So there’s this weird brand of Americans with Polish ancestry who are more nationalistic for Poland than any native-born Pole. You can recognize them by their social media: it’s all pictures of winged hussars, women in sexified Polish folk costume, and long screeds (all in English) about how Stalin took all of their grandmother’s chickens back in 1945. Sometimes they don’t even have a Polish surname, they just took an ancestry test in 2015 which told they were displaced szlachta or something.
I have several acquaintances like that, and I am not checking to see what they think of this Duda-Zelensky business.
So there’s this weird brand of Americans with Polish ancestry who are more nationalistic for Poland than any native-born Pole.
That’s why they were given citizenships and voting rights in Poland, despite some of them barely speaking any polish and never even visiting, because that population, especially in USA and Germany, is very conservative and that’s up to around 21 milion people worldwide, even if 5/100 go vote that’s million votes for PiS.
they were given citizenships and voting rights in Poland
Ugh, that’s some ridiculous political manuevering. I’m all for people being in touch with their heritage – I myself have mostly German ancestry, and I enjoy learning about German history and culture – but a country is a material thing, rooted in an historical and current relationship to production in some particular place, and expressed in some kind of national culture. It isn’t just bloodlines/genes/ancestry/whatever you want to call it.
Have you, by any chance, heard of Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within? I never tried it myself, but I used to watch a longplay of it to pass the time, and it involves a few moderners exploring premodern German history as part of a murder mystery… it’s just kind of nice to have a tale set in Germany that, for once, isn’t all about anticommies.
So there’s this weird brand of Americans with Polish ancestry who are more nationalistic for Poland than any native-born Pole. You can recognize them by their social media: it’s all pictures of winged hussars, women in sexified Polish folk costume, and long screeds (all in English) about how Stalin took all of their grandmother’s chickens back in 1945. Sometimes they don’t even have a Polish surname, they just took an ancestry test in 2015 which told they were displaced szlachta or something.
I have several acquaintances like that, and I am not checking to see what they think of this Duda-Zelensky business.
That’s why they were given citizenships and voting rights in Poland, despite some of them barely speaking any polish and never even visiting, because that population, especially in USA and Germany, is very conservative and that’s up to around 21 milion people worldwide, even if 5/100 go vote that’s million votes for PiS.
Ugh, that’s some ridiculous political manuevering. I’m all for people being in touch with their heritage – I myself have mostly German ancestry, and I enjoy learning about German history and culture – but a country is a material thing, rooted in an historical and current relationship to production in some particular place, and expressed in some kind of national culture. It isn’t just bloodlines/genes/ancestry/whatever you want to call it.
Have you, by any chance, heard of Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within? I never tried it myself, but I used to watch a longplay of it to pass the time, and it involves a few moderners exploring premodern German history as part of a murder mystery… it’s just kind of nice to have a tale set in Germany that, for once, isn’t all about anticommies.
https://onion.tube/watch?v=_I5lIfJ1Z2c&t=15
Hadn’t heard of it – will check it out! Thanks for the rec.