Thaddeus Kosciusko
angrystaffofficer.com
angrystaffofficer.com
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_elections_in_Poland
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-president-how-and...
The second iteration of democracy (like Facebook/Google) build on the other side of the Atlantic aged much much better.
Also, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a multicultural place (officially recognised languages: Polish, Latin, Ruthenian, German, Hebrew, Armenian) and a major European player.
A year after and influenced by St. Bartheleme's Day Massacre and general climate of religious violence in Europe.
At that time it was customary for European knights to come as guest to Prussia and take part in military expeditions against pagans as a sort of hunting excercise (razzia).
One of the more famous guests was Henry IV Tudor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wawrzyniec_Grzyma%C5%82a_Go%C5...
His book "De Optimo Senatore" was highly influential abroad including Britain. Apparently, parts of his writings were the inspiration for the character of Polonius in Hamlet.
As Chou Enlai famously quiped about the outcome of French Revolution - "It's too early to tell if it was positive or not".
Rats.
I meant that US Democracy is still younger then Commonwealth political system was when it had started to turn into anarchy and had been abused by plutocracy and foreign powers.
So Americans beware of Russia meddling in your elections... We had been there in XVIII century.. :-)
The ultimate failure of the Polish state is complex, involving a confluence of factors including catastrophic invasions, uprisings, foreign meddling, and internal conflict that stifled necessary reforms to deal with all of these.
A good, short introduction to the development of the Polish state from the 10th century onward is Adam Zamoyski's "Poland: A History"[0].
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Poland-History-Adam-Zamoyski/dp/07818...
Although, not absolutely incorrect, it nevertheless sounds like a myth-making here. PLC (which is btw a modern, recently introduced term, the country was literally called Res Publica, Rzecz Pospolita in Polish) started as a union of Polish Kingdom where Polish predictably dominated, and Grand Duchy of Lithuania where Ruthenian was the language of state affairs. Ruthenian is also called Old Belarusian by Belarusians, and Old Ukrainian by Ukrainians and both are correct, because it's all more or less the same language at that time (modern Ukrainian, and Belarusian are still more mutually intelligible then different varieties of German). As eastern, and southern parts of the country were repeatedly thrashed by Russians, and Ottoman Empire, Poland became a dominant part (not the only reason, but I'm trying to be short), so Polish gradually gained the top position as the language of aristocracy, and politics all over the PLC, while other languages receded to unofficial home/family spheres, sometimes keeping official niches at municipal level. German, save for Prussian, and East Baltic lands, was in a very narrow use mostly because it was a sort of international language of Baltic trade, and Latin, as everywhere in Europe, was the language of education, and science. Then there were a number of ethnic, and religious groups such as Jews, Roma, Armenians which had some degree of self-government, so their languages where used in respective communities, but never had state-wide acceptance. Btw, it was not Hebrew which Jews spoke there, it was Yiddish which is very much a different thing. So the talk about 'officially recognized languages' is a little bit misleading as it can make an incorrect impression there were some sort of legal equality. And certainly PLC was polyethnic, with significant cultural variations, but majority of big medieval states in Europe were so. It's an interesting part of European history, with its own unique features, but I don't think making it too sugary makes any sense.
> Mr. Nesterchuk, the Belarus historian, said: “The Poles say he belongs to them. The Lithuanians, the Ukrainians say the same thing. The Americans, too.”
> “But I always say that Kosciuszko does not belong to anyone,” Mr. Nesterchuk added. “He belongs to the whole world as a true democrat and a fighter for freedom.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/science/casimir-pulaski-i...
BTW, another interesting thing about Pułaski is the sizable inheritance he left behind. The land that later Chicago and perhaps Philadelphia was built on. Would be worth trillions now. Nobody claimed it.
It is more like Poland is becoming rapidly progressive and the conservatives are making noisy last stand :-)
Polish Squadron 303 fighting during Battle of Britain had been continuing traditions of American Pilots.
> Perhaps the most famous successor to the original Kościuszko Squadron would be the World War II No. 303 "Kościuszko" Polish Fighter Squadron (Warszawski im. Tadeusza Kościuszki), the most successful fighter squadron in the Battle of Britain.
Unfortunately, back in the 10th century, the choice of an alphabet was essentially a pure consequence of whom the first ruler of Poland would adopt Christianity from: the Western part of the Church (this was before the official Schism) or the Rus (Ruthenia). The Rus had a liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, and for the liturgical books they adopted an alphabet, the Glagolitic (a predecessor to the Cyrillic), which was more suitable for the phonetics of the language (and, indeed, of Slavic languages in general). Poland adopted the Latin liturgy and the alphabet was part of the “package”.
https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=auto...
And then there’s ‘ci’, which is pronounced similar to ‘s’…
The closest I can get is ‘Koshch-oosh-kuh’, but that’s still not it (that would be spelled ‘Koszczuszko’).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_Kosciusko_Bridge
Also, I pronounce it "Ko-shooz-ko".
