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Poland was shockingly liberal during the 1400s
- webrobots 8y agoThere was also this interesting phenomenon in 1760-1790s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Paulava https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Paulava This small republic inside the Union had economic freedom for peasants, parliament and voting right, education and medical care system - way ahead of it's time.
- kerbalspacepro 8y agoThis is what I imagine what would happen when a modern day progressive is sent back in time and told to try out 21rst century ideas: it lasts until he dies.
- wuschel 8y agoI agree that Poland - and the east of Europe - seldomly appears in the western history lesson narrative. Poland was liberal for it's time, yes, albeit only for the szlachta, a large part of the population that belonged to the privileged class of nobility. Peasants had not so much to gain access these times, especially in the former parts of Poland that are now Ukraine. People of Jewish faith had strong privileges in Poland in the middle ages, which lead to the biggest diaspora in the world, a large fragmented community that was integrated into polish society in various degrees - as can be beautifully seen in the Jewish Museum in Warsaw.
- Hasknewbie 8y ago>> People of Jewish faith had strong privileges in Poland No offense, but are you one of these people for whom "not getting lynched" is a "privilege"? If not, then what actual privilege(s) do you have in mind, that Polish jews would have but no other Poles?
- emptyfile 8y ago>Polish jews would have but no other Poles? pretty sure it was meant "privileges compared to other countries" and not privileged compared to Poles
- llukas 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland#Center_of_the_Jewish_world:_1505%E2%80%9372 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland#... Autonomy with regards to administration and official recognition, where in other parts of Europe they were chased away? When referring to medieval times "privilege" in context of laws has bit different meaning than today.
- Hasknewbie 8y agoFrom your link: "...mainly followed in the tolerant policy of his father and also granted autonomy to the Jews in the matter of communal administration and laid the foundation for the power of the Qahal, or autonomous Jewish community." I stand corrected, I was not aware of that point.
- d__k 8y ago> Poland was liberal for it's time It depends on how you define liberal. For example, Afganistan, Somalia, the Ukraine are very liberal nowadays: weak central government, weak central censorship, weak currency. Instead, warlords and gangs having the same functions – but it can be treated as liberal and democratic construction - you can always do the same and everybody has equal rights (kind of early US).
- growtofill 8y agoThe most definitions include "the rule of law" (and you seem to be mistaken "limited" for "weak"): > "Classical liberalism" is the term used to designate the ideology advocating private property, an unhampered market economy, the rule of law, constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press, and international peace based on free trade. > > – https://mises.org/library/what-classical-liberalism https://mises.org/library/what-classical-liberalism The parent comment, however, argues that all the liberties were only available to the nobility, not that it was liberal in a different sense of the word that we use nowadays. Comparing renaissance-age Poland to any of the modern-day countries you've mentioned doesn't make sense to me (also, it's Ukraine, not "the Ukraine").
- d__k 8y agoIn ancient Greece, a great deal (or even most) of the population were slaves. Yet, it does not prevent us from treating their system as democracy and compare it with the modern democracies and "democracies".
- growtofill 8y agoThe article mentions this fact: > Poland had the szlachta, a broad citizen-warrior class that can be thought of as an upper middle class. This amounted to 10% of the population. That might sound like a very limited form of democracy, but it is the same percentage of the population as voted in the famous democracy of ancient Athens I'd suggest reading the article if you haven't already. It doesn't argue or force a definition of 'liberal' or 'democratic' but describes the period of Polish history apparently poorly highlighted in the curriculum of US schools.
- krzyk 8y ago> Poland was liberal for it's time, yes, albeit only for the szlachta, a large part of the population that belonged to the privileged class of nobility. Peasants had not so much to gain access these times, especially in the former parts of Poland that are now Ukraine. Just a note on the szlachta numbers - it was about 10% of the population.
- ajuc 8y agoLess if you count Lithuania. And only men had voting rights, so half of that. But yeah, it was ahead of time.
- anthonybsd 8y ago> And only women had voting rights, so half of that. Men :) Only men had voting rights.
- ajuc 8y agoYeah, you know what I meant.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoWhen you wonder why Hitler built the concentration camps for Jews in Poland, you can find the answer in the article. For centuries and centuries Jews chased away from Spain and other countries found a safe home in Poland. They enjoyed freedom and were thriving until the nationalists movements started to become pronounced everywhere in Europe in the early 20th century.
- wuschel 8y ago> the nationalists movements started to become pronounced everywhere in Europe (...) After the Polish state that was home to the Jews was crushed in '39 and Europe fell to Nazi Germany and consorts, only Sweden and the UK were liberal havens - and de facto impossible to reach. They were locked, with no escape, exposed to the industrial genocide that would happen. A true tragedy that makes someone think again when one sees refugees on the TV screen.
