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Post by Eric on Jan 7, 2006 4:17:50 GMT -7
If anything, Poland was an embarassment for the USSR to discuss in the news, because the country had so many political and economic problems during the socialist era. Even more embarassing was that it was a country directly bordering the Soviet Union! Hey, Eric, I know you are 22 years old. How do you know so much about the times when you even weren`t born to the world? ha ha ha ha. Well, I'm 23. And I read a lot of history books.
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Post by Eric on Jan 7, 2006 4:19:25 GMT -7
Today, on the evening news, Russia was mentioned only twice. Firstly, the gas war with Ukraine. Secondly, a Polish serial "L means Love" has been purchased by a Russian TV channel. It is an obsession. To talk about some stupid serial on the evening news on channel 1 ha ha ha. OK. it`s nor stupid, about 10 million or so Poles watch it every day. I think "Vremya" on channel 1 has become nothing more than an advertisement for the latest serials and programs to be shown on the network. Not too long ago, "Vremya" took up most of an hour and included sports and weather in addition to actual news. Now, the program is only about 20-25 minutes long, no sports, weather briefly shown at the bottom of the screen, and the quality has gone down dramatically. Now, I watch "Vesti" on the "Rossiya" network instead.
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Post by Eric on Jan 7, 2006 4:20:34 GMT -7
If anything, Poland was an embarassment for the USSR to discuss in the news, because the country had so many political and economic problems during the socialist era. Then, why Soviet Union wanted to keep us as their satelite country? We could not say anything negative about anything happening in Russia in that time but we could critize as much as we wanted the USA and western Europe. Soviet Union was simply untouchable. Two very simple reasons why the USSR wanted Poland as a socialist ally. First, it was a country directly bordering the USSR, and was a good "buffer zone" between the Soviet Union and the West. Second, Poles and Russians, Belarussians, and Ukrainians were all considered as "brotherly" Slavic peoples.
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Post by Eric on Jan 7, 2006 4:22:00 GMT -7
The young Serbians consider everything previous to the NATO war in Yugoslavia to be bad. The older Serbians consider Russia a friend, because Russia alone was on Serbia's side during the war.
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Post by pieter on Jan 7, 2006 10:36:56 GMT -7
Eric,
My Polish mother who met my Duch father in Yugoslavia in the sixtees, was not negative about Serbs at all. She met my father in Croatia's Dubrovnik, and she said she did'nt like the Croats. She went to Yugoslavia nearly every year in that decade, because it was a Communist country, Poles were permitted to go to. And Yugoslavia in that time was a nice country under Tito. My mother had been to Belgrade, a city she liked very much, and were people had been very guestfree to her (and they knew she was Polish), she stayed in a Serb house as a guest and was treated very well. In the Bosnian civil war not only Duchbat was pro-serb, but later also well armed Nato-soldiers from Holland. I heard it from a guy in Arnhem, a police officer (highwaypatrol), who had been a solidier in Bosnia-Herzegowina in the ninetees. Manny military said that they liked Serbs more than Muslims, because they were more reliable. This guy also said that the military hated the media because they gave a one-sided picture of Bosnia, with the Serbs as the bad guys and the Muslims and Croats as victims. The reality was that all sides commited attrocities, and that on the Muslim side Jihad fighters (Arabs, Turks, Chechens, Afghans) were fighting, and the Military had the idea that the Muslim-Nationalist president wanted to asteblish a Muslim Fundamentalist state. The Duch population (influenced by the Media) was anti-Serb, while the Military in the area were not anti-Serb at all. The reality is that the Serbs did terrible things to the civilians in Bosnia and Kosovo, but so did the Muslim Bosniaks and the Croat Nationalists, and the Albanian Kosovars (against the Serb minority there). Any way, my mother has positive memories about the Serbs and negative memories about the Croats.
Pieter
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piwo
Citizen of the World
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Posts: 1,189
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Post by piwo on Jan 7, 2006 12:20:52 GMT -7
I sure wish I could get "M jak Miłość here. It's available only if you have Satellite, and pay $20 a month for a package that has all Arabic, and one Polish channel thrown in. I don't have the "bird", so I'm out of luck anyway...
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Post by kaima on Jan 7, 2006 13:16:34 GMT -7
Two very simple reasons why the USSR wanted Poland as a socialist ally. First, it was a country directly bordering the USSR, and was a good "buffer zone" between the Soviet Union and the West. Second, Poles and Russians, Belarussians, and Ukrainians were all considered as "brotherly" Slavic peoples. On the "buffer" comment, yes. The USA also had Germany as a "buffer", the place that would be destroyed as we defended ourselves. Today we are using Iraq as a "buffer" to conduct what passes for a war on terror in most media. Being a buffer is NOT an enviable position! That is a bit like being civilian and becoming "collateral damage". Kai On the "Brotherly Slavic" part, every time I hear that, the speaker means "under my dictate, dear brother!" (that is for all Slavic ethnic sub-divisions, not just Russian). We are not nice to one another.
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Post by pieter on Jan 7, 2006 16:31:08 GMT -7
Is there a Pan-Slavian element left in the Slavic countries, or ar most other Slavs afraid of the Russian imperialistic intensions? Was the Pan-slavian sentiment only strong under Russian Slavophiles, or did it also live under Poles, Czechs, Slowakcs, Ukranians, Slovenians, Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Macedonisans? In my opinion there was a sort of pan-slav mentality under Orthodox Slaves like Russians and Serbs, where the Catholic Poles and Croats are only Nationalist. In this world with 1 Billion muslims, 1 Billion Chinese (and much more Asian alies), and nearly 1 Billion Indian Hindu's, 300 million united Slaves would not be bad, the United Slave Sates. How do you think about that!