Everybody was calling her NKM.
It's true that you now have to cope with passports and visas, but for most places you might choose to emigrate to, you can expect a more or less fair police force, shops that will take your credit card, ATMs that will translate your money, and Internet to talk to people back home.
Edit: And before anyone thinks they're gonna score cheap virtue points by calling me racist/classist, I'm not using "deadbeat" as a dog whistle for any group(s). I'm talking about people who will be a net negative (definition is ever changing and subject to politics and whatnot) if they stay permanently.
One of the weaknesses of utilitarianism is that it's predicated on an assumption of reliable foresight that's not grounded in fact but is subject to all sorts of selection and confirmation biases.
But I think it's important to remember that we only read the stories of typically-wealthy, often aristocratic people who accomplished enough to have their lives remembered for hundreds of years. There's a lot of survivorship bias here. For every Kosciusko, there's a thousand 17th century people who never once left the village they were born in.
So, if you belonged to a class where any one of your father's sons was inheriting anything, then you were part of the upper class. The eldest son of peasants could expect the same as his brothers -- an inability to form an estate, acquire meaningful wealth (in the form of capital), and a life of grueling servitude.
It is ludicrous to suggest that it is harder today for the poor to migrate than before. It is much much easier.
The largest mountain in Australia is named after him.
So most Australians know, and can pronounce, his surname at the very least.
It's hard to do it correctly if your native tongue is not slavic. I'd like to be wrong though.
They should know the name, though. Yup.
If anyone's inclined towards random wiki trip I suggest reading about Strzelecki, who named the moutain. He was an explorer.
The name of the mountain was previously spelt "Mount Kosciusko", an Anglicisation, but the spelling "Mount Kosciuszko" was officially adopted in 1997 by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. The traditional English pronunciation of Kosciuszko is /kɒziːˈʌskoʊ/, but the pronunciation /kɒˈʃʊʃkoʊ/ is now sometimes used, which is substantially closer to the Polish pronunciation [kɔɕˈt͡ɕuʂkɔ]
Many of us don't even pronounce the name of our own country correctly in our own language. ('Straya)
I guess it’s also hard to hear whether somebody pronunciates it correctly if your native tongue isn’t Slavic.
There are many historical figures that should have movies made about them. i.e Witold Pilecki who volunteered for Auschwitz - the whole team of the guys who decrypted Enigma (and I'm not talking about Brits.) - Rejewski, Zygalski and Rozycki - mathematicians of the Lwow School of Mathematics and their Scottish Book and many more.
But in reality there are thousands of scientists, explorers, soldiers, activits and politicians all of the planet, that deserve to be known by a wider audience, but they are being ignored by the Anglo-Saxons and their propaganda machine.
What are some of the people that deserve to be known by wider audience but are only known in your countries?
Polish propaganda machine is largely ignori ng the king of Poland (Tsar Alexander I), who had given to Poland the most democratic constitution of the time in Europe.
Also role of Tsar Alexander II is largely ignored in Polish history a ruler who succesfully abolished serfdom in Poland (a task where Kościuszko failed) and introduced custom union between Poland and Russia starting the largest economic boom in Polish history.
What is nation?
A group of people united in mistaken view about the past and hatred of their neighbours.
When it comes to facts, it's worth understanding why Russia took part in the partitions of Poland (hint: as is well-known, Catherine the Great was the most hesitant of all the three rulers to take such an action). To have a better grasp of this highly propagandized (in typically Polish martyrological shades) period of history, I recommend the book The History of Stupidity in Poland by Aleksander Bocheński.
But the truth usually is somewhere in the middle.
The idea behind my original post was to get people to give me some names of the important figures from their countries, so I can learn more about their history, views, and heroes. I don't want not to talk about the complicated history of one nation, but about these ignored (by the western society) heroes of exploration, science, politics that we never talk about because - how many people really know history of Tibet, or Uganda or.. _fill the blanks_. How many people heard about __ who discovered ____ but lived in a _____ so only few people heard about them? But we can't talk about that because someone has to prove why your side is as bad, or worst as my side.. FFS
No, it's not.
I think people of XIX century would be laugh your narrow nationalistic schooling.
That's not the history, as you just admitted yourself: he abolished serfdom and started a period of unprecedented prosperity in Polish history (when the Polish city Łódź had gone from a village to become one of the main industrial centers in the whole of Europe), among many other things. The list could go on but the point is this: you pick statements that suit your feelings and therefore are not even close to serve as an objective description of a historical figure.
I would even argue, as a separate point, that he wasn't an “occupier” at all, much like Donald Trump is not an “occupier” of Native American lands.
