GERMANS WANT TO GERMANIZE KOPERNIK (COPERNICUS)!!! OUTRAGE!!!

time meansThreads: 9 Posts: 2,306 Joined: Apr 21, 08 ♂	Nov 1, 11, 17:17 #931
Does it really matter where he was from?

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Nov 1, 11, 17:58 #932

polmed:

BTW why was Nobel prize winner Izak Singer called Polish Jewish American instead of just Polish ,as he was born in Poland .

why should i care. he is not part of this topic.

polmed:

why do Germans claim Kopernik to be German if he was born in Poland

read the following. there is a little clue in there. http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Copernicus.html

for me, if he was born in Poland then he was Polish. usual exceptions apply.

PalivecThreads: - Posts: 333 Joined: Apr 22, 11 ♂	Nov 1, 11, 18:14 #933
polmed: Oh , really , why do Germans claim Kopernik to be German if he was born in Poland . Because Poland was a multiethnic country maybe? Lucas Watzenrode, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Arthur Schopenhauer and Andreas Schlüter were born in Poland. Are they Poles?

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,158 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Edited by: Moderator Nov 1, 11, 18:14 #934
Yes but the point is that it would have taken more than 7 years to change the Prussian character of Thorn to a new Torun. He had German speakers around him.

polmedThreads: 2 Posts: 274 Joined: Sep 25, 11 ♀	Nov 1, 11, 18:53 #935
Palivec: Because Poland was a multiethnic country maybe? Lucas Watzenrode, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Arthur Schopenhauer and Andreas Schlüter were born in Poland. Are they Poles? BY BIRTH THEY ARE . So , they should be called Polish too . The same as Newton is called British. Poland before the WWII was a multinational country , if you don`t know !

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Edited by: Galloglaich Nov 1, 11, 21:09 #936

Palivec:

Zittau, like the Bohemian towns south of the border, was mostly German too, unlike the other Upper Lusatian towns it was just part of Bohemia proper for some time. Bautzen and Kamenz on the other hand had a large Sorbian population.

Interesting, though not surprising. This area was another melting pot. My sources said Zittau had a lot of Czechs, I suspect four of them did at any rate after being sacked by the Hussites in the 1430s. But I'm interested to learn more, I knew Bautzen was an early center of the Sorbs but I wasn't aware of large numbers of the Sorbs in Bautzen in the late Medieval period? You don't happen to have a source for this do you? I'm interested to learn more.

G

GalloglaichThreads: 3 Posts: 40 Joined: Aug 26, 10 ♂	Nov 1, 11, 22:35 #937
I hope I don't come across as trying to undermine Poland, it's not my intention. I'm sorry for reviving the thread. G

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Edited by: MediaWatch Nov 1, 11, 22:55 #938

Galloglaich:

I hope I don't come across as trying to undermine Poland, it's not my intention. I'm sorry for reviving the thread.

G

Galloglaich,

For you to say what you said, I take you at your word that you're not trying to undermine Poland. I'm sure you're a nice guy. Just because you may have some views that are different than mine or some other Polish people here, that doesn't mean that you have bad will towards Poland or anyone else. The problem here is that there are anti-Polish trolls here who will use some of your information.......... against Poland and Polish people. That is what I think is escalating things here.

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Nov 2, 11, 03:09 #939

Thanks,

Yeah I've noticed that. Some really rabid anti-polish regulars on this forum, a few pro-polish forumites who seem to have a lot of agnst as well.

Where do most of these anti-polish posters come from? US? UK? Germany?

Among people I know in the US I think they really just don't know anything about Poland other than Kielbasa and Polka. Lots of people in the US of Polish heritage but we haven't had polish immigration on a large scale in a while, at least not near where I live. I don't think people here have a sense of what Poland or Polish people are like.

I remember when I was in France several years ago there was this controversy about Eastern European immigrants in the French economy and the catch-phrase they used was the "Polish Plumber". Then I remember reading a little while later that Poland had made an ad campaign around a handsome plumber, inviting tourists to come to Poland. It seemed very clever, turned the whole stereotype right on it's head.

When I visited Czech republic for the first time I was shocked by how prosperous and beautiful it was. I think if most Americans had any real idea what North-Eastern Europe was like they would have a very positive view of it. But it really doesn't even exist in our media except in ridiculous films like "hostel".

Anyway, I didn't mean to open a can of worms. I naively thought the somewhat multicultural family history of Kopernik would be inspirational and really (in my opinion) puts Poland in a rather positive light.

G

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Nov 2, 11, 09:46 #940

Galloglaich:

I naively thought the somewhat multicultural family history of Kopernik would be inspirational and really (in my opinion) puts Poland in a rather positive light.

