Why Polish people should be proud of being Polish?

What are the territories that you mean exactly?

What?

Yet another 'Poland is great' type thread and anyone who raises doubts or questions some of the wildly optimistic and blinkered claims, and outright factual errors, is automatically branded anti-Polish?

Surely not.

Hop onto a tram and get off at Pl. Zamkowy. Go into the Zamek Krolewskie (free on Sundays) and have a look at the map on the throne room wall. It's huge - you can't miss it. Or to save time, just read this thread.

Yep, I voted in the elections last time round. I even spoiled my vote in the 2nd round of the mayoral election in the traditional British way rather than simply not go!


But we actually live in Poland, unlike you. Therefore, we're far more able to comment on Poland than someone who lives in some Polish-American ghetto where their idea of "Polishness' is to say pierogies, kielbasas and to pronounce their name entirely wrongly.

Then again, you'd quite like to censor everyone, wouldn't you? I mean, the Communists were evil for censoring things, but when it comes to your idea of democracy, censorship is perfectly fine and well. I call it Kaczynski-cracy - you can say what you want, as long as I approve of it. Thankfully, the vast majority of Polish people I know are the exact opposite.


I think it must appeal to the victim complex - even Poles are totally aware of this, yet they like to indulge in it. I guess it's their version of asylum seekers!


It's part of life here, it's amusing ;)

Poland just hasn't had time to get to the "oh bollocks, look what we did in the past" phase yet.

Strange that here it is the people who claim that they are Polish who (with one or two exceptions) don't choose to live here, have never paid taxes here, have taken foreign citizenship and have never done a single thing for Poland. Us non-Poles, however, choose to live here and pay taxes here and have done a lot for Poland.


My favourite is the day when they claimed to have shot down more planes than the Germans lost to the entire RAF combined!


He would be much happier if he did!


Yes, but at least he's nice enough to stay out of our country, so we must be grateful for that.

I don't think it is an honest answer. I even think that you try to avoid an answer in a nasty way. That's a great pity since until now I have had a high opinion of you and have respected you as a very honest man. But if you have decided to play another Harry on this forum, I am not expecting it an answer from you any longer and wish you all the best in your new role.

No nastiness intended - unfortunately you're the second person in the thread to ask the same question, which had been answered the day before. With people posting from different time zones, it can get a bit like Groundhog Day!

The map in question shows Polish territory stretching right down to the Black Sea coast. Not an overseas Empire, but expansionism nonetheless. I don't know why some people would deny that rather than be proud of it.

Should be rather Polish and ashamed.
There are many things in Poland which I don't like as well as many young people don't.
Note that "glorious history" of Poland is a matter of past and the thing which people should be proud of are the modern times... but I don't see many things to be proud of in modern times.

- schools sucks
- culture sucks
- quality of life sucks
- politics sucks

More I'm older more I'm dissapointed.

For instance I hate that there were no president of modern Poland that would not make an embarassing bloop.

Could be worse. We've got Cameron & Clegg :)


The pride-on-steroids trip one sees here from time to time is a bit of a distortion of reality, yes; but on the ground here in PL one tends to look beyond the dead-guys-with-big-moustaches view of cultural heritage, and what matters is the guy/girl on the street. Seriously: normal lives, normally lived - lots of great people around here, be proud of that.

Take a look in the mirror sometime. You'll like it.

I'm actually convinced that the Poland that the Polish-Americans and Kaczynskites see isn't the real Poland at all. All this talk of doom and gloom - where? Young people here seem remarkably upbeat and positive.

I've noticed that even in small towns, there's a degree of civic pride starting to happen.

To be fair, it's not entirely absent - especially on these dark winter afternoons out East.

puella's on the Light Side of the Force, though :)

It's amazing there are some on PF who elevate their physical presence in their truncated, miniscule post-PRL to the rank of some achievement or virtue. But so many of today's RPIII-dwellers are not only the chidlren and grandchildren of former PZPR members who were the mainstay of the treacherous Soviet-imposed system. How many of the PF's self-styled Jew-lovers are the descendants of those who joined and/or supported the communist anti-Semitic purge of 1968? And now the children and grandchidren of those PRL-ians are themselves betraying their own heritage by opting for everything foreign and imported rather than creating somethign original of their own. American-style bowling, fastfood and comptuer keyboards, foreign music and film hits, Japanese sushi bars, German cars, Korean TV set, etc. have all but displaced most everything indigenously Polish. It's all about emulation of alien patterns without any original Polish input or innovation. And how many of these ersatz stay-at-home 'patriots' are actually paid mercenaries who, despite their physical presence in RPIII, are in the employ of foreign corporations, banks and other companies which siphon off the profits to their home countries.

Admittedly, there are also traitors amongst Polonia, Pol-Ams who have turned their back on their heritage, changed their names from Bednarkiewicz to Cooper and sought to melt into American WASPdom. But luckily there are also those who not only say their are proud to be Polish but actively promote their heritage -- somewhat like missionaries spreading the good word.

You really haven't been back recently at all, have you? Stop writing these tiresome sophomore jeremiads and engage with real people who live here, not some statistical bloody abstraction.

So - when was the last time you actually visited Poland?

Don't avoid the question now.

I do find it hilarious that someone who rants so much about modern Poland is someone who -

A) Hasn't been here in years
B) Lives in America
C) uses a gazeta.pl e-mail address

If there ever was someone less qualified to comment on Poland, Polonius would be it.

But much less amazing than the fact that the people who bang on and on and on and on about Poland being the most amazing country in the world and Poles being the best at everything all choose to live outside Poland surrounded by people who are not Poles.

