Talk:Ethnic conflicts in western Poland

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Copyright problem: "The following is from the " Political History of Poland" written by E.H. Lewinski-Corwin and published in 1917. It provides another perspective on how things were viewed around the time of WW1. There are some additional details that usually are not covered in the histories written today. The following encompass a time frame from Early Poland to World War I."

The text belongs to the public domain and there is no infingement. Cautious 14:49, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Once it is cleared of copyright issues, it needs to be made more NPOV. I'll take a stab at it and the usual tug-of-war can follow. Bwood 01:51, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"Thus far to date I have found that "All U.S. works PUBLISHED before 1923 are in the public domain." and that only one edition was published. I welcome the use of any text that may help in editing articles concerning the Polish-German relations prior to WW1. If you can please send me the url[s] to any edited articles. Thank you for your interest. Frederick Kobylarz"

I think the problem is resolved. Cautious 09:48, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 ======== 2 ======= 3 ========== 4 Current discussion 5 Half a year later

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This article starts out on the wrong foot and continues from there with the wrong premiss.

From the beginning Western Poland contained some ... Just where is this beginning? Before Poles migrated into the area from their original home or after?

Western Poland is the original homeland of Poles. See Dagome Iudex. Cautious 12:22, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] =======

The beginning of the ethnic conflict. (See the topic). State what premises are wrong and we'll hash it out. Bwood 05:34, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] ==========

Strange Tale of Western Poland's "Original" Homeland

Questions to the writer(s) of this rather strange tale:

What area are you referring to ? The Western Poland after 1945 ?

Or the supposed "Western Poland" of the Dagome Iudex?

Actually the Dagome Iudex only refers to Ote and her husband Dagome and their sons. It does not mention Mieszko I, it does not mentions Mieszko's son Boleslaw I.

Yup.

Ote= Oda von Haldensleben was originally a nun and was abducted by a man later nicknamed Mieszko I (not his original name) of a newly developing dynasty, called Piasts by the 17th century. Also there were only Polanen (pronounced Poljanin) people. A land named Poland developed centuries later. Polanen-Polans, meaning farmers from polje=field. That could mean many people.

Nope. Since the very beginning the country was known as "polonia" or similar names. Second, there is little doubt that Dagome is Mieszko. First, no mention about any Dagome in any of tens of contemporary documents (yearbooks of church, medieval chronicles etc) while there is mentioned Mieszko who has four sons (Boleslaw, Mieszko, etc) Sons mentioned also clearly stated that sons were sons of Mieszko. Customary Mieszko was taboo name for "common" people.

The Dagome Iudex is something written 80 years later by someone from the church, when we know that the church tried very hard to wrest the power from the German emperors. The Iudex or Index seems to be rather a list of Oda's properties or a list of land in lien-which Dagome took as loan from the empire to govern on for the empire.

Nope. You haven't understand the text. Dagome iudex is ABSTRACT. Understand now?Someone 80 years AFTER THE writing the document found it and made an abstract. He couldn't even understand about what country it is: he thought it is about Sardinia. Hence HIGH probalilbity that "Dagome Iudex" is in fact "Ego Mesco Dux".

Do you know, did you read, that this Mieszko I was a subject to the empire? The empire gave him land in lien (on loan)- feudal arrangements and he pledged allegiance to Margrave Gero, to emperors Otto I, II and III. The same situation continued with Mieszko's son Boleslaw I, who also had to pledge allegiance to the empire.

nOpe. They were pledging allegiance from certain lands, not from whole coutnry.

And their sons, and so on and so on. In other words, all the Piasts pledged allegiance to the emperors.

nope. They wereeither pledging from certain lands, or when they were 9from time to time) forced to that. Certainly Piasts considered themselves independent, and certainly emperors considered them their subjects.

I'll try to explain that in current American terms: All the Piasts were Federal agents, worked for the Federal Government, received their jobs as Federal Agents (margraves or dukes), from the Federal Government

Nope. Failed comparisaon, sicne you clearly had no idea about feudal system.