- gambiting 8y ago>>When you wonder why Hitler built the concentration camps for Jews in Poland, you can find the answer in the article. Well, it's one of the reasons. The other one is that Oswiecim was(and still is) very well connected to the rest of Europe with train lines - prisoners could be brought there easily from pretty much any part of the occupied territory, from both West and East.
- jxub 8y agoYou probably ment until the rise of Nazism and the indifference of the Western powers that be to what was going on in Germany.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoNo, unfortunately a bit earlier than that. The mid-war Poland was a country in a terrible state. Most of the population was destitute. Malnutrition was omnipresent. People were dying of typhus, especially in poorer areas (incidentally, it was thanks to a Pole Rudolf Weigl that a vaccine for typhus was finally discovered.) Imagine the Jews in all this: keeping aside, strongly refusing integration (with some notable exceptions), and, for historical reasons, keeping to a different set of jobs than the rest of this multi-cultural Polish society. The conflict was unavoidable. Right-wing nationalists were convinced that Poland would be better without Jews [0], and the Catholic Church was supporting this vision. That's why Ghetto benches [1] appeared, and the life of Jews in the last years before the war was much more difficult than earlier. However, many Western, and especially American scholars, don't have a deep understanding of these issues. They simplify it as "Poles hated Jews." It was not so. Probably the best example is Zosia Kossak-Szczucka, presented in the article "Anti-Semite who saved Jews" [2] As many others, she was critical of Jews in pre-war years. And as many others, she risked her life to save them. Most people discussing the issue of Anti-Semitism in pre-war Poland don't understand this issue at all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto_benches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto_benches [2] https://polska.pl/arts/literature/zofia-kossak-szczucka-anti-semite-who-saved-jews/ https://polska.pl/arts/literature/zofia-kossak-szczucka-anti...
- grzaks 8y agoPolish society is still liberal. Please do not think our current government and their actions are representative of what Poles think and support. Majority is at the moment fighting our own government ...
- imhoguy 8y agoSomehow majority choses such goverment during democratic voting.
- ergo14 8y agoD'Hondt method led to this outcome.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoVery far from majority. The right-wing party got 37.58% with the turnout of 50.92%. Their main argument, repeated and nauseam, was "We will gave 125€ a month per child to everyone". It turned out partially false afterwards, but a new tradition of buying votes for money has been born.
- davchana 8y agoLiterally same promise was made by Indian Prime Minister in 2014 elections, to give Rs 15,00,000 to each citizen from all the unaccounted black money stored in foreign countries by Indians. After he got elected, his party said it was just a saying, not an actual promise.
- jlebrech 8y agothen this happened https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna
- barking 8y agoI think it was the black death that effectively killed of feudalism in most of Europe. Wages went up and peasants were in high demand so it became easier to move. The effects of the Black death (1344) were probably being felt in 1400s Europe to at least the extent that WW2 still impacts on us today.
- jxub 8y agoStrangely, Poland was left largely unafected by the Black Death so the cause of this social arrngement wasn't there. The high regard for peasants in Poland contrasted with the neighboring East Slavic countries like Russia probably because of the influence of their Mongol rulers, but in the origin Slavic cultures were quite egalitarian and benevolent.
- wozmirek 8y agoDisagree with the high regard. As you said, it's not russian type of servitude/slavery, but at the same time, being a Polish (well, not really Polish - living in a land of a certain polish-slavic ruler) peasant was bad. If the plague hit Poland, then... but that's a what-if ;) I find the difference is really well explained by the description of the Refeudalization process [1]. source: being Polish, currently living in Berlin [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeudalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeudalization
- jxub 8y agoThere was a class of well-off peasants who had fairly comfortably lives, but for the most part I think you're right as that part of my argument was really hand-wavy.
- chewz 8y agoIt isn't strange that Poland wasn't affected by Black Death. King Casimir the Great have introduced sanitary cordon and quarantined cross-border travelers. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/16699/why-was-poland-spared-from-the-black-death https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/16699/why-was-po...
- simula67 8y ago> under President Trump, who has been willing to build alliances with foreign powers to conspire against his own country. Say what you want about Trump, but he loves his country
- philbarr 8y agoSay what you want about Trump, he loves himself.
- Aqua 8y agoHonestly, everyone loves themselves, Trump is just "a little bit" more vocal about it than the most of us.
- golergka 8y agoAre you not at all aware of the depression and similar disorders and how prevalent they are in general population? Honestly, I think that majority of people around me never learned to love themselves.
- zmix 8y agoHe is The Country! ;-)
- somebadguy 8y agoYou poor gullible loser
- jessaustin 8y agoHaha Trump is like global warming now. Even when the topic at hand doesn't have anything to do with him, writers must mumble through a litany of "right-thinking" mumbo-jumbo to placate the pitchfork brigade.
