Things you might not know about Poland

Wow! A German speaking about somebody he doesn’t like and wants to call that person a Pole instead of a German. Who would have thought that was possible! Unfortunately, your translation appears to be at odds with that of other people. Hermann Kesten (Copernicus and His World, NY: 1945, p.309) and Will Durant (The Reformation, vol. 6, The Story of Civilization, 1967, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1957, p. 859) both quote Melanchthon as saying “Prussian”.


But instead of just listening to other people’s opinions, let’s look at the facts:
Name at birth: Niclas Kopernik, not Mikołaj as Poles say, Copernicus never signed his name with an M, always with an N.
Father: Niclas Kopernik, the family name can be traced to the town of Koppernigk near Neisse in Silesia. Birth place not known. Not a Polish citizen at the time of Copernicus’ birth.
Mother: German. Like her parents.
Birthplace: Thorun, Prussia.
Name when at Krakow university: Nicolaus Nicolai de Thorunia, not Mikołaj
At Bologna university he joined the German school especially established by the Vatican to educate German clergy, the "Natio Germanorum".
There is no evidence that he spoke Polish, lots of evidence that he spoke German.
In his memorandum on coin reform in Prussia he wrote about Prussia as “Us”.
On several occasions he called himself “Prussian”.

I’m not seeing a lot of reasons here to call him a Pole.

I’ll sum up your argument: Copernicus is Polish because he was born in a place which is historically Prussian but was at the time under Polish jurisdiction at the time of his birth and because his father might have been Polish (because he might have been born in Poland but we don’t know for sure where he was born). By that same logical Marie Curie is Russian: she was born in a place which at the time (1867) was under Russian jurisdiction and both her father and mother were also born in what at the time (1832 and 1834) under Russian jurisdiction so they were Russian too.

Well, who do we trust then?
Perhaps we need the original?


OK, let's;

Notice his last name's ending -nik. Not German. Polish. So at birth he had Polish last name. As for the first name, without a whole lot of lecturing on the language realities of those times: Does Nicholas Rey sound Polish to you? His name was also Mikolaj. He is the guy responsible for the usage of Polish in writing. Before that only Latin and German was used (Greek sporadically). Names were commonly Latinized and there were few rules about their spelling - that included the German language. Few Polish proper names were mentioned in writing using Polish spelling and grammar. That was actually the period when when work on that spelling and grammar began, to a great degree by Jan Kochanowski, aka Ioannes Cochanovius


Likely a Germanized Slav, perhaps a Pole. I'm sure his name could be traced back to Adam himself. There is likelihood Copernicus was Jewish.
The concept of citizenship was not the same at the time. He was a citizen of Cracow, which was the capital of Poland. He was also a subject of the King of Poland. As was his son, and willingly so.


Latin was the Language of the education at the time. Proper names were Latinized on a regular basis. See this photo from Vatican City URL It shows (and describes) what's cooking there between a King of Poland (Kazimierz) and Gregory VI. Do you see any mention of "Kazimierz" there?


Was there a Polish school?
Copernicus was serving under a Polish bishop. The language of religion was Latin, with German entering the scene due to reformation.

So was he really Prussian? The Prussians were not exterminated by then yet.
I on many occasions I call myself Canadian. My daughter calls herself American, Polish or Canadian (I haven't figured out the rule she uses). In those times Cracovian would call themselves... well.. Cracovians, while people from around Warsaw called themselves Mazovians. The concept of nationhood wasn't that big in individuals' minds.

Ergo: Copernicus might have been a Pole, might have been a German. Likely he is a heritage shared by two nations.