I guess that those of us who choose to live in Poland don't need to bang on about how Poland is the best place to live: we prove that we really do think that simply by living here.

What does physical presence have to do with anything? One can be a good inchtiologist without knowing how to swim. With today's net resources one can perform surgery half a world away from the parient and analyse every manner of phenomena occurring anywhere on the planet.

You evidently have a very low opinion of Poland.



'Nuff said


You as an American have all this and more - why do you snipe bitterly when Poles want the same? Perhaps you want them to live in some sort of museum, listening to Kasprzak radios, riding to work on horseback, eating only chleb z smalcem and watching only the films that you deem to be Polish enough for them.


Now you want to tell people who they should work for.
From your post, it really seems like you want Poland to be a cross between Belarus and nineteenth century China, cut off from the world, a people living in darkness. Ciemnogrod.

For the umpteenth time (and the fourth or fifth time in this thread), when did you last actually live in Poland? Even visit.

Your silence on this issue speaks volumes; you are quite clearly talking out of your arse.

Ay, and, indeed, men.


Quit with the f*cking sermonising already, you hypocrite. Are you really hankering for the times when a (usually Russian) TV set weighed 300 lbs, the valves burnt out every 3 months and the bloody thing was a fire hazard? The motherboard on the computer you use to tap out your delusional screeds - Polish, is it? And the car - how did you get the Syrenka to pass a US emissions test?

Get real or get lost, man.

Pretty well everything, unless you want to be called a back seat driver.


But you aren't performing surgery. You are telling people how to live their lives in a country it appears more and more that you've never lived in. Possibly never even been to.

So again, when were you last in Poland and for how long?

I've spent 11 years,a quarter of my life, there - what about you?

What a bs you write! You don't know anything about Poland. Please stop that nonsense...

To others: How about not wasting your time for pointless and not down-to-earth discussions? Why to feed troll?


I'm young and I'm downbeat and negative :)

You have a serious case of needing to get over yourself. The only reason you come out with all this pish is down to the fact you want Poland to still be like it was when you last visited, some 20 odd years ago.


Me too, but I'm Scottish :P

If you genuinely believed that Poland was the best place in the world to live, you would live here. Simple. Clearly you think that the USA is actually better than Poland: that is why you live there and not here.

So tell us, when was the last time that you visited Poland? Assuming of course that you have actually even been here.

Do you really think that he has ever visited Poland? What is more - do you really belive that Poland was ever like he describes her?? O_o

I believe he has had a fleeting visit to Poland but it was a long long time ago. Do I believe that Poland is like he describes? No, having lived there for a large part of my life I can say it's nothing like he describes. His views are backward.

He has no idea. Just visiting Poland doesn't give the big picture about living there. You just have a nice time, eat some food, meet with family, complain about some Polish things and go back home to your home overseas.

P3 and other have no idea about Poland and shouldn't be taken under consideration in discussions about that. Well, maybe they can talk about vacationing in Poland. Or share memories of old days. That's all.

To get back to the topic of the thread I'd like to say as a Polish-American the lives of normal people being normally lived in today's Poland do not really interest me in the least. The Poles I am most proud of are the artists. People like Witold Gombrowicz and Stanislaw Lem, both brilliant writers and both atheists (All Polish-Americans are not reactionaries, nor are they all religious fanatics. In fact out here in California many of us are members of the "Liberal Elite"). And of course the glorious history of Renaissance and Baroque Poland interests me but not because the Poles fought "heathens" but rather because the Poles had religious freedom in their exceptional commonwealth, and not because Poland was somehow culturally "pure" but because of the Poles' eclecticism in which, to give a couple examples, they freely adopted aspects of their dress from Asiatics and aspects of their architecture from Italians. I am also proud of the Polish reputation for bravery and drinking prowess, and I am also proud of the beauty of Polish women.

@Des - great post, man!

I second that!

With the rider that is is intriguing to see how that vision of Poland plays out today, to see how the various strands of society made up what we have now.

That's becaouse Ukraine (land&territory) was inherited by Poland as Kiev Rus had no heir left, while Lithuania allied herself with Poland and later made an union. After the constitution was created all those lands were "legally" Polands in terms as sucessor of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Remember that Piłsudski that wanted to restore the commonwealth tried to make "Intermerrum" but it was the National-Democrats that ruled Poland until 1926 when Piłsudski did what he did.

The National-Democrats wanted an Poland with Poles as dominant majority and enlarge the Polish middle class. No minority in Poland wanted that. Later presecutions (thinking of Ukrainians) were caused from "revenge" or making a stand like: Ey I actually control this place. None of the alleged actions was aimed as destroying the whole nation.

That's what is meant with Poland didn't go colonial. The ones having the largest urge of going east was "converted" Ruthianians/Ukrainians or "converted" Lithuanians as they wanted to enlarge their safety as far as possible from home. the "Crowners" (from Crown) in Polish, didn't worry THAT much about their eastern problem as their eastern counterparts.

Poland got her interesst in owning those land from having a "moral" or "legal" right to have them. moral as keeping them safe from eastern hordes (Russians/Soviets) as legal ive explained earlier in the post. Ofcourse there allways been an military thought behind it aswell. But now it's mostly gone to diplomacy.

This is ofcourse entierly different then what Western countries did to other parts of the world introducing slavery to them (in a much broader sense, in many parts slavery was there allready) While Poland-Lithuania aimed at making Cossacks into farmers and so on.

We're actually talking about centuries before that, but I see what you mean.


Many parts? All parts, in fact, at one time or another. Slavery in all its forms is nasty, though mostly it took the form of serfdom, abolished in (eatern) Poland by the Russians in order to weaken the Polish szlachta.