- pplonski86 8y agoI think Polish people are very liberal, I live in Podlaskie Voivodeship, we have mix here of Belarusians, Lithuanians, Jews (regions of Tykocin), Tatars (regions of Kruszyniany). Mix of religions Catholics, Orthodox, Judaism, Muslims. It is called cultural crucible. As one of the implications of such mix, we have very tasty food here! I don't like all comments about government - it is always easy to complain. Please just do you your job as good as you can and everything will be perfect.
- ntlk 8y agoWhere I’m from, all the LGBT people I knew emigrated, me included. Probably because Polish people are not actually very liberal.
- vectorEQ 8y ago"I feel like my teachers lied to me. The version of Western history that I was taught in school mostly focused on Spain and Portugal during the 1400s and 1500s, France and Germany in the 1700s and 1800s, Russia and Germany in the 1900s, and Britain during the whole era from the Dark Ages onwards" This beginning.. points to that our history lessons are focused on resnisance / reformation times. the 'dark ages' is all a bunch of nonsense. if you look at islamic / african continent, asia and other places you can find actually a lot of history that supports the fact that also in Europe people were not in some dark evil times... that a lot of cultures were sharing (ofc there was also conflict all over the place..) a lot of knowlege and culture with eachother. our dark ages for a lot of other cultures is in the middle of their golden ages... like some cheesy soap series: "the rewrting of history after war by it's victors, is a war in itself." just imagine how often that happened. just look at all the modern activities by governments and how they try to turn and twist things like 'their country is best, and others are shit' (that's the general idea they will try to put on their poplation in any case). if you ask me they just try to hide the fact (by reforming history) to make everyone feel seperated, and opposed. instead of remembering we can share and grow all together. /tinfoilhat
- dalbasal 8y agoI tended to think Western history had been progressing toward the modern rule of law since the Dark Ages History always tells you as much about its author as it does about its subject. That narration is, a sort of british (and american) propoganda from the British colonial era. The way they thought of history (of "Western Civilization") was (1) The "spark" starts in ancient greece. (2) It is handed Rome, who build inherit the empire (3) Rome falls (ignore the eastern empire) (4) Civilization rekindles in Italy (5) to torch passes to the British who spread it to the world. Everything culminates in the American-British civilization, and whatever British intellectuals thought was important about Britishness. It also plays down Europe's (especially western Europe) relatively small part in the history of "civilization" until relatively recently. The narration would be totally different depending on who wrote it. For example, think of it from a Middle Eastern perspective. Alexander's conquests would be seen as something akin to Gengis Khan's conquest of China. An outsider barbarian that invaded and ruled the Persian empire. That is, Cyrus created a great persian empire. Greeks captured it, and it continued. Rome captured it, and it continued. Then, western rome fell. But, these were mostly barbarian territories with roman outposts. You can't compare Roman Brtain to Roman Syria, for example. Syria was urban, literate and civilized. Britain was a barbarian island with some roman roads and forts. High status cultural influence (eg christianity) was imported from east to west, not the reverse.
- kome 8y agoVery good point. To this, I would add that the internet and the wide-spread use of English are reinforcing, instead of confronting, the anglo-american cultural bubble...
- exelius 8y agoAnother spin on this: I grew up in Texas. As we all know, Texans are really proud of Texas. Part of this is because the schools spend 3x as much time teaching “Texas history” as they do teaching US history or world history (lol). Almost all of what is called “Texas history” is simply propaganda from the early to mid 1800s. Truth is, Texas was essentially American Mexico (nearly 100% Spanish-speaking) until we found oil there in the late 1800s. It was only ever it’s own independent country because the US was not militarily strong at the time and couldn’t afford a war with Mexico — which would have been the result of the annexation of Texas. But as a result of this state-mandated focus on “local history”, kids who come out of Texas schools are often woefully uneducated as to even Western European history. You just learn this concentrated version of American Exceptionalism that’s mandated by the board of education and has only a tenuous relationship to the truth. As a side note, it’s really weird to learn history in the context of a place that’s only had meaningful levels of population for the last 50 years.
- Err_Eek 8y ago> The Union of Poland and Lithuania was automatically multi-cultural, multi-racial That's seriously stretching the definition of race tho
- dreen 8y agoIt's certainly multi-ethnic. Lithuanians are Balkan peoples while the Polish are Slavic, two separate language and cultural groups. As for race the author was most likely referring to people of Mongolian and Persian descent who were also part of the Union.
- def_true_false 8y ago> Lithuanians are Balkan peoples Baltic.