I'll do those for you later. I really need to do some work related clicking here :))

and that's why she chose the name polonium for the first radioactive element she discovered, go on tell us something funny again

Currency: The official currency is Zloty (PLN), divided into 100 groszy. Poland is essentially a 'cash country', and it is difficult to negotiate credit cards and travelers cheques in the cities, and well nigh impossible in rural areas. American Express, Diners Club, Visa and MasterCard are, however, accepted in places frequented by tourists. ATMs are also beginning to proliferate in Polish cities, where they are designated by the sign 'Bankomat'. Money (preferably US$ or Euros) can be exchanged in the cities and larger towns at banks, hotels or bureaux called 'kantors', which offer the best rates.

Electricity: Electrical current is 220 volts, 50Hz. The standard two-pin European style plugs are used.

Duty Free: Travelers to Poland over 17 years arriving from non-EU countries do not have to pay duty on 250 cigarettes or 50 cigars or 250g tobacco; 1 liter wine and 1 liter spirits; cosmetics and medicines for personal use; gifts up to the value of EUR175. Travelers to Poland arriving from within the EU do not have to pay duty on 800 cigarettes or 200 cigars or 1kg smoking tobacco; 10 liters spirits or 90 liters wine or 110 liters beer. Prohibited items include birds and poultry arriving from countries infected with Avian influenza. The export of all articles of artistic, historic or cultural value are subject to special regulations.

And there we agree! Personally I would call him Prussian because that appears to be what he thought of himself as being.

that be 10 bottles of vodka for me :D

Over the last 1000 years Russia and Prussia/Germany have been trying to suck the very life out of Poland - take her land, kill her people, hold back her development. They try to claim anything worth while which she produces. This makes it very difficult to identify anything accurately. Time has blurred the edges.

If I were a member of a dury - I see the evidence before me. I base my verdict on facts. This area of northern europe was a mixed bag. Polish - German - Prussian all crossed over.

I would conclude by saying he was of mixed origin with sympathy to the Polish cause. He faught with Poland against the Germans.

z_darius has concluded in the best way. Give Copernicus to both sides because history is uncertain.

Harry - you have taken Copernicus completely away from Poland because he "APPEARS" to want to be Prussian. Some aspects of history have not changed.

Rubbish. Even my local corner shop accepts plastic.

You touched on some important facts here, and these facts would be well placed in this thread:

Until a few years after WW2 virtually all works on the history of Poland and Polish culture published in the West (UK, USA, Holland etc) were translations of German "historians" (Russian ones to a lesser degree). One of the main reasons was a lack of genuine interest in doing real research, so plagiarism was satisfactory to those Western "scholars". Few of them, if any, had even a passing knowledge of Polish and thus could not avail themselves to a lot of documents that any serious historian would certainly want to include in his/her work.

In 1939/40 Soviets and Germans had a series of meetings called Gestapo-NKVD conferences. During the 3rd conference (in Zakopane, Feb. 20, 1940) they decided the fate of the Polish nation. All Poles were to be systematically exterminated. 95% of those surviving were to be sent deep into Soviet territories (shores of the Jana river in Siberia) as slave laborers. The goal was to be completed by 1975. The 3rd conference was a follow-up tio the 2nd conference (Przemysl, Nov. 1939) where the first draft of the subject was mentioned.

Considering that Germans and Russians had always deep hatred to Poland and anything Polish, is it any wonder Western literature has had very little true information about Poland and its history.

No he didn't. He fought with Prussians, Mazovians (Mazovia was not incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland at that time), and Poles against the Teutonic Knights.


Let me get this straight: Copernicus was born in Prussia but he's Polish because at the time Prussia was temporarily in Poland; Marie Curie was born in Poland but she's not Russian even though Poland at the time was temporarily in Russia. Zvi Hirsch Kalischer was born in what is now Poland and did almost all of his work in the same town where Copernicus was born but he's not Polish, he's German. Makes perfect sense.

Apart from the Volksdeutsche of course. And seeing as 2.7 million Poles signed the Deutsche Volksliste, it's a bit of a stretch to say that ALL Poles were to be exterminated.

also the second in the world behind USA

how about Fahrenheit, was he a pole or a kraut? lol

A few words of clarification in general:

Prussia
- Prussia was a non-Germanic land at one time
- Original Prussians were Western Balts (not germans)
- Prussia was occupied by Teutoonic Knights, who were German.
- Germans exterminated Prussians
- Germans eventually assumed the name Prussians for themselves, and kept the name Prussia as the name of country.