I do not actually see the name of a country named Poland in this Dagome Iudex at all, do you ?

Yup.

So, are you referring to Slavs in general? You may not be familiar with the Krak tale, the one about Czech, Lech and Krak. Slavs are known to have originated in the Pripjet marshes (their original home) from where they spread north and west into Germania and south into Greece and eastwards.

Or are you referring to the current Western Poland, which was created by Soviet Communist military take-over starting in 1945 ?

Nope. Western Poland, as in "traditional western Polish lands". That is, lands, were Polish nation was formed.

By the way, this Germania, which the farmers-field dwellers-Polanen- moved into, was recorded a thousand years before Dagome Iudex. People from many other countries also moved into or through and today they are still moving into the condensed version of BRD Germany.

So? Polonia (writed that or in similar way) is name of the country since it appeared in yearbooks, privileges and chronicles. Todays Poles are descendants of different Slavic tribes with similar culture and customs, of which Polanie, Slezanie, Mazowszanie and Wislanie were primary ones. Polish language appeared mainly from joining Polaniens (Great Polish) and Wislanien's (Lesser Polish) dialects.

In fact, until XIV century "Poland" was usually used in two meanings: "Greater Poland" and "kingdom of Poland".

This Germania remained and was still there a thousand years after Mieszko I, until it was drastically cut up in the 20th century.

You have some problems with history, but the place to solve it seems to be in psychologue, not in wikipedia.

Therefore, please start at the true beginning with your territory and people despription of "Western Poland".

Right now it is merely a crock story.

Thank you.

So, you came back, Helga. But this time you don't sign your theories? I see that after being shown some documents you ignored some and tried to fit the rest into your version of history.

[edit] Current discussion

If I'm following this correctly, it looks as though the issue being raised is about whether the area (of what is now western Poland) started as German or Polish. If so, perhaps that might be separate article, with a summary of the arguments at the end of this article as a remnant of the earlier conflicts. Perhaps the title of this article could be better, the intent was to show the history of the conflict that developed between the Counter Reformation and the aftermath of WWII and to summarize the events. While there were certainly battles for possesion of these lands going back much earlier, I'm not aware of any that those battles had anything to do with the later conflicts. "Who was here first", isn't important to this topic, from what I can see, but certainly feel it might be a good topic on its own or part of general history articles of Poland and Germany perhaps.

Another issue that might be addressed is the Teutonic Knights conflict, but don't think that affected what later turned into general hatred between Germans and Poles in anything other than rhetoric.