I think there are grounds to be surprised and dissatisfied when the school curriculum teaches kids shallow, anti-intellectual ressentiments, instead of actual history, with all its shades of gray. And when it does that, it's awful for their future. Indeed, as one great Polish historian once said, false history is a mistress of false politics. Mistress in the old Shakespearean sense. Although the modern alternate meaning of the word gives the saying quite an appropriate twist…
Alexanders policies against Poles were direct result of the January Uprising. Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainina and Belarusian languages were banned, and many people were sent to Siberia. You're comparing this to current situation of Native Americans? That's a joke right?
I know what your trying to say, but to my point - do we have any military insurrection of Native Americans going on right now? And I know you hate speculations but if in 200 years Native Americans regain their independence, do you think they will not think about every American president as an occupier?
Are Kurds wrong trying to fight for their independence? Probably ,in your opinion they would be better of if they just "waited for the right time"?
It's called political realism, so you look at the reality, do an analysis and try to draw conclusions based on a calculation of chances of success/failure and potential benefits and losses compared with the status quo. You look at how strong you are, and how strong is your opponent. You look at how much you have now and how much you could possibly gain. You look at who else could benefit from your action, and whether those foreign parties are not provoking you to take a certain course of action in their interest, not yours (the classical question cui bono?). Sadly, the ones who were bothered to do any of this, were being marginalized, and in today's pop historical discourse (fortunately, not the scientific one) are often referred to as predators or collaborators. And Fins were smarter than that.
When it comes to Poland regaining independence in 1918, the role of "us" is often blatantly overestimated in the Polish historical mythology. First of all, there wasn't really an us. There was a land-owning class and there were peasants, with often conflicting interests. The land-owning class would do just fine without an independent state (well, it became a concern for them after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, for obvious reasons), and the peasants were bothered not so much about independence but who would give them right to land, and who would not. Their varying role in the 1920 war gives us a good idea about this. Second, while the role of the very blurred us is overestimated, what gets neglected is the role of foreign powers, who were drawing the maps of the post-war Europe. And here, I'm afraid, they couldn't care less about how many hazardous insurrections the Poles pulled off in the 19th century. All that mattered was that the Western Europe needed a cordon sanitaire between them and the Soviet Russia that'd protect the interests of the capitalistic model from a foreign intervention (this was way before the Bolsheviks settled on building socialism in their own country). Plus, the Anglo-Saxons needed a political arm in Central Europe, which would serve as an instrument in their policy of keeping Germany and Russia conflicted or at a distance, in the spirit of their perennial divide and conquer strategy towards continental Europe. And even the Polish representatives, whose signatures can be found under the Treaty of Versailles, were indeed the realists (national democrats), not the romantic insurrectionists.
I don't know too much about Kurds and their political situation, so I won't be making opinionated statements.
To what degree it was his doing though? Industrial revolution was happening all over Europe, so what Tzar had to do with it? (I'm genuinely asking). I imagine that maybe he approved projects for building railroads which allowed industry to flourish, but otherwise I am out of ideas.
Then the rest of the article misspells it by dropping the Z!
As mentioned, it's also the name of Australia's highest mountain[0]. Named by the explorer Strzelecki.
Wikipedia claims that there are three Australian mountains higher than Mount Kosciuszko, but two of them are on land that only a few countries recognise as Australian.
There is a statue of Pulaski not far away, about Pennsylvania and 12th NW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commemoration_of_Tadeusz_Ko%C5...
because hollywood would never tell a tale that shows the founding fathers as being pro-slavery.
Reparations is still a hot topic in the US.
Sounds like a good subject for Tarantino. He could probably secure funding as well.
It's not by coincidence that "Jerzy Waszyngton" or "Izak Niuton", "Szekspir" etc. are hardly 20th century figures.
Have you ever seen "Ryszard Nikson" or "Stefan Hołking" in print? :) Like, once in your life? Exactly... So much for the "a bit less popular nowadays"...
I work with several Polish people who intentionally anglicise their names due to the phonetics being awkward / not existing in English (E.g. Tomasz Vs Thomas).The same with German and Chinese people - it's either for convenience or a best approximation.
There's also a beer marketed under this name in Australia.[1]
[1] https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/kosciuszko-pale-ale/116538/
And actually many names have been Polonized throughout history. Maybe not so much modern names, hence Kosciuszko.
The problem with Kosciuszko (and some other Polish officers of the era like Jakub Jasiński) is that they were deadly serious with abolishing slavery in America and serfdom in Poland (basically the same institution), giving full citizenship rights to all human beeings and liquidating privileged landowning class (szlachta - nobility).
This did not sit well with people who hijacked narrative of Polish history - descendants of landowning class bancrupted by Industrial Revolution in second half of XIX century. They romanticesed good old days of szlachta and have always perceived Kosciuszko as troblesome figure and rabble rouser.
(The Kościuszko Insurrection is one of the more important dates, that each student is supposed to remember)
So no, he's not forgotten at all nor omitted.
That is just not true. He's featured quite a bit in history books. He's also in the required program for 4th year of primary school.