- When we say Prussian we may mean one (in some cases more) of the following:
Native Western Balt
German
Pole
Lithuanian
Estonian
Latvian
Russian
Geographic Region (some of it under Polish, some under German rule, this fluctuated)
Name of a country ruled by Germans


Actually, Poland was never in Russia. Not for one minute. It was occupied by Russia. (As opposed to Western Prussia which leaned towards Polish Kindgom willingly). At the time it was called Kindom of Poland (Царство Польское in Russian), not Russia, or Russian Kingdom. What's more important are Curie's own words:


She clearly felt she was Polish. One of her discoveries was named by her "Polonium" to honor her country. It was not called Russonium, or Russium, or Rutium, nor even Sovietium.


You can't have it both ways. If you want Kalischer to be Polish then Copernicus is certainly Polish. The fact is that Kalischer, according to Jewish sources (who would know better) was a German Jew, born under German jurisdiction in a city with a large German population.

If you want to consider Polish all those who were born within the territories of todays Poland then 1936 Olympics took Place in Poland and Germany. Not to mention hundreds of famous Germans born in cities such as Wroclaw, Gdansk, Szczecin (never really Polish), Bydgoszcz etc. By the same token, Immanuel Kant would have to be declared a Russian philosopher.


I see you meander through some of the facts of the Polish history with a degree of comfort. I also hope that you know a little more than just the few facts we had to touch upon during this chat. The history of that region is really complex (fu.cked up would be a more proper term, albeit not recognized in official debates). Norman Davies called one of his books on Poland "God's Playground". What a great an telling title.

Bottom line; IMO, if you study the history of Poland then consider this: if it walks like a German, and it quacks like a Russian it may be a Pole, an Austrian, a Russian, a German, a Lithuanian, a Ukrainian, a Tatar or a dozen other nationalities. Whoever they are, those quackin creatures, they have survived an onslaught of two most powerful neighbors for the last 1000 years, and that fact alone is sufficient reason to be proud, whether Copernicus was a Prussian, German or Polish.

Nice chatting with you.

all thoise territories are poland just for a time they were under occupation thus they are still polish.. now go have a weiner, will ya? lol

That is a lie.
I thought you had some kind of integrity in your debates.
Very disappointing.

are you that ******* thick? that was the plan dumb dumb.. thank god you nazis got hammered. hitler had big plans for Warsaw... there are actual plans for the new kraut city out there.

Who were the Prussians?
The Old Prussians were Baltic people, speaking a language close to Lithuanian and Latvian.
Prussians became Germanicsed, maybe some became Polonicised.
Where does that put our old mate Copernicus (nice Latinised name there)?
Does anyone today stand up and say 'I am a Prussian.'?

If he was ethnically Polish or not I don't know and honestly I don't give a damn but this above is a primitive argument used by Germanics. Written Polish was hardly used in those times, so according to this logic one can "prove" that in those times Poles didn't exist at all. And a genius like Kopernik almost for sure knew spoken Polish even If that wasn't his native language.

yes, Bratwurstboy does

Old, old data. Credit cards are widely accepted in larger Polish cities and in many places in smaller towns. In the countryside it's still a bit difficult, but evil western capitalists are quickly making inroads there, too.

A few years ago this changed to 230 volts, in line with EU standards.