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Post by kaima on Jan 7, 2006 17:19:17 GMT -7
I could never detect a pan-Slavist movement today - rather in the last 30 years. Everyone is afraid of the Russians. To think of it, I suppose they succeeded in their pan-Slavist dreams and found Russian/Soviet domination a nightmare.
The Czechs and Slovaks were hot for pan-Slavism 100 & 150 years ago, and it could be argued that Czechoslovakia was a result of that idealism, at least in part. Both the Hungarians and the Austrians feared Pan-Slavism and any aspect of Orthodoxy that implied loyalty to the Russian Tsar instead of the Austrian Tsar.
I suspect that is a large part of the basis for the establishment of the Orthodox Rite under the Pope back around 1556 when the Uniats / Greek Catholics / today Byzantine Church was established. That left the Easter Rites of worship and a Wester / Austrian & Hungarian orientation for the Slavic peoples of the Empire.
I do expect it is dead today. The Russians and Serbs killed any remnant.
Kai
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Post by pieter on Jan 8, 2006 19:42:50 GMT -7
Interesting and learnable reply Kaima, thank you so much for your answer. I know that the question I asked is not popular under many Polish patriots who dislike Russians and so the idea of Pan-Slavism. Idon't support that either, but am interested in most of the Slav cultures.
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forza
Cosmopolitan
Posts: 514
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Post by forza on Jan 9, 2006 10:03:04 GMT -7
Pan Slavism would naturally be under the Russians leadership - No thank you! ....but the idea is somehow still alive in Russia where some think Poland has betrayed the Slavs and perhaps should pay for it. Many Poles on the other hand want to improve Russia, make it more European and accuse its people of being not civilized enough, not really European. Then Poles think they are the only ones in Europe taking Russia seriously, giving Russia a credit, a chance to be "normal" one day. Like we haven't lost hope Russia would be ... better. Of course they'd have to follow us, our example, forget about violence, learn some manners, respect freedom, love personal liberty....
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piwo
Citizen of the World
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Post by piwo on Jan 9, 2006 11:36:07 GMT -7
I wish I could find that smiley of a pig flying......
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forza
Cosmopolitan
Posts: 514
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Post by forza on Jan 9, 2006 15:09:25 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jan 9, 2006 15:22:22 GMT -7
Pan Slavism would naturally be under the Russians leadership - No thank you! ....but the idea is somehow still alive in Russia where some think Poland has betrayed the Slavs and perhaps should pay for it. Many Poles on the other hand want to improve Russia, make it more European and accuse its people of being not civilized enough, not really European. Then Poles think they are the only ones in Europe taking Russia seriously, giving Russia a credit, a chance to be "normal" one day. Like we haven't lost hope Russia would be ... better. Of course they'd have to follow us, our example, forget about violence, learn some manners, respect freedom, love personal liberty.... Forza, I think it is very good that Poland takes Russia serious, and that other European countries should do that to, if they are not already doing so. In my Duch-Polish family, we always took Russia serious as a dangerous power in the East, but secondly as a great cultural source, and a country of chess players, Mathematicians, Astronauts, dancers, great folk and classical music, Opera, art, architecture, Dostojevski, Gogol, Turgenjev, Tshechov and Tolstoi, cinema, beautiful slavian women and part of my Djadek (grandfathers) past, who was a Polish officer in the Tsarist army during the first world war, and travelled threw a big part of the Caucasus during the Russian revolution and whose life was saved by Russian bystanders who pulled off his officer signs in St.Petersburg, because the Bolsjewist Revolutionary guards killed higher rank officers. That was the scarriest moment in his life, ever scarrier than Warsaw during the second world war, where he was chased by the Gestapo, and threatened by Ukranians working for the Nazi's. Maybe there my Russian or Eastern fascination comes from, my grandfather spoke Russian fluently, and wrote in his memores about his Russian adventures. But he was a Polish Patriot and after 1918 probably never spoke Russian again (or maybe in the end of the second world war to Red army people in Poland?). I never witnessed any anti-Russian sentiments with my family in Western-Poland (Pozñan). Maybe the Poles in the West were more anti-German or maybe had less Russian involvement? It can also have to do with the fact that I can't understand Polish!
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Pawian
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Post by Pawian on Jan 9, 2006 15:58:16 GMT -7
butthe idea is somehow still alive in Russia where some think Poland has betrayed the Slavs and perhaps should pay for it. As far as I managed to find out in the Russian forum, Russians have always believed so, since prehistoric times. The biggest problem they have had was with our religion - they considered Poles and their catholicism as a tool of the Pope, used to fight Orthodox Russian religion. E.g., the Polish intervention in 1614 was terminated by popular rising of Russian people who opposed "catholic invaders." [/quote] Not only Poles. Practically all "civilised" societies in the world tend to admonish and teach Russia and its people. Russians laugh at these suggestions. They say the West has no right to teach them. E.g., Russia was condemned for waging a bloody war in Chechenya, but in their opinion the USA is doing the same in Iraq etc.
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