Monday, March 29, 2010

Europe according to the Poles


Type your summary here

Type rest of the post here

13 comments:

Katerina said...

Hilarious! I don't read Polish but being Czech, can often guess. However, could you please tell me what "dzicz" means? Also, "trzesidupy". Thanks!

bonzoq said...

Hi Katerina,

"dzicz" stands for a place inhabited by wild tribes and "trzesidupy" are those who shake their bottoms, in other words, cowards. I am Polish and pretty much share this point of view. No offence, of course.

Regards
Marcin

Astoria said...

Hahaha, how true. Who's the map maker?

Ho Chi Feen said...

Can somebody translate the two entries for Ukraine, as well as those for Spain and Portugal?

Alex said...

I'm from Romania and i think the author is a fool with no brain. Why Romania=Cyganie? Are we Romanians gypsies from India?
No, we are a mix of romans and ancient dacians. Poles were a tribe at that time.
Does he know that France,Italy,Romania,Moldova, Spain and Portugal are latin countries with very close languages?
The author knows nothing about our history. Romanians are close relatives to Italians not with the slavic(slave) peasants, like poles.

Myst said...

Have a sense of humour, Alex! This is a joke on how Poles think, not a serious reflection on the countries involved.

Here's another one, from Lithuania 3 :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUgqXGu_gTQ

Temesta said...

Bonzoq,

Are you joking or are you serious? This is a joke so it's not really flattering if Poles really would have this image of Europe.

Unknown said...

@Alex

No offence, but that is the first thought many Poles think about Romanians - the Gypsy beggars(Roma) who appeared in Poland after 1990 and stayed there (on the streets).

Here is Europe according to Hungarians

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b356/cegorach/europe_according_to_hungarians.jpg

In my opinion one of most autoironic maps and doesn't appear to offend anybody.

Unknown said...

Ok. More detailed comment (I'm notsure if the fist one went through, though).

There are numerous references to history and some to literature.
Intriguing that (Cezary) Baryka appears in Azerbaijan (reference to 'Przedwiośnie' by Stefan Żeromski about war, revolution and early years of poland after 1918) - probably because of the movie which means that the map might be quite old. Man character of the novel was living in Baku in a family of a wealthy industrialist who built his fortune on oil.

PRL for Bulgaria - because of the summer holidays in Bulgaria which were a luxory those days.

Gulash in Hungary. That is a bit disappointed since on a 'Hungarian map' Poland is described with word 'brothers'.

Corsica with napoleon - pretty obvious considering the anthem of Poland and history. Long history of napoleonic ethusiasm is also something which inspired it.

Olsen's gand in Denmark. I would choose the same. The series of movies about unlucky gangsters had a cult status.

Reference to 'ours' Lithuania (whole?) and Ukraine (shared with Russia) seem slightly outdated but also quite true. many Poles visit those countries only to see Lvov or Vilnius. Or more, especially in Ukraine with the entire mythology of wild steppes, Cossacks, Tartars, husaria , Mr. Wołodyjowski etc.

Mrs Stanisława in Kazakhstan is again pretty obvious, but also quite witty. Very smart and short way to describe the fates of many Poles re-settled to Asia.

'Our guys' in Israel is also pretty clever. Reminds me about the jokes in 1967-68 when Israeli victories were seen us victories of our Jews against 'their' (you know whom) Arabs.
Aslo in the past (because emigration of Russian jews) it was another country where you could easily communicated in Polish.

The rest more or less seems right - when it comes to most basic perception of some countries at least.

skotkacy said...

Is it just me - but isn't propagating any type of national stereotype dangerous? Yes, I know it is meant to be amusing but anything that subjugates millions of individuals to a slogan or type as these maps do makes me vaguely uneasy.

Katerina said...

Oh for god's sake have a sense of humor, everybody. This whole thing is poking fun at national stereotypes, not promoting them.

And yes, Scott, it IS you.

skotkacy said...

Fine, it IS just me then. Very pleased to be an individual and not a stereotype. :)

Unknown said...

I would Put "Stalin" instead of "Katyn" otherwise perfect ;)