Famous polish people (that we have actually heard of)

I have asked before what the poles have ever contributed to european civilisation. And many times poles have posted the names of obscure famous polish people who are famous only to poles. Are there any famous poles the world has actully heard of apart from marie curie. ?

They always say: Kopernikus!

Even as he was from a german family (his real name was: Nikolas Koppernigk), was born in Thorn which was till few years before still prussian, lived and worked in Frauenburg and spoke and wrote german...noooooooooo he is now polish (say Poles)....

To the kraut ^^

In english literature he is known as being polish - this is what they teach here in canada at least. He (like all academics in europe at the time) published his work in latin and there is very little evidence of what language he spoke, polish, german or maybe both. Back in the late 15th c. - early 16th c. nationality was not very important yet, religion was. In poland some cities had germans who were loyal to the polish crown and some who were eventually assimilated in polish society. This happened everywhere in europe btw. It's possible that kopernik was a polonized german or maybe native german or maybe a native pole. There's no way to find out!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Copernicus.html

Yay I'm actully early in a thread for once!!

but ughh darn this I wanted to say Jerzy Popieluszko

So instead I'll say Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II)

And wow I always thought Marie Curie was English or American, I stand corrected lol.

Family Kopernigg belonged to the privileged citizenship of the Hansetown Thorn and lived there in the St. Annen alley.
The father was a rich government clerk (prussian)
His uncle was Lukas Watzenrode the younger, the prince-bishop from Ermland.

It's a german family from Prussia...and they spoke and wrote German!

Kopernikus not only was an astronomer but doctor too and he worked also for the government. He reformed together with the Hochmeister of the german Order Albrecht von Hohenzollern the prussian coinage.

Kopernikus penned his scientific works in latin and german but not polish!

His friends were the Bishop Tiedemann, Nikolaus Cardinal von Schönberg and Johannes Dantiscus von Höfen.

PS: Maybe you should read some more books?

PPS: Am I a Nazi prick because I have another opinion?

PPPS: Here is lot's of info about Kopernikus...oops it's not in english.....doesn't count?

You are not an advertising for canuck schools!

Michael Urbaniak, jazz/fusion violinist...Stanislaw Wyspianski, impressionist painter &
stain-glass artist.

Joe, i love u for that!
Thats my biggest authority! I love his drawings, im still trying to learn and imitate him, but its sooo hard!
Btw, thats reason for my nick ^^
I wanted ask if u know some nowadays polish musicians.

There is a website called Tamizdat & also one called Polish Jazz that has Eastern European & Polish Jazz CD's...there is also an even better one for Polish experimental &
improvisational music that's out there, but I can't find it right now...will post it when I
get a chance.

And lets not forget where your family heralds from.....my little Bratski :)

(can you accept this comment without getting angry at me? Bitte?) :)

Studied in Poland, fought against Gerries. Oy vey !

re: I have asked before what the poles have ever contributed to european civilisation.

- Hm, who really cares about what you have asked or whom you've heard of? Are you demanding that the Poles' jump and brag about their achievements, and compete in bragging, just as such mediocrities as you do? We will leave this jumping and competing, and disgraceful arguing about who is better than whom, to folks like yourself.

The real question is what you as an individual have contributed to European civilisation? Hopefully not just stink and psychopathic hatred?

By the way, you have shown yourself to be a Polonophobic racist. Hence I wonder why do you stick to this forum like a louse to hair? Why would such an ubermensch as you seek the company of those unimportant, bereft-of-great-people Poles?
:)

Kopernik's mother was Polish. Hmmm...doesn't it make him Polish? He fought the Germans - the so-called Teutonic Knights - when they attacked Frombork. Prussia was then part of Poland. Kopernik's birthplace was actually called Torun, not 'Thorn.' Actually, it's still a Polish city, still called Torun. But frankly speaking, I don't give much damn about whether Kopernik was Polish or not. What does it really give me if he was? Does it give me some personal greatness, raise my personal value? Only mediocrities and human inadequates brag about the great deeds of others.
:)

Liberace was half Polish.

"Que Vadis" - Henryk Sinkiewicz - novelist

"Towards the end of the novel, Sienkiewicz creates a dramatic scene, the symbolism of which would not have been lost on his countrymen: the German beast (a black Germanic bull) to whose horns Ligia (representing Poland) has been tied, is vanquished by Ursus (representing the Polish people), who thereby restores her freedom"

Tadeusz Kosciuszko
Kazimierz Pulaski
Ignacy Lukasiewicz
Fryderyk Chopin
Roman Polanski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Henryk Arctowski
Ernest Malinowski
Kazimierz Funk
Czesław Miłosz

and many many more.

Let me know if you don't find information about them in Google.

Famous polish sociologist Florian Znaniecki, famous polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, 1st polish sociologist from 19th century Ludwik Gumplowicz ( from jewish secular family with polish uprising traditions )
These people are famous in sociological and social circle, everybody who study these subjects around the world know them. They aren't so visible for ordinary people like Coca Cola , Freud, Marx or BMW but for scientists they are easy to recognize.

Zbigniew Herbert - poet
Krzysztof Penderecki - composer
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki - composer
Czesław Słania - postage stamp and banknote engraver
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/rsolecki/czeslaw_slania.html

Should be - 'Quo Vadis'.

Furthermore nowadays in Polish schools there will be more novels wrote by Sienkiewicz thanks to our 'dear' Minister for Education (Poles know what I'm talking about ;) ).

Hm, other famous Polish people... Mayby Felix Dzerzhinsky(Feliks Dzierzynski. I've noticed that somebody in other topic mentioned him) who definitely was Polish. And I think Russians love Poles for him :>. It's little Polish Contribution to the 'great' Russian Revolution.

