5 ms·

One interesting thing is the perception of Jogalia aka Władysław II Jagiełło (King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania) by Polish and Lithuanians nowadays. I'

One interesting thing is the perception of Jogalia aka Władysław II Jagiełło (King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania) by Polish and Lithuanians nowadays. I'm pretty sure he's quite cherished historically in Poland due to his relatively stable rule and rather famous wars waged against Teutonic order, incl. battle of Tannenberg (the OG battle). On the other hand, it seems that there was a period when Jogalia was perceived in a rather negative light by Lithuanians. Not sure if 'traitor' is the right description of that sentiment, but definitely getting into a personal union, that ultimately led to the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, seems to be judged rather unfavourably. From what I could understand, the dominance of Polish in that union was detrimental to the Lithuanian identity over time? If anybody knows to what extent and for what exact reasons we see those differing pictures of the same person by peoples of two countries that constituted the same political body for quite some time, I'd be interested in hearing some details.

rpastuszak 4y ago
In Our Time (the BBC podcast) has a decent episode on the subject: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010f8z https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010f8z
- lemursage 4y ago
  That was a really great listen, thanks! It actually mentions some of the concepts discussed around here (up or down, may be hard to tell in a while) about how people perceived the Commonwealth and the Republic.
rich_sasha 4y ago
Interesting. As far as I can tell, both nations see the union as "their" one. Poland, as you say, grew to be more dominant culturally and politically, Lithuania brought in more territory. The Commonwealth eventually collapsed, which certainly in Poland is seen as the greatest disaster of the country's history. I'd imagine similarly in Lithuania; it brought cruel foreign rule to all of its former territories. The state collapsed because it was more and more dysfunctional, perhaps due to its inhomogeneity, so eg in Poland the union is sometimes seen as short term good but long term bad. But the mainstream view remains "look how big Poland was. Yes and that other bit too". It probably doesn't help that after the post-war border rejig, Lithuania is left as a territorially small country, with much of its heartland chopped off, and initially at least with a huge Polish minority wishing that the territory they live in was in fact awarded to Poland. Vilnius to this day is, i believe, something like 10% Polish population. There's countless trips from Poland admiring "our" city full of "Polish history". So basically Poland and Lithuania built together an empire that collapsed badly, leaving considerable animosity between the nations, which i guess sours the memory of the empire, and leaves people wondering what the past would have looked like if not for the joint venture. The reality is that, together or apart, it still lie between Russia and Germany, so a hard place to be, but it's always nice to have a bogeyman to blame
- vkazanov 4y ago
  Well... about that hard place. At some point it was the Commonwealth that dominated the region. A Polish Prince could have kicked off a Russian tzar dynasty: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Władysław_IV_Vasa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Władysław_IV_Vasa Unfortunately, this was completely mismanaged by prince's father and, transitively, the Pope, who saw this as a great possibility to expand Rome's rule in the region.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    True, most people don't realize that Russia was, from the European point of view, a non-entity for much of its history. The country was big, but very poor and underdeveloped. Only in the 1700s Russia starts to emerge as a serious contender in European power struggles.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  "eventually" After some 400 years. Most currently existing countries, at least in their contemporary political form, haven't reached this mark yet.
  - rich_sasha 4y ago
    It's more that the collapse was particularly painful for Poles and Lithuanians. Incidentally, it is around that time that Ukraine got under Russian hegemony too. Not that Ukraine got a good deal under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising
scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
Jagiełło is up there as one of the greatest greats of all time in Polish national mythology. I mean I’m no historian, but my impression here in Europe is that every nation has its heroes. And that those same heroes are often villains in the histories of neighboring national mythologies. I know this isn’t some big insight. But from my Polish perspective I think it’s all much more recent than we would like to think. We learn all of this stuff on the basis of a highly politicized curriculum. For instance most of the current Polish national stories/facts date back only to 19th century literature, which was highly focused on restoring the Polish national myth. Our minds can’t wrap their way around time very well. So, we end up believing that someone from the 19th century somehow knew more than we do about the 17th century. Fact is, someone from the end of the 18th century probably could already have distorted knowledge about the beginning of the 18th century. So I think shitty nationalist arguments over Jagiełło’s rule have more to do with what modern Poles and modern Lithuanians think, than with what was really going on in that historical period. Anyways I’m surprised Jaggielonians were this important historically later. I’m a bit suspicious about modern motivations around supporting myths that they’re worth cherishing. Are there ancestors who have an interest in making themselves “royal” for the purposes of their ego? What’s more - why is this even on Hacker News? Isn’t this, like completely off topic? edit: I don’t want to be harsh - the subject does sound very interesting, and worth investigating. Oxford historians are probably more than very well aware of everything I said above.
- abrichr 4y ago
  From the guidelines (link in footer): > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
    I get it - I’m more so expressing surprise with this subject, rather than dissatisfaction.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
vkazanov 4y ago
This has a lot to do with a simplistic (and wrong) projection of the modern concept of patriotism/nationalism to medieval history. Jogaila did what was good for his dynasty and himself personally, that's it. As an aristocrate he couldn't get a better deal. Back then there was no concept of nations and nation-states, which only evolved a couple of centuries later. An aristrocrate inherited lands and a relatively week tie to his patron. No "nation" in the power equation. They could and did switch sides a lot, especially if that meant extra subordinates and a higher aristocracy rank. Sadly, state-sponsored school textbooks always kind of skip this simple fact.
- AinderS 4y ago
  > Back then there was no concept of nations and nation-states, which only evolved a couple of centuries later. Just because the power structures didn't perfectly reflect nations, doesn't mean nations didn't exist. Look at, for example, Catalonia, that still has a concept of its own nationhood despite being ruled by Spain. Or look at the British Raj, for that matter. Britain and India were both ruled by the same royal family, yet no-one pretends their people's identities weren't distinct.
  - vkazanov 4y ago
    Or Ancient Egypt, which had all the necessary attributes in place over 4 thousand years ago... not quite the case with feudal societies in medieval Europe. I am only speaking about medieval Europe, btw. And British colonial rule over India is clearly out of scope here. Besides, monarchy by then was a VERY different construct.
    - AinderS 4y ago
      > British colonial rule Keep going. What makes "colonial rule" different from rule by an aristocrat that inherited lands, if people have no concept of nationhood, and one aristocrat is as good as another?
- yywwbbn 4y ago
  That’s kind of true (too some degree at least) if you’re talking about Western Europe. However Lithuania (and Jogaila himself) was still Pagan back then and had much closer ties to the Orthodox world. There was a very clear dividing line between the two nations and chances are Lithuania would have become Orthdox had he not been offered the throne of Poland. > An aristrocrate inherited lands and a relatively week tie to his patron. An aristrocrate inherited lands and a relatively week tie to his patron. No "nation" in the power equation. They could and did switch sides a lot, especially if that meant extra subordinates and a higher aristocracy rank. Polish nobles were not legally allowed to own land in Lithuania (and vice versa) many years after the initial union. Legally in many ways it was much harder to move to a different country without losing you social position and most or your property than nowadays. > there was no concept of nations and nation-states That just a misconception. Their understanding of what a nation was might have been quite a bit different but it did definitely exist.
praptak 4y ago
Lithuanians have much more recent reasons to hate Poland. The Polish annexation of Vilnius in 1919 was a dick move. It gives Lithuanians strong reasons to colour their view of past events.
- yywwbbn 4y ago
  Well it was a Polish (and Jewish) at the time. And the Lithuanian state wasn’t particularly interested in any compromise with Poland. And well.. Lithuania did the same when it snatched Klaipeda/Memel (well worse to be fair considering that most people living there would have preferred if the region was returned to Germany).
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  Tverečius also (see my top-level comment).

