Polish city Lwow

[Lubov]

Originally posted by Lwow_pl
You're wrong, Bartosz. Most of people in Poland know, that Lwow is Polish, and not Ukrainian city.

Built on Ukrainian sweat and blood and bones

[Bartosz]

I understand that we use to trifle, but why do you gibber????

[zhuk]

It is agood illusrtration on the topic how soon the memory of the people fades.
These days Lwowiane do not remember how they had defended their own city against Chmelnitsky troops in 1649.
As well as they defended it in 1920 and 1939.
I am sure that in todays modern Lwow there is the street named after Chmelnitsky.
It would be considered as nightmare for any citizen of Lwow in 17th century.

[Andrej]

Lwow_pl: thats as good as claiming that Kaliningrad (Koenigsberg) should be handed back to Germany. Russians now live there and not much German is left, this is different from Russian claims for Crimea or Eastern Ukraine since these areas are inhabited by ethnic Russians.

[Andrej]

Also Lwow_Pl: as a Russian I understand what loss of National property is, just look at the Crimean peninsula that Russia fought two wars with the Turks for. Yet when you talk about paying for Polish property I wonder if you realise the dynamics of todays realities. Poland too absorbed some land after WW2, such as a part of East Prussia. You would have had a legitemate claim if Lwow had a large Polish minority at the very least. Otherwise its a dog eat dog world and both the Russians and the Poles are victims to the Ukranians in a territorial sense. Yet, the only way is of integration, if a Polish citizen can walk across the border into Lwow and find information in Polish on the street, then why does it matter ? That won't happen unless talks of what happened in 1939 stop. Simply because, you say it was the Soviets, and who are they ? Gone, who wasn't a victim of Communism ? Russians lost 10's of millions of people to Communism and look at all the land that was reassigned to different Republics. Poles have nothing to be bitter for. They have a relatively large nation in every aspect with a good future. They will most likely become the powerhouse of Eastern Europe in the near future, let bygones be bygones, at the very least because they have no choice.

[zhuk]

Dear Andrej,
Please, do not be abused by my opinion. But I do not consider it very delicate to wave the National flag of Russia on this forum.
Gentlemen, who come to this forum usually are living such attributes near the entrance.
I identify myself as a russian, living in Kiev. Although My parents are Ukrainians, I have studied in St Petersburh in 1985-1987 and I feel very sorry that our both nations are separated by the most crazy border.

But, please, be more delicate, your russian flag is too brutal for this forum.
Nationalism of any kind is madness. Try to look on the matters by the eyes of your opponents.

[Zbyszek]

Lvov, a golden, prosperous Polish town. What can be more appealing to a Polish soul? However, that kind of sentiment must never be disruptive. Andrej is surely right about bygones. I spent two wonderful weeks in August in Bieszczady, a part Carpathian mountains. This land, like Lvov is a part of former Galicia and it has been a part of Poland for more than six centuries. It had been inhabited by the Ruthenian minority, being a majority there. I roamed through the valleys, wonderful fir forests, I crossed the streams offering cristal waters. I entered the beautiful, wooden churches. This small place enjoyed relative peace for centuries and suddenly, due to the bitter Polish-Ukrainian conflict it was destroyed. Only some graves with the Cyrillic characters say something about the former inhabitants. Wild animals (bears, wolves, lynxes and bisons) occupy places once inhabited by the humans.
For a moment I had an idea of trading this place with the Ukrainians for our golden Lvov... No, never.
It is better to encourage forgiveness and respect for the past of places with a great history. People once living there thought foremost about their families, how to protect them. Then they cultivated the famously fertile soil, they dreamed, built, wrote poems. Their nationality used to be much less important that it seems now.
Andrej you are right about the bygones but Zhuk is also right about the sensitiveness to the symbols. They make you proud but they also hurt others.

[Edited by Zbyszek on 5th September 2002 at 15:19]