Considering how much attention Poland is getting these days, now would be a really good time to have a proper soft power policy and begin to implement it
I live in the UK and I can confidently say that literally no country other than the UK is represented in history. All British history and it’s so annoying. The only two things we learn about that aren’t related to Britain are the Russian Revolution and Nazi Germany. We will be learning some more Nazi stuff in Year 10 I believe so hopefully I actually learn about something else other than Britain
Nobody cares.
Norman Davies giving himself a little shout out there.
Aaahh, Norman Davies, the greatest bootlicker of Poland outside of Poland.
If Poland would be as important as he states, there would be no need to remind other countries of its importance
Not to mention 0 representation in media.
This is important topic and people don’t recognize it as such which is sad. I live in the US but I was born in Poland.
Poland is and has been doing extreme amount of good, but it assumes that the word would be out so everybody knows. This is not the case in real world. Countries are actively overriding the history and unfortunately Poland has to do the same. Example? Poland being one of the largest donor of military equipment to the Ukraine, but German institude that publish military help data counts „promised and delivered” aid together which makes countries like Germany (coincidence?) look better than they actually are.
Norman Davies kinda stating the obvious here, ever since Poland regained its independence from the Soviets it has been downright terrible at promoting its proper image, knowledge about it and historical accuracy pertaining to it abroad.
I mean… Just because there are no dedicated Polish studies doesn’t mean there is no place for Poland in the whole educational program.
I’m French and i remember spending a whole lot of time on Poland.
Through PL-LT commonwealth, Teutonic wars, Warsaw confederation, the multiple wars involving either Russia or Prussia, Duchy of Warsaw, the various kings and nobles having relations with our own… And the whole 20th century European history program spends a lot of time in Poland.
But yeah having dedicated Polish studies program would be a huge plus for those who want to dive in!
Yes, it’s absolutely true. As a Polish historian, there was quite literally no one in both my undergraduate and masters degrees (in the US and Netherlands) who had any real knowledge about my topics, just adjacent knowledge at best.
Geralt !?
The only time I see big traffic on reddit mentioning Poland, are the threads saying how Poles killed Jews and were literally worse than Nazis. It’s ridiculous how much this lie is repeated on this site and we have no way of combating this disinformation compaign.
It also depends where abroad. For example, I am Romanian and I graduated Polish studies at University of Bucharest in 2012. Even back then there were a lot of students interested in Polish studies, more than those in Slovak or Ukrainian.
Even myself when I decided to choose Polish studies, I thought: “Ok, I know a Germanic language (English), Latin ones (native Romanian & Spanish), let’s go for something different, a Slavic one.” I had 3 options back then: Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian (Russian had its own separate section).
Part of my mother’s family originates in Odesa, so Ukrainian would have been the choice. Well, no. When I had to choose, I wanted for the country whose language I was going to learn to be a more powerful country. Poland was well beyond Slovakia and Ukraine in my eyes even back in 2009 when I registered.
On the registration site, they tried to convince me to choose Ukrainian telling me that Polish is very difficult. I refused and went with Polish no matter their arguments and to this day I am happy with the decision.
Nowadays, Poland is quite known in Romania and is seen by many as a country that we should set as an example. Most Romanians have a positive opinion on Poland and many of us are visiting Poland more and more.
In 2023 I took my wife for the first time in Poland. She loved the country so much that she started asking me to move there. Even today she misses Poland and probably we will be back for another visit.
And this, my dear Poles, is soft power and keeps growing in the case of Poland.
16 comments
Their loss I guess
[deleted]
Umm……. Chicago would like a word
Considering how much attention Poland is getting these days, now would be a really good time to have a proper soft power policy and begin to implement it
I live in the UK and I can confidently say that literally no country other than the UK is represented in history. All British history and it’s so annoying. The only two things we learn about that aren’t related to Britain are the Russian Revolution and Nazi Germany. We will be learning some more Nazi stuff in Year 10 I believe so hopefully I actually learn about something else other than Britain
Nobody cares.
Norman Davies giving himself a little shout out there.
Aaahh, Norman Davies, the greatest bootlicker of Poland outside of Poland.
If Poland would be as important as he states, there would be no need to remind other countries of its importance
Not to mention 0 representation in media.
This is important topic and people don’t recognize it as such which is sad. I live in the US but I was born in Poland.
Poland is and has been doing extreme amount of good, but it assumes that the word would be out so everybody knows. This is not the case in real world. Countries are actively overriding the history and unfortunately Poland has to do the same. Example? Poland being one of the largest donor of military equipment to the Ukraine, but German institude that publish military help data counts „promised and delivered” aid together which makes countries like Germany (coincidence?) look better than they actually are.
Norman Davies kinda stating the obvious here, ever since Poland regained its independence from the Soviets it has been downright terrible at promoting its proper image, knowledge about it and historical accuracy pertaining to it abroad.
I mean… Just because there are no dedicated Polish studies doesn’t mean there is no place for Poland in the whole educational program.
I’m French and i remember spending a whole lot of time on Poland.
Through PL-LT commonwealth, Teutonic wars, Warsaw confederation, the multiple wars involving either Russia or Prussia, Duchy of Warsaw, the various kings and nobles having relations with our own… And the whole 20th century European history program spends a lot of time in Poland.
But yeah having dedicated Polish studies program would be a huge plus for those who want to dive in!
Yes, it’s absolutely true. As a Polish historian, there was quite literally no one in both my undergraduate and masters degrees (in the US and Netherlands) who had any real knowledge about my topics, just adjacent knowledge at best.
Geralt !?
The only time I see big traffic on reddit mentioning Poland, are the threads saying how Poles killed Jews and were literally worse than Nazis. It’s ridiculous how much this lie is repeated on this site and we have no way of combating this disinformation compaign.
It also depends where abroad. For example, I am Romanian and I graduated Polish studies at University of Bucharest in 2012. Even back then there were a lot of students interested in Polish studies, more than those in Slovak or Ukrainian.
Even myself when I decided to choose Polish studies, I thought: “Ok, I know a Germanic language (English), Latin ones (native Romanian & Spanish), let’s go for something different, a Slavic one.” I had 3 options back then: Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian (Russian had its own separate section).
Part of my mother’s family originates in Odesa, so Ukrainian would have been the choice. Well, no. When I had to choose, I wanted for the country whose language I was going to learn to be a more powerful country. Poland was well beyond Slovakia and Ukraine in my eyes even back in 2009 when I registered.
On the registration site, they tried to convince me to choose Ukrainian telling me that Polish is very difficult. I refused and went with Polish no matter their arguments and to this day I am happy with the decision.
Nowadays, Poland is quite known in Romania and is seen by many as a country that we should set as an example. Most Romanians have a positive opinion on Poland and many of us are visiting Poland more and more.
In 2023 I took my wife for the first time in Poland. She loved the country so much that she started asking me to move there. Even today she misses Poland and probably we will be back for another visit.
And this, my dear Poles, is soft power and keeps growing in the case of Poland.
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