Unique volumes of Brothers Grimm fairy tales discovered in Poland

Then finally when weaker country starts to complain they will completely take over. The stronger country in theory could at any time swallow the weaker, it's just that it might be more beneficial for stronger country to do it in a slower, methodical, deceiving manner, until it can. Or when it actually needs to.

In this case it seems to me it was strategic behavior by the cat to not immediately eat the mouse, but instead consume the fat first. Eating the mouse was a fallback in this scenario.

But overall this specific scenario happens on so many levels of relationships including, but not limited to interpersonal, business, country level, World level, etc.

The main key points in my view are that it is a cat, and cat always will want to eat the mouse in what you would think is pscyhopathic mannerism if it was between people, but it's most easily explainable on level of countries. Because ultimately countries as entities have to act in psychopathic ways with each other, because territories, resources are all clearly limited.

Due to the complexity of World politics you have to co operate with your enemies as well. Both sides are lying to each other, keeping secrets, but at the same time co operating, because they have to or they otherwise will fall behind other countries.

But I think in an oral culture it was more likely that these were tools for thinking. E.g. if your wise friend tells you this story (which you've heard before) and says, "I think in this area you're being the cat in the relationship," then that has some weight. But when a random priest says, "You're the cat in this area of the relationship," their priestly authority doesn't mean they are the voice of God and they are speaking infallible truth into your life. Your wise friend has more weight because you know from experience that they are wise and because they know you.

Basically, the story is a tool that is only useful to those who are wise. The story is worthless in the hands of a fool.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogonek

The way to become King of Poland was not quite as elaborately ritualized as the German electorate, but not generally/universally hereditary either. But neither did Poland isolate itself from its neighbours, on the contrary. Up until internal strife and the great Nordic War, it involved itself a lot with both central and eastern Europe. And while one may look at the partitions as predatory, let's also remember that for 80 years before the Polish Duma flogged the crown to the highest bidder (August the nth of Saxony, for three generations), which, and realize it's a strong word, also sold the country. Let's remember "predatory" territorial expansions also a little in context; Turkey overrunning the Balkans and Hungary between 1300..1526 eradicated a dozen countries. Louis XIV's wars of reunion were very predatory and gained France territory the size of Switzerland. The Austria-Turkey wars after 1683 "undid" 200 years of Turkish rule in Hungary within two decades, as did Russia taking over the Cossack Hetmanates, Crimea; the wars of the Spanish and Austrian succession changed territorial "ownership" on a large scale as well. What Napoleon, in league with quite a few of the German states, did to "countries" in Germany was neither less disruptive nor, territory-wise, smaller in scale than the partitions of Poland.

That doesn't make them "right". I would contest though that they were a "uniquely polish" sort of doom. Other countries lost their independence for centuries as well (Serbia, Hungary, Bohemia/Czechy, Lithuania if you like ...).

The difference "then" was that such changes in overlordship only began to be associated with forceful removals of population - ethical cleansing - after the rise of nationalism post Napoleon. My country (Germany) did rather evil there, and can't blame others for having taken retribution. No need for "love lost". It's not deserved.

The real evil was less the partitions and the "ganging up" on Poland, but the nationalism in the 19th century. The idea that within your country's boundaries, there shall be one language, one culture. It'd have been considered very odd up to ~1700 for sure. And it created all the evil between 1780 and 1945. Looking at Russia trying to eradicate Ukraine, maybe ... to this day.

And yet, it's all _shared_ history.

> Yes, most of the damage is known and extends across the entire old German Reich, from Karlsruhe to Kiel, from Munich to Königsberg. The largest German library in the Reich was hit most spectacularly. In July 1943, the Hamburg City Library alone lost 700,000 volumes in “Aktion Gomorrha”. As far as the individual titles themselves are concerned, the relevant data is often still missing - unfortunately. There is no large and accurate work on the books and libraries that once existed and were lost or not returned during the Second World War.

> How do you assess the historical and intellectual damage caused to our cultural memory by the absence of German books?

> I will answer this question with a quote from the first expert on the subject from 1947: “It is a catastrophe that has no comparison in the history of libraries and in the history of science” (Georg Leyh). We have no account of the demise of German libraries. Germany has lost significant parts of its cultural memory forever. But who knows about it? Conversely, the greatest crime committed by Germany has led to an irretrievable loss of urban silhouettes and cultural witnesses. The answer? Never-ending mourning and never-ending work of remembrance.

https://www.fr.de/kultur/literatur/eine-katastrophe-11007951...

Generally, the cultural loss via burning down libraries and knowledge is inherent to war, and obviously does not only affect one country. The article also mentions the Library of Warsaw as an example of lost knowledge, but the loss of german culture "has no comparison in the history of libraries", per renowned librarian Georg Leyh.

P.S.: Germany still does not own the Berlinka - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlinka_(art_collection)