- dreen 8y agoYep, sorry
- shadowtree 8y agoThe Polish language is interesting as it has just a few Roman/Latin influences and did not get reformed in modern times - unlike many other European languages. Poland did not exist for a long stretch of time, 1795-1918, it was partitioned between Prussia, the Habsburg empire and Russia. Poland had provoked those powers with a radical, modern constitution. The Polish language was forbidden, hence only got taught in underground schools, thereby preserving its old nature. Learning it now can drive you crazy due its chaotic "rules". The partition is also the cause of famous Poles having French names - Frederic Chopin, Marie Curie. The partition and soon to follow WW2, Holocaust and Russian occupation have beaten a fierce paranoia and national identity into modern Poles.
- ajuc 8y agoAre you Polish? Because what you wrote is mostly wrong. Polish is probably the Slavic language with the most foreign influences, at least compared to other western Slavic languages or Balkan languages I've seen. Czech language is more "pure" exactly because it was reconstructed from peasant-speak when nationalism became fashionable and educated Czechs turned to their language. Meanwhile Polish language was continuously used by all layers of society all through the partitions, so it accumulated lots of foreign influences as the fashions changed (from Latin/Italian/German/French/English). It's a significant cultural phenomena, to the point that people in 16th century already complained that everybody uses "makaronizm" (Italian or Latin words) to show-off that they know foreign languages. Polish language wasn't forbidden for majority of the territory that was occupied, and in these parts where it was forbidden - it was only forbidden for a period of time, not the whole time. > The partition is also the cause of famous Poles having French names - Frederic Chopin, Marie Curie. No, it's not. Chopin's father was French, and Maria Skłodowska-Curie (as she preferred to be called, at least when she was in Poland) married a French guy named Curie. Also - Polish language had small reforms every few decades, but I agree it's overdue another, big one.
- shadowtree 8y agoWhy did those Poles end up in France? Maria Skłodowska, as you know, had to study in a clandestine university in Warsaw due to the Russian occupation. What was Russification? Germanification? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Poland_and_Lithuania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Poland_and_Lithu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanisation_of_Poles_during_the_Partitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanisation_of_Poles_during_...
- oym8 8y agoAuthor mentions that "Szlachta" are now portrayed as the villains of Polish history without appearing to understand why this is the case. The key to understanding the dysfunction of polish political system at the time is the concept of "Liberum Veto" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto). Essentially any legislation passed by the Parliament ("Sejm") had to be passed unanimously. This resulted in nobility securing earmarks and privileges for themselves at every turn and led to anarchy and destabilization of the political system, which culminated in partitioning of Poland between three of its largest neighbors for 123 years.
- ajuc 8y agoLiberum veto abuse was a symptom, not the cause. The practice existed since forever, but before late 17th century it was only used to block a particular issue, not the whole session, and only temporarily. And it was OK. Then in one case it was abused (technically correctly) to veto a movement to lenghten the parliament session because consensus wasn't achieved. One guy vetoed that, and sejm was finished without any decisions. Then it started to be abused illegally to finish any sejm completely at any time (even 1 day into the session which were supposed to last weeks) when even 1 nobleman vetoed. It wasn't the problem of the law, because it was illegal to do so - it was the problem of the implementation of the law - because influential people wanted it to be abused that way. But the real reason was - Poland lost several important international struggles (over Baltics vs Sweden and over part of Ukraine vs Russia), and international economic situation changed (agricultural revolution started, decreasing grain prices on the western markets). Additionally after series of barely survived wars Poland lost a lot of population, so the grain production decreased (and it was like 99% of Polish economy). Becausse of all of that - infulential people in Poland perceived Polish interests as unrealistic, and alligned themselves with more profitable groups - Prussia, Germany, Catholic Church. And to further their cause they were breaking the law by abusing liberum veto among others. There were also patriots, of course, and they broke the law, too (3rd May Constitution was introduced in a coup supported by Prussia basically). But in the end Poland was already a Russian protectorate, and there was no way to fix that as long as Russia was so much stronger. Only after WW1 it became possible.
- pouetpouet 8y agoRelated: The Lwow School of Mathematics before before WWII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lw%C3%B3w_School_of_Mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lw%C3%B3w_School_of_Mathematic... https://culture.pl/en/article/maths-madness-and-the-manhattan-project-the-eccentric-lives-of-steinhaus-banach-and-ulam https://culture.pl/en/article/maths-madness-and-the-manhatta... HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16666079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16666079
- psergeant 8y agoIt shouldn’t be any surprise that the successor to the mighty TURBOSLAV empire was progressive.
- furbyhat 8y ago>Consider that the Union of Poland-Lithuania elected Muslims to the Seym (the Parliament) during the 1500s. But when religious intolerance finally won in Poland, in the 1600s, the Muslims were pushed from power, and no other Western nation was to elect a Muslim till the mid 1900s. So the battles that the invading Muslims instigated was "tolerance"... but pushing back on them was "intolerance".