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| The coming division of Ukraine: on historical precedents |
| 2022-07-15 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Andrzej Rothmann [REGNUM] 1772–1793–1795 This set of numbers will not say anything to a non-Polish - but it is burned by fire in every Polish chest. We remember. We will never forget. "Jeśli zapomnę o Nich - ty, Boże na niebie, zapomnij o mnie!" These dates are the years of the first, second and third partitions of Poland. There was another one, unofficially called the "fourth", when, following the results of the Vienna Congress of 1815, Russia received the Duchy of Warsaw (whose lands, called the Kingdom of Poland, were then called "Kongresuvka"), and there was a fifth - between the Third Reich and the USSR in 1939. But there are still three canonical sections, and we will build on this. What happened in the last quarter of the 18th century on the East European Plain? Three absolute monarchies divided the territory of the gentry republic among themselves. Three states with regular armies, bureaucracy, a stable system of taxation, developed industry, trade, crafts, communication routes, ports and religious tolerance - divided among themselves mired in anarchy and arbitrariness, torn apart by inter-confessional, class, inter-ethnic and social contradictions, without a regular army , roads, ports and any industrial production, stuck in the era of religious wars, not even a country, but a territory .... Doesn't it remind you of anything? Today's Ukraine is in many ways the Commonwealth of 1772. Yes, Ukraine has Volodymyr Zelenskythere is an army actively pumped up with modern European weapons, but this is perhaps its only difference from the Poland of Stanislaw August Poniatowski. And the rest... Ukraine, like the Commonwealth, draws the basis of its export potential in the black soil of the middle Dnieper region - exporting grain abroad (in the 17th century it was wheat, now it is the same, plus corn, soybeans, rapeseed and barley). Ukraine, like the Commonwealth, is at war with the rebels in the East (then they were Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, today they are the rebels of Donbass). Ukraine, like the Commonwealth, is actively clearing its religious space - squeezing out disloyal, from the point of view of official Kyiv, confessions and forcing the rest to complete and absolute obedience. Yes, my dear reader, there is a religious war going on in Ukraine, which has not been remembered in Europe since the Peace of Westphalia! And, finally, Ukraine, like the Commonwealth, does not believe in the forthcoming division of its territory between its neighbors and continues to hope for some generous allies in the West, who at the right time will give her shoulder and extend a helping hand.... Under Poniatowski, the role of noble saviors was to be played by the French; under Zelensky, the Anglo-Saxons were appointed to this role. Yes, in the coming division of Ukraine, Poland is destined for the obscure role of Austria and Prussia - but we have at least two justifications. First, the population of Western Ukraine is ready to withdraw from the power of Kyiv and agree to acquire a new sovereign in the person of Warsaw. And secondly, the aforementioned irredenta will allow, firstly, to save the cities and villages of five Western Ukrainian regions from the horrors of war and, secondly, to end this war itself - for the simple reason that Volodymyr Zelensky will simply have nothing to fight after the falling away of Western Ukraine ... And the end of the war is, above all, saved lives. Thousands and thousands of lives. Which, if we do not allow the irredenta of Western Ukraine to happen, will also be on our conscience. Which is already difficult enough…. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #3 I say we give Ukraine east of the Dnipro river to the Russians and the western part to Poland. The Russians will be happy with their new defensible border and the Poles cannot *bleep* things up worse than the Ukrainians have. It's a win-win! |
| Posted by: SteveS 2022-07-15 17:37 |
| #2 Some people seem to think that this kind of thing cannot happen in the 21st century. But those borders have been shifting back and forth for over a thousand years and there really is nothing special about the 21st century. If Ukrainians, Poles and Russians hate each other so much that they really cannot get along it might be better to let them separate after the borders have been peacefully negotiated so as to avoid bloodshed. Plebiscites might be appropriate to help determine where the people who live in a region want those borders to be instead of having it imposed on them by politicians and generals. Well, I can dream can't I? |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2022-07-15 12:09 |
| #1 Thanks, badanov. So the Russian author of this piece implies "its okay because everyone else is doing it!" |
| Posted by: magpie 2022-07-15 09:47 |