1923 USSR Anti-Polish Poster

[henryk]

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox ... qVdhFWJpdL
Gen Dobry: Volume XXII, No. 1 30 November2022

**** AN INTERESTING BIT OF HISTORY ***
Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, now a pro-democracy activist, posted on Twitter this image, explaining, “Interesting find by my cousin, a Russian poster from 1923 calling Poland an ‘annoying obstacle’ to relations between Russia and Germany. A year after their 1922 Rapallo Treaty. The seeds of teaming up to destroy Poland were planted long before 1939.”

The verbiage at the top reads Дорогу нашему хрестьянскому хлебу в обмен на германские сельско-хозяйственные машины и орудия, “The route for our peasant bread in exchange for German agricultural machinery and implements.” And guess what’s in the middle, blocking the railroad lines between Germany and the Soviet Union? Польша, Poland!

I hope the Cyrillic font copied OK

[sarhang]

True to say, one could hardly term this naive poster as totally devoid of insight.

[gebhk]

Hardly surprising. Poland was perhaps the one thing they could alweays agree on!

[wwilson]

Hardly surprising. Poland was perhaps the one thing they could alweays agree on!

Surprised me to note how "Poland" is spoken in the Russian language. I would have thought it would have been "Polska", as in Polish.

Cheers

[gebhk]

Hi Wwilson

I don't think there is any rational pattern to how people call other contries Just look how the British call a certain country 'Denmark'. Who are the Dens?

You may be even more surprised that most Muslim folk in the Southern Soviet 'republcs' to which members of my family were deported, had never heard of 'Polska' or even 'Polsha' but immediately recognised Lechistan - indeed with great repect; even reverence if they were Shia.

[wwilson]

Just look how the British call a certain country 'Denmark'

Fair enough, but I'll point out that when I hear English spoken, it doesn't sound much like Danish. By way of comparison, by knowing a bit of one Slavic language, I've been surprised to realize that I can (at times) understand things spoken in a different Slavic language. I assumed the Russian word for 'Poland' would be the same as the Poles' word for it. But yeah, that is an arbitrary assumption.

Cheers

[gebhk]

OOh you maybe undervalue the profund if now subtle impact of Danish rule on these here Islands back in the day, which can be seen for example in the peculiar traditional management of the land for agriculture. But I digress.

My best guess is that the unusual English name for Denmark (pretty much everyone else in Europe uses some sort of derivative of Dan ie Danmark, Dania, Daniya, Danemark, Danimarca - unless they go completely off the rails like the Fins - I love the Fins and Finland but trying to decipher Finnish just gives me a nosebleed) came to England with the Frisians and Dutch. And here's the rub - their languages are allegedly virtually indistinguishable from Danish - it has been said that they are more similar than English and American though i suspect that is an exagerraton. And yet they call Danmark Denemark/Denemarken.