Regarding the Copernicus thing: you just can't apply today's national standards to the 16th century - just makes no sense at all. Here's a nice quote from the 1875 Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie I found on Wikipedia. I think it sums things up pretty well:

"The nationality question has been a subject of various writings; an honoring controversy over the claim to the founder of our current world view is conducted between Poles and Germans, but as already mentioned nothing certain can be determined concerning the nationality of Copernicus' parents; the father seems to have been of Slavic birth, the mother German; he was born in a city whose municipal authorities and educated inhabitants were Germans, but which at the time of his birth was under Polish rule; he studied at the Polish capital, Krakau, then in Italy, and lived out his days as a canon in Frauenburg; he wrote Latin and German. In science, he is a man who belongs to no single nation, whose labors and strivings belong to the whole world, and we do not honor the Pole nor the German in Copernicus, but the man of free spirit, the great astronomer, the father of the new astronomy, the author of the true world view."

For them to be accepted in my village... they will have to build the shop first.

The mass change to credit cards took place in the early 90's. It was connected with wages being paid into banks, among other things. It is also noticable that cheque books are not used in Poland. This is because the change was so quick and hole in the wall cards and credit cards were the obvious progression.

By your logic it looks that until mid XVI century Poland was populated mostly by Romans, Greeks and Germans. LOL :))




Nice rant. But you failed to notice that he freely decided to be the subject of Polish King, thus making him a polish citizen... if we really could transport XVI century reality to our present one though… :)

What a silly discusson.;)

There's the point: I have never in my life even read anything by any Pole who thinks that Kalischer should be considered Polish. He is one of the people who founded a political movement which created a country (something that few political movements have ever done) but Poles call him German.



Wikipedia (not the best of sources I know) says "The total number of registrants for the DVL are estimated to be approximately 2.7 million, with 1 million in classes I and II and the remaining 1.7 million in classes III and IV. In the General Government there were 120,000 Volksdeutsche. " Those numbers do seem to be in line with other numbers on the topic.



I disagree with you so I must be a nazi, what wonderful logic you display. I'm fully aware of the plans that Hitler had for Warsaw, although his final plan was that the city should be turned into a lake. What you woud probably prefer to forget is that even today one can see still some of the building materials purchased for that new city: the granite bought from Sweden to make the Nazi victory arch was instead used to make the monument to the ghetto rebellion. You remember that rebellion right? It was the one where the AK gave the Jews a single submachine gun and an entire light machine gun. Guess Poles thought they might need to keep guns for important occasions, like Kielce in 1946, eh?

You failed to mention what those classes meant:

* Category I: Persons of German descent who had engaged themselves in favour of the Reich before 1939.
* Category II: Persons of German descent who had remained passive.
* Category III: Persons of German descent who had become partly "polonized", e.g. through marrying a Polish partner or through working relationships (especially Silesians and Kashubians).
* Category IV: Persons of German ancestry who had become "polonized" but were supportive of "Germanisation".


Does the above sound like your "German" Copernicus?


The entire AK had 7 machine guns (medium or light, such as the MG 42) for 45,000 Polish soldiers. How many do you think they should to give Jews they liberated prior to giving them that submachine gun?

Why should he?

So the fact that he created a country makes him Polish?
An interesting concept.

Because he was born in what is now Poland but was temporary in another country when he was born there. Just like Marie Curie. And he lived almost all of his life in the same town that Copernicus was born in. Copernicus is thought by Poles to be Polish because he was born in Poland and worked in Poland, even though he himself appeared to consider himself Prussian and wrote about Prussia using the words "Us" and "We". Kalischer is one of the most influencial political thinkers ever. He spent all of his life in Poland (unlike Curie and Chopin), was born in Poland (using the same argument as for Curie and Copernicus being born in Poland) and is buried in Poland (unlike Chopin and Curie). I wonder why Poles never claim him as Polish

I think Jewish people are somewhat a special case (not necessarily unique though) in that they rarely considered themselves anything other than Jews. Jewish encyclopedia claims he was a German Jew.

See here: URL

Who am I to argue otherwise? Who are you to argue otherwise.

Besides, the man fought to establish a Jewish state. In my personal view, he was neither German nor Polish. He was a Jew.

I did know this: I speak Esperanto.

Maybe I should start a new thread.