Re: OT: Rzeczpospolita (was: Re: Hi from Ukraine)

Lukasz wrote:
> > I suspect that 99% of Swedish people have never seen the word. Very few
>know
> > that said state existed (despite the fact that we were in personal union
> > with it for a few years during the late 1500s). None of which bothers
>the
> > average professsional historian in need of an unambiguous term ("Poland"
> > could be taken to mean exlude Lithuania and the Ukraine, of course).
>
>This remainds me the surprise I caused to my cousin who live in Sweden when
>I told her that there was a war (1660) when Sweden attacked Poland.
>
Apart from the fact that history generally isn't given much attention in
Swedish schools, there seems to be a tendency to skip this particular war in
school textbooks. This is somewhat odd, as it, one would think, would be an
excellent opportunity to communicate the official anti-nationalism ideology.
An possible explanation is that it gets squeezed by the Thirty Years' War
and the 1658 war in which Sweden conquered Scania from Denmark (the war you
mention actually began in 1655). Another explanation could be a general
"Poland isn't imporant" attitude - indeed, most of the many Swedish-Polish
conflicts are given little attention in popular works, and the part of the
Great Nordic War fought in Poland is often summed up pretty much like "...
and then the armies marched around for a few years, killing and burning in
an random manner".

                                                  Andreas


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