4 ms·

I could find no explanation of why it was called the Scottish café or what the link to Scotland might have been. Any ideas?

by jl6 5y ago

chewz 5y ago
Just the name of the cafe. Actually they have started in Cafe Roma but it has been too crowded and noisy and Banach decided to move to the other side of the street to Szkocka (Scottish) Cafe instead. Another reason Roma's owner wasn't keen to put on a tab. The Szkocka owner - Mr. Brettschneider was more friendly to mathematicians. https://histmag.org/Matematycy-z-kawiarni-Szkockiej-10433 https://histmag.org/Matematycy-z-kawiarni-Szkockiej-10433 The food in Szkocka wan't particularly good in Banach's opinion and some older mathematicians (Hugo Steinhaus) preferred bakery of Ludwik Zalewski at Akademicka 22 which was famous for excellent cakes delivered even to Warsaw by plane. Szkocka Cafe had been also frequented by journalists from Radio Lwów and cattle traders. The Cattle Market had been long time moved further from the city center but traders have liked Szkocka for closing trades. Szkocka was also the home of Klub Konstrukcjonalistów - a discussion and literary club focused on aesthetics. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klub_Konstrukcjonalist%C3%B3w https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klub_Konstrukcjonalist%C3%B3w Lwów had its share of coffee houses - "Cariton" (dawna "Muzeum" obok Muzeum Przemysłowego), "Centralna" (obecnie na rogu ul. Jagiellońskiej i Trzeciego Maja), "Europejska" (róg ul. Czarnieckiego i placu Bernardyńskiego), "Grand" (dawna "Teatralna"), "George", "Imperial" (ul. Legionów 5), "Louvre", "Palermo" (ul. Rutkowskiego, róg ul. Kamińskiego), "De la Paix", "Roma", "Rouge" (ul. Mikołaja), "Sewilla" (pl. Bernardyński, róg ul. Piekarskiej), "Union" ("Hostynnycia"), "Victoria" (ul. Rejtana), "Warszawa", "Wiedeńska" https://www.lwow.home.pl/rocznik/kawiarnie.html https://www.lwow.home.pl/rocznik/kawiarnie.html Google Translated > I also do not know where the idea of christening one of the cafes came from, according to the frescoes inside it, "Szkocka". Personally, this name reminds me of the famous jokes about skimpy Scotsmen and has always appealed - probably against the intentions of the host - to my savings, and maybe that is why it was partially closed for the time being. Google Translated > "Szkocka": it has always been the place with the most heterogeneous audience among all Lviv cafes. University professors and couples in love, old gossipers and lonely newspaper readers, bibliophiles and billiards, Jewish intelligentsia and students from the nearby Academic House, all states and spheres, classes and races, religions and preferences lived here in harmony, not with each other, but next to each other, filling an average of half of the room. So "Scotch" was always especially nice thanks to the fact that it was never too full and never too empty. Somehow its capacity was happily measured. Various secessionists from the neighboring "Roma" were a large part of its audience; those who for one reason or another - sometimes because of oppositionism itself, and sometimes as a result of overpopulation - left their home tables in "Roma" and emigrated to "Szkocka", trying to establish a new, independent existence here.
wirrbel 5y ago
I don't know about that particular history, but naming things is hard and naming cafes and hotels based on foreign places was kind of customary. "Cafe Wien" (obviously nod to Viennas Coffee house culture), etc. In Germany at least the Country + Hof combination is still fairly common for established hotels ("Englischer Hof", literally "English Yard/court"). So I could very well imagine that someone founding a Cafe looked at which names were already used in town and settled on "Scottish", maybe also due to 'underdog' sympathies perhaps with Scotland (?) but that is pure speculation on my part.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  I had Hof as a cognate to "hall", but that's not correct, it primary cognate is "hovel". But there's a modern meaning of "pub" — via Korean! https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/huf%C4%85 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...
  - wirrbel 5y ago
    hall is cognate to Halle I think. The proper standard German translation for hall might be Gutshof. But primarily, Hof refers to a yard, and then derived from that, are related meanings. It can refer to a farm (in many German regions a farm consists of several houses /stables arranged in a way that the buildings form the enclosure of a yard, "der Hof", see also David Hasselhof: Hassel-Hof, the Farm of Hassel). A rural hotel/Restaurant is sometimes referred to as a Gasthof (Gast=Guest). court of justice = Gerichtshof royal court = Königshof atrium = Vorhof The Korean word your referencing seems to stem from Hofbräu, which refers to the royal court, Hofbräu is the Bräu (= brew) with the royal warrant (from the Königs-Hof).
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    Think "Pizza Hut", "Radio Shack", etc.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  In one of his books, Richard Feynman told of staying in the "Hotel City" (in Switzerland, I believe), observing that in America they would have called it the "Hotel Cité", because using a foreign name makes it sound fancier.
malcolmstill 5y ago
It could be related to historic Scotland -> Poland immigration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_diaspora#Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_diaspora#Poland
- Kaibeezy 5y ago
  It’s a rich historic connection, especially in academia. More detail here - https://www.scotland.org/features/scotland-and-poland https://www.scotland.org/features/scotland-and-poland

I could find no explanation of why it was called the Scottish café or what the link to Scotland might have been. Any ideas?