It would do, were there not a problem with certain Poles claiming that Copernicus was 100% Polish and so demonstrating the problems that some in this country (and more plastic Poles in the US) have with truth in history and racism.

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Nov 2, 11, 09:59 #941

Galloglaich:

Interesting, though not surprising. This area was another melting pot. My sources said Zittau had a lot of Czechs, I suspect four of them did at any rate after being sacked by the Hussites in the 1430s. But I'm interested to learn more, I knew Bautzen was an early center of the Sorbs but I wasn't aware of large numbers of the Sorbs in Bautzen in the late Medieval period? You don't happen to have a source for this do you? I'm interested to learn more.

None of the Upper Lusatian towns ever had a larger Czech minority. It doesn't make sense since the settlement history was totally different. Czechs didn't settle in these border forests, and they also didn't settle north of these forests. The Hussites also only plundered these towns. A de-Germanization only happened in regions were the German element was not strong, i.e. parts of Bohemia and Upper Silesia. The latter was partly Czechified, a fact almost forgotten today.
Many Protestant Czechs however fled to Upper Lusatia during the counter-reformation, and Zittau for example had a small Czech community until the late 19th century. Zittau also owns parts of Pragues cathedral treasury, since the canons fled to the town during the Hussite wars.

I only know this because I worked in this region for some time (EU programs) and bought a few books there, mainly German ones. And since you said you read many Czech and Polish historians: I hope you know that history books from Communist times should be avoided?!

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Edited by: Galloglaich Nov 2, 11, 14:51 #942

Thanks, interesting analysis. I do know some Czechs, specifically the Chodov / Psohlavci did in fact live in some border areas somewhat in thee manner of the Polish Gorali, but that was in the south not in Lusatia. What you mentioned about Czechs fleeing to Zittau during the counter-reformation explains perhaps why the english language Wiki asserts that it was a Czech town. Do you know of evidence that the towns had Sorb populations (living inside the town walls not in the Feldmark around it?) As for the "De-Germanization" I know this did happen to a fairly large extent throughout many towns in Moravia and all over Bohemia as well, even further east in what is now Slovakia, as most of the Germans remained Catholic. Only in some zones like around Pilsen were they strong enough to fight off the Hussite armies at the height of their power. Of course there were also a significant number of Germans who were sympathetic to the Hussite cause, and those remained for the most part, including in Prague.

I actually have read more Czech and Polish novels than histories so far, which is what makes me feel that cultural affinity for them. Most of my history comes from 'primary sources' as much as possible, and to a lesser extent through military history sources like Hans Delbruck and Jacob Burckhardt. Though I have read some Polish historical novels (the Henryk Seinkowicz novels) which I know were propagandish to some extent but also fairly accurate. What has endeared me to slavic / central European culture are the 20th Century writers Jersy Kosinsky, Stanislaw Lem (during the Communist era but I do not think biased toward Communist propaganda!) Jaroslav Hasec, Carel Capek, and Franz Kafka among others. The only Polish historians I have some familiarity with are excerpts of some of the work of the 15th Century Jan Długosz (whose complete works are, very sadly, still unavailable in English) which is also biased and even fantastical in parts, but really, no more than most other source from that time... and quite interesting because the man personally knew most of the power players of his era and participated in several of the key events. And some of the various chronicles from Bohemia at that time, cross referenced with the several sources from the Teutonic Order and a few from Scandinavia, and the Chronicles of Novgorod.

I will say that some of the historical films I've seen from the Communist era in Czechoslovakia and Poland (such as the trilogy of films about Jan Ziska, Alexander Ford's "Krzyzacy", and the With Fire and Sword trilogy), while heavily biased in their point of view, are more accurate on a technical level than any equivalent films set in Medieval times produced by the Americanss or British. And less obviously biased than the post-Communist Russian films I've seen like Taras Bulba or 1612. And to be honest, if you go back and watch American films from the 1950's and 1960's they are pretty sharply slanted toward American Cold War proaganda for that matter.

But I tend to view everything with a grain of salt. You have to try to cross reference sources, history is a tricky puzzle.

G

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,158 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Nov 3, 11, 00:08 #943
BB had some interesting things to say though I don't believe he was as German as he painted him. The truth, as ever, lies somewhere inbetween.

IronsideThreads: 59 Posts: 6,786 Joined: Feb 26, 09 ♂	Nov 3, 11, 09:24 #944
PWEI: have with truth in history and racism. Aren't you obsessed with your version of truth in history and seeing racism in every shadow.

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