Posted on 03/18/2014 9:10:05 PM PDT by varmintman
Why do Poles dislike the Russian govt? Let’s see: Ivan IV, Catherine the Great, the partitions, Tsarist crushing of the various Polish powstanie (uprisings), 1920’s Polish-Soviet war, 1939’s back-stabbing, Katyn, the mass deportations of poles to Siberia 1939-1941, then 1944, then more deportations, then Stalinism, etc. etc.
As I mentioned before, what if Pilsudski, a man Hitler greatly admired, survived?
I think when the Nazis took power, Hitler actually did see the Poles as a potential ally against the Soviets, I could have seen Hitler making a deal with Poland to get a share of lands in the East, in exchange for returning Danzig and The Corridor. Would Pilsudski have taken the deal?
Dmowski, however hated Germans as much as he hated Jews, and obviously this probably went a long way to changing Hitler’s views of Poland.
And Hitler was pissed after Munich 1938....he was desperate to get his military in a shooting war to get them experience in Czechoslovakia, but he didn’t expect Chamberlain to make the concessions he did, but still Hitler was not happy about it.
He wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Poland, no matter what, he was going to keep moving the goalposts until there was no way Britain could possible accept his terms.
Piłsudski's inclusive idea of a multi-ethnic state was the right way to go and would have been a grand buffer between Germania and Moscow
He had also toyed with the idea of a pre-emptive strike in the 30s.
An inspiring man -- if he had survived, perhaps, just perhaps, WWII would not have happened and the map of Europe would be quite different.
Dmowski’s idea that it was better to cosy up to Russia was not sensible. His policy of pushing polonization on non-Poles was thankfully nipped by Pilskudski, but it served to make the minorities suspicious. What a fool.
Thanks. But this is an interesting discussion with valid views from different people. We can all learn more by listening or debating with the other. We may not agree, but tossing out names is not going to help us get the other to agree
There is a very strong Communist Party in Romania and it has a lot of followers who look to the past as “good times”. Don’t ever think that they won’t throw their support to Russia when it comes to “crunch time”.
Communists support communists no matter where they are, be it in the White House or th Kremlin.
More likely they diverged. There was at one time a general Slavic language that sometime around the 6th century developed into three distinct subgroups. The Western Slav (Czech, Polish), the Southern Slav (Croat, Macadonian), and Eastern Slav (Russian, Ukrainian).
As the Kievan Rus developed (centered around Kiev of course) it became a significant commercial hub. Kings of this area ebbed and flowed in power, and there was often power struggles at the death of a king that would result in a fratricidal fight for rule.
When Iaraslav the Wise came to power in 1036 (through another series of battles amongst his siblings) he decided that the transition from power should not be subject to such chaos. He divided his empire into principalities that he bestowed on his offspring and set up a rotation of rule for Kiev itself. Kiev was the central government for the banded principalities. This of course would not last forever, but it did work for a time.
Eventually these principalities developed into small kingdoms of their own in which the languages diverged further. The Suzdal, which you mentioned were in the north and were the predecessors of the princes of Moscow and the Russian people of today. In the southwest the Galicia-Volhynia developed and is considered by many historians as the first true Ukrainian state. Again, the separation created a continued divergence in the language.
Yes many times in the 90’s.
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