Hmmmm, it seems to me that truly great nations don't brag about their great people. Take the English - the nation that has more reasons than any other nation in history to be proud of its greats. I've never met a (real) Englishman bragging about Shakespeare, or Newton, or the Beatles, or numerous other geniuses his nation has given birth to. Or the Japanese - do they ever brag about Murasaki Shikibu, or Saygyo, or Ueda Akinari, or Dogen, or Hakuin, or Katsushika Hokusai? - I dare think that only essentially mediocre nations puff themselves with pride at their presumed greats, and look down on those nations that they regard as having none or fewer greats than them. All this in order to lift these creepy mediocre nations' low self-esteem. Besides...well, for example, the English are a truly great nation (perhaps the greatest, most influential nation in history), but how many times have they been attacked and belittled by little nations that owe everything to the English and would have meant nothing, zero without the English?

Yeah, only little creepy mediocre peoples brag about their presumed greats and attempt to put down others.
:)

Dear Puzzy, this is not bragging, but a respond to the one who questioned. The thread was not started by a Pole. You can find many flaws in Poles (in anybody, if you want to), but bragging is not one of them. That's why the world knows so little about Poland... :(

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) - Jósef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. Polish-born English novelist and short-story writer, a dreamer, adventurer, and gentleman. He, He , He.

What do you mean? Why - "dear"?

My type: Stefan Banach (read story about him and Lwow Mathematic School, Scotisch Cafe (Kawiarnia Szkocka) etc. It's totally fascinating!

About nationality of Kopernik vel Kopperniggk vel Coppernicus - his mother was definetely German (her name was Watzenrode), nationality of his father is not determined, but it is very possible that he was Pole - "koper" in Polish name for "dill". So it is quite possible that natively he was half Polish, half German. BUT - we have to remember that in Kopernik's times people didn't mind much about nationality, ethnicity etc. More important thing was which King was whose master. In written form Kopernik obviously was using Latin - lingua franca of medieval Europe (neither German nor Polish).

Another thing to mention: sientists living in Kopernik's times always described him as POLISH astronomer, so this is rather close the truth. Another thing to remember is that being Pole is not necessary to be Polish scientist. Joseph Conrad (pol. Teodor Józef Konrad Korzeniowski) was 100% of Polish origin, but he was NOT Polish writer - he was English writer, because he was writting in English, among English culture etc.

Historical point of view has to be known. It's necessary to remember that in that time there was nothing like 'main nationality'. Kopernik belongs to the Royal Prussia - it's the local patriotism. Moreover people belongs more to the Country than to the nationality. Proof? Bourgeoisie from the cities like Gdansk, Torun, Elblag wanted the incorporation of their cities(so the Gdansk Pomerania) to the Crown.

re: Czesław Miłosz

- Not really Polish. Rather a Lithuanian Polonophobe scribbling in Polish. Not great poet at all, by the way, only much promoted by, ahem, certain influential amigos in the US book-publishing industry, for his brownosing to their ethnicity and his slinging mud at Poland and the Polish people (which the aforementioned amigos love to see). A sinister figure - a former Stalinist bureaucrat who defected to the other side of the Iron Curtain solely in order to promote his own scribbling career. I wouldn't be surprised if it appeared that he spied for the Russkies against America. He scribbled eloquently enough (even though rather obscurely) about 'the captive mind,' that is the Marxist mind, but remained to his dyting day (and he lived long, alas) basically Marxist himself. He got the Nobel in 1980, ostensibly for Literature, but in reality for Politics, i.e. 1980 was the year of Solidarity and Lech Walesa being topics number 1 in the so-called Western media, so a patriotic Pole should have been given the Nobel for something. And so Milosz was chosen, even though he was neither Polish nor a Polish patriot; in reality, he was a bitter Polonophobe of Lithuanian extraction, scribbling in Polish solely because it was a language giving him a greater chance of success than Lithuanian. Anyhow, the Nobel Prize for Literature has long gone to the dogs; it has been given to such monstruously bad writers (e.g. the Italian hack Dario Fo, the dreadful scribbler from the US Toni Morrison, the former Waffen SS-man Gunther Grass), and denied to so many truly great writers (e.g. Leo Tolstoy, Rilke, Borges, Graham Greene) that its moral value is zero. Dno i babelki (the sea bottom and bubbles), as they put it in Poland.

Milosz is, in a sense, the Stalinist equivalent of the Waffen SS-man Gunther Grass.
:)

I agrre that now Nobel Price in the field of Literature is not worth anything. It's too much politics in it.

re: Coppernicus [sic - P.] - his mother was definetely German (her name was Watzenrode)

- Really? And I saw a huge book (by an English Victorian author?) where it is plainly stated that Kopernik's mother was Polish (frankly speaking, I never cared about the whole subject - who really gives damn about guys such as Copernicus, Tyho de Brahe and Kepler anyway?). What source did you take it from that Copernicus's mother was 'definetely German,' Gamal?
:)

Wow, Puzzly. Your view of him really surprized me......not what I would have expected. He wrote of life under oppression, and what that does to the pysche. Interesting. You have thrown me your first "official curve ball"... :D

Name Barbara Watzenrode you can find in plenty of publications, in Wikipedia for example.

The same here. I did not hear this kind of take on Milosz.

WE ALL LIKE AND NEED POWERFUL AMIGOS! :)
Maybe it has something to do with him living in America, as well as what happened in Poland in th 80's. I see him in a positive light.

re: in Wikipedia for example

- 'In Wikipedia,' oh?

Sorry, but I prefer my good ole Victorian English (?) expert on Copernicus.

I hope I won't hurt your self-esteem by saying that only idiots rely on the Wikipedia?

God, what times I am living in, and amongst what people.