rpastuszak 4y ago

In Our Time (the BBC podcast) has a decent episode on the subject: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010f8z https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010f8z

lemursage 4y ago
That was a really great listen, thanks! It actually mentions some of the concepts discussed around here (up or down, may be hard to tell in a while) about how people perceived the Commonwealth and the Republic.

rich_sasha 4y ago

Interesting. As far as I can tell, both nations see the union as "their" one. Poland, as you say, grew to be more dominant culturally and politically, Lithuania brought in more territory. The Commonwealth eventually collapsed, which certainly in Poland is seen as the greatest disaster of the country's history. I'd imagine similarly in Lithuania; it brought cruel foreign rule to all of its former territories. The state collapsed because it was more and more dysfunctional, perhaps due to its inhomogeneity, so eg in Poland the union is sometimes seen as short term good but long term bad. But the mainstream view remains "look how big Poland was. Yes and that other bit too". It probably doesn't help that after the post-war border rejig, Lithuania is left as a territorially small country, with much of its heartland chopped off, and initially at least with a huge Polish minority wishing that the territory they live in was in fact awarded to Poland. Vilnius to this day is, i believe, something like 10% Polish population. There's countless trips from Poland admiring "our" city full of "Polish history". So basically Poland and Lithuania built together an empire that collapsed badly, leaving considerable animosity between the nations, which i guess sours the memory of the empire, and leaves people wondering what the past would have looked like if not for the joint venture. The reality is that, together or apart, it still lie between Russia and Germany, so a hard place to be, but it's always nice to have a bogeyman to blame

vkazanov 4y ago
Well... about that hard place. At some point it was the Commonwealth that dominated the region. A Polish Prince could have kicked off a Russian tzar dynasty: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Władysław_IV_Vasa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Władysław_IV_Vasa Unfortunately, this was completely mismanaged by prince's father and, transitively, the Pope, who saw this as a great possibility to expand Rome's rule in the region.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  True, most people don't realize that Russia was, from the European point of view, a non-entity for much of its history. The country was big, but very poor and underdeveloped. Only in the 1700s Russia starts to emerge as a serious contender in European power struggles.
inglor_cz 4y ago
"eventually" After some 400 years. Most currently existing countries, at least in their contemporary political form, haven't reached this mark yet.
- rich_sasha 4y ago
  It's more that the collapse was particularly painful for Poles and Lithuanians. Incidentally, it is around that time that Ukraine got under Russian hegemony too. Not that Ukraine got a good deal under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago

