymen strut proudly with their sabres and the cities are full of turd-free parks surrounding grafitti-free buildings and delightful central European cafes where catholic intellectuals chat over tea and faworki, before returning to their p1ss-free apartment buildings to say the rosary and parcel up old clothes for their kinfolk trapped in exile in the US.


We're actually talking about the "vast territories" in the south.


So when did you last live in Poland? You've been asked often and your reluctance to answer is suspicious to say the least.
In the absence of an answer, what should we conclude?