by jl6 5y ago

I could find no explanation of why it was called the Scottish café or what the link to Scotland might have been. Any ideas?

chewz 5y ago

Just the name of the cafe. Actually they have started in Cafe Roma but it has been too crowded and noisy and Banach decided to move to the other side of the street to Szkocka (Scottish) Cafe instead. Another reason Roma's owner wasn't keen to put on a tab. The Szkocka owner - Mr. Brettschneider was more friendly to mathematicians. https://histmag.org/Matematycy-z-kawiarni-Szkockiej-10433 https://histmag.org/Matematycy-z-kawiarni-Szkockiej-10433 The food in Szkocka wan't particularly good in Banach's opinion and some older mathematicians (Hugo Steinhaus) preferred bakery of Ludwik Zalewski at Akademicka 22 which was famous for excellent cakes delivered even to Warsaw by plane. Szkocka Cafe had been also frequented by journalists from Radio Lwów and cattle traders. The Cattle Market had been long time moved further from the city center but traders have liked Szkocka for closing trades. Szkocka was also the home of Klub Konstrukcjonalistów - a discussion and literary club focused on aesthetics. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klub_Konstrukcjonalist%C3%B3w https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klub_Konstrukcjonalist%C3%B3w Lwów had its share of coffee houses - "Cariton" (dawna "Muzeum" obok Muzeum Przemysłowego), "Centralna" (obecnie na rogu ul. Jagiellońskiej i Trzeciego Maja), "Europejska" (róg ul. Czarnieckiego i placu Bernardyńskiego), "Grand" (dawna "Teatralna"), "George", "Imperial" (ul. Legionów 5), "Louvre", "Palermo" (ul. Rutkowskiego, róg ul. Kamińskiego), "De la Paix", "Roma", "Rouge" (ul. Mikołaja), "Sewilla" (pl. Bernardyński, róg ul. Piekarskiej), "Union" ("Hostynnycia"), "Victoria" (ul. Rejtana), "Warszawa", "Wiedeńska" https://www.lwow.home.pl/rocznik/kawiarnie.html https://www.lwow.home.pl/rocznik/kawiarnie.html Google Translated > I also do not know where the idea of christening one of the cafes came from, according to the frescoes inside it, "Szkocka". Personally, this name reminds me of the famous jokes about skimpy Scotsmen and has always appealed - probably against the intentions of the host - to my savings, and maybe that is why it was partially closed for the time being. Google Translated > "Szkocka": it has always been the place with the most heterogeneous audience among all Lviv cafes. University professors and couples in love, old gossipers and lonely newspaper readers, bibliophiles and billiards, Jewish intelligentsia and students from the nearby Academic House, all states and spheres, classes and races, religions and preferences lived here in harmony, not with each other, but next to each other, filling an average of half of the room. So "Scotch" was always especially nice thanks to the fact that it was never too full and never too empty. Somehow its capacity was happily measured. Various secessionists from the neighboring "Roma" were a large part of its audience; those who for one reason or another - sometimes because of oppositionism itself, and sometimes as a result of overpopulation - left their home tables in "Roma" and emigrated to "Szkocka", trying to establish a new, independent existence here.

wirrbel 5y ago

I don't know about that particular history, but naming things is hard and naming cafes and hotels based on foreign places was kind of customary. "Cafe Wien" (obviously nod to Viennas Coffee house culture), etc. In Germany at least the Country + Hof combination is still fairly common for established hotels ("Englischer Hof", literally "English Yard/court"). So I could very well imagine that someone founding a Cafe looked at which names were already used in town and settled on "Scottish", maybe also due to 'underdog' sympathies perhaps with Scotland (?) but that is pure speculation on my part.

Symbiote 5y ago
I had Hof as a cognate to "hall", but that's not correct, it primary cognate is "hovel". But there's a modern meaning of "pub" — via Korean! https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/huf%C4%85 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...
- wirrbel 5y ago
  hall is cognate to Halle I think. The proper standard German translation for hall might be Gutshof. But primarily, Hof refers to a yard, and then derived from that, are related meanings. It can refer to a farm (in many German regions a farm consists of several houses /stables arranged in a way that the buildings form the enclosure of a yard, "der Hof", see also David Hasselhof: Hassel-Hof, the Farm of Hassel). A rural hotel/Restaurant is sometimes referred to as a Gasthof (Gast=Guest). court of justice = Gerichtshof royal court = Königshof atrium = Vorhof The Korean word your referencing seems to stem from Hofbräu, which refers to the royal court, Hofbräu is the Bräu (= brew) with the royal warrant (from the Königs-Hof).
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  Think "Pizza Hut", "Radio Shack", etc.
Turing_Machine 5y ago
In one of his books, Richard Feynman told of staying in the "Hotel City" (in Switzerland, I believe), observing that in America they would have called it the "Hotel Cité", because using a foreign name makes it sound fancier.

malcolmstill 5y ago

It could be related to historic Scotland -> Poland immigration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_diaspora#Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_diaspora#Poland

Kaibeezy 5y ago
It’s a rich historic connection, especially in academia. More detail here - https://www.scotland.org/features/scotland-and-poland https://www.scotland.org/features/scotland-and-poland