Jagiełło is up there as one of the greatest greats of all time in Polish national mythology. I mean I’m no historian, but my impression here in Europe is that every nation has its heroes. And that those same heroes are often villains in the histories of neighboring national mythologies. I know this isn’t some big insight. But from my Polish perspective I think it’s all much more recent than we would like to think. We learn all of this stuff on the basis of a highly politicized curriculum. For instance most of the current Polish national stories/facts date back only to 19th century literature, which was highly focused on restoring the Polish national myth. Our minds can’t wrap their way around time very well. So, we end up believing that someone from the 19th century somehow knew more than we do about the 17th century. Fact is, someone from the end of the 18th century probably could already have distorted knowledge about the beginning of the 18th century. So I think shitty nationalist arguments over Jagiełło’s rule have more to do with what modern Poles and modern Lithuanians think, than with what was really going on in that historical period. Anyways I’m surprised Jaggielonians were this important historically later. I’m a bit suspicious about modern motivations around supporting myths that they’re worth cherishing. Are there ancestors who have an interest in making themselves “royal” for the purposes of their ego? What’s more - why is this even on Hacker News? Isn’t this, like completely off topic? edit: I don’t want to be harsh - the subject does sound very interesting, and worth investigating. Oxford historians are probably more than very well aware of everything I said above.

abrichr 4y ago
From the guidelines (link in footer): > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  I get it - I’m more so expressing surprise with this subject, rather than dissatisfaction.
inglor_cz 4y ago

vkazanov 4y ago

This has a lot to do with a simplistic (and wrong) projection of the modern concept of patriotism/nationalism to medieval history. Jogaila did what was good for his dynasty and himself personally, that's it. As an aristocrate he couldn't get a better deal. Back then there was no concept of nations and nation-states, which only evolved a couple of centuries later. An aristrocrate inherited lands and a relatively week tie to his patron. No "nation" in the power equation. They could and did switch sides a lot, especially if that meant extra subordinates and a higher aristocracy rank. Sadly, state-sponsored school textbooks always kind of skip this simple fact.

AinderS 4y ago
> Back then there was no concept of nations and nation-states, which only evolved a couple of centuries later. Just because the power structures didn't perfectly reflect nations, doesn't mean nations didn't exist. Look at, for example, Catalonia, that still has a concept of its own nationhood despite being ruled by Spain. Or look at the British Raj, for that matter. Britain and India were both ruled by the same royal family, yet no-one pretends their people's identities weren't distinct.
- vkazanov 4y ago
  Or Ancient Egypt, which had all the necessary attributes in place over 4 thousand years ago... not quite the case with feudal societies in medieval Europe. I am only speaking about medieval Europe, btw. And British colonial rule over India is clearly out of scope here. Besides, monarchy by then was a VERY different construct.
  - AinderS 4y ago
    > British colonial rule Keep going. What makes "colonial rule" different from rule by an aristocrat that inherited lands, if people have no concept of nationhood, and one aristocrat is as good as another?
yywwbbn 4y ago
That’s kind of true (too some degree at least) if you’re talking about Western Europe. However Lithuania (and Jogaila himself) was still Pagan back then and had much closer ties to the Orthodox world. There was a very clear dividing line between the two nations and chances are Lithuania would have become Orthdox had he not been offered the throne of Poland. > An aristrocrate inherited lands and a relatively week tie to his patron. An aristrocrate inherited lands and a relatively week tie to his patron. No "nation" in the power equation. They could and did switch sides a lot, especially if that meant extra subordinates and a higher aristocracy rank. Polish nobles were not legally allowed to own land in Lithuania (and vice versa) many years after the initial union. Legally in many ways it was much harder to move to a different country without losing you social position and most or your property than nowadays. > there was no concept of nations and nation-states That just a misconception. Their understanding of what a nation was might have been quite a bit different but it did definitely exist.

praptak 4y ago

Lithuanians have much more recent reasons to hate Poland. The Polish annexation of Vilnius in 1919 was a dick move. It gives Lithuanians strong reasons to colour their view of past events.

yywwbbn 4y ago
Well it was a Polish (and Jewish) at the time. And the Lithuanian state wasn’t particularly interested in any compromise with Poland. And well.. Lithuania did the same when it snatched Klaipeda/Memel (well worse to be fair considering that most people living there would have preferred if the region was returned to Germany).
AlbertCory 4y ago
Tverečius also (see my top-level comment).