So, other than the "who was here first" issue, do you have any problems with the rest of the material? - Bwood 02:51, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The anonymous guy is Helgo Jonat, known outsider to Wikiopedia, with hardban. The point is, that now material contains little info. There were some Polish-German conflicts in history, but the real conflict started in 1871 and was resolved in 1945 (1970-1990). Cautious 09:44, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I second Cautious opinion here. Real conflict were between 1871-1945. Those conflicts are now resolved. Przepla 16:48, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, we can't ignore the role of the counter-reformation and the Bar Confederacy activities. Even if the main motive of Prussia in annexation was a power grab and strategic issues, I'm sure that the affect of several decades of oppresion of the German settlers played at least some part in the beginning of this conflict. Other than the reference made in the Deluge article, I'm not aware of any general conflicts before. There should probably be some brief discussion about current relations, showing the improvement, qualified by the lingering concerns and aguements. - Bwood 19:43, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The problem with the religious conflicts of XVI-XVIII centuries, that those were background of ethnic conflicts afterwards, but themselves were not ethnic, they were religious. The alleged oppresion of German settlers were in fact oppression of protestants whichever nationality they were, they were mostly local problems and not mass, centraly organised persecutions and also the conflicts were mostly settled, when Kulturkampf again made them important. Of course, collective memory recalled some events from the past. Cautious 10:46, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Even if the relationship of ethnicity and religion wasn't 1:1 (almost though), the seeds were there, and it wouldn't be fully informative to ignore the first. - Bwood 20:55, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Further, I would like to see material about the relations between Russians and Poles, over the years, as well as between Austrians and Poles, and even Jews and Poles/Germans/Austrians/Russians. - Bwood 19:45, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You want us to write History of Poland?? Be prepared for POV statements, especially with Jewish-Polish conflicts, but those were mainly economic, not ethnic. In matter of fact, Poles had also conflict with Ukrainians and Lithuanians. Austrains or Russians no human conflict. Poles were persecuted by Russian Tsars and condemned by corrupted Russian intelligentsia. Have you read Dostojevski?? He hated Poles, so did a lot of Russians from Upper classes. On the level of normal people, there were no hate against Russians or Poles against Russians. After decades of forced Russification, many Poles looked with contempt on Russian culture, underlining differences, despite the fact, that Poles and Russians have a lot of in common. The surprising concept, that Russians are nation of low quality culture, is one of the form of Polish defensive xenopohoby. Cautious 10:46, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A sub-history, from the aspect of ethnic/religious relations. Certainly there are opposing viewpoints, and they should be catalogued. People want to know what the world used to be like, what tensions, fears, prejudices their ancestors experienced. - Bwood 20:55, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

--- The recently added paragraph (Before the here mentioned Preconditions) has no obvious bearing on the topic, but does seem to continue to try to address an issue which is not part of this topic, namely "who was here first". It seems to me that "who was there first" is better suited for the topic "Current arguements about ethnic issues of western Poland". If you would like to move it to a more suitable topic, or convince me I'm mistaken, feel free. - Bwood 04:04, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC) --- Removed references to non-German Protestants. Fail to see relevance to topic. Perhaps better to explicitly discuss the exceptions to the "Germans were Protestant, Poles were Catholic" generalization by itself somewhere earlier in this article. Does anyone have any probable data on numbers of Protestant Poles? Or any predominately Scottish settlements in recorded history. I know that many Scotts emigrated to Poland. How about the village of Neu Schottland in Wielkopolska? My take on it is that there were probably never more than about 5% (or less) Protestant Poles after 1750 in any group, and that the greatest concentration of Catholic Germans in western Polish lands (ie, excluding Silesia and other southern areas) was never more than about 20%. - Bwood 23:11, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

frankly i don't see much point i having that article at all. However writing about religious conflict in article about ethnic conflicts is IMHO strange. About the Polish protestants, you are right about _after_ 1750, but still protestant gentry and burghers were once quite big chunk of total. Szopen

So, what do we do with this article? Is it needed at all? Or perhaps it could be merged with some other articles? [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 04:54, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

About: "However writing about religious conflict in article about ethnic conflicts is IMHO strange."

The ethnic conflict was heavily tied to the religious differences. German Catholics were more 'polanized' and less at odds than Protestant Germans. More intermarriage with Poles, less resentment during the counter-reformation, etc. Religous differences are behind most of the conflicts that are ongoing in this world, even if there are other issues (Middle East, northern Ireland, etc.). As for having this article, I realize that today's Poles might not wish to visit this*, but I encounter hundreds of amateur historians (US genealogists) who don't have a clue why "their German ancestors lived in Poland" and want to know the circumstances. *(In the same way that I notice that most online local histories of Polish towns gloss over the 1800s and minimize the German elements. Is this conditioning by the Polish/Soviet educational system? Or is it the understandable re-emphasis by Polish pride? Or both? Or something else? Bwood 03:41, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC) (who is struggling to understand)

[edit] Half a year later

And this article is still poor. Perhaps it should be renamed to History of German-Polish relations? It is poor, but I think it could be improved to a much higher standard of quality, as we have recently done with History of Jews in Poland. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 6 July 2005 15:14 (UTC)