[LINK] “Lithuanian identity and the riddle of General Lucjan Želigowski”

The English-language edition of Lithuanian news portal 15min.lt features an interview with Lithuanian historian Šarūnas Liekis, examining the controversial person of Polish general Lucjan Želigowski. In 1920, Želigowski staged a coup that led to the annexation of Vilnius–now the Lithuanian capital, at the time part of a largely Polish-populated region–into Second Republic Poland. Liekis suggests that Želigowski was acting as a Lithuanian–the only dispute related to questions of identity. Was Lithuania the nation-state of the ethnic Lithuanians, or was Lithuania inheritor of the multiethnic (and largely Polish-speaking) Grand Duchy of Lithuania federated with Poland?

- Želigowski’s name still sounds odious to Lithuanian ears, since it is associated with the loss of Vilnius in 1920. Who is this man and what was his connection to Lithuania?

- Želigowski’s was an old family coming from Ashmyany (currently part of Belarus), its roots go back to the 16th century. An entry from 1623 in Lithuanian chronicles reads: “Jakob Želigowski from Kimbor estate came with a horse, armour, helmet, and harquebus.”

Želigowski’s father Gustav, brothers Jan and Juzef participated in the 1863-1864 uprising. His uncle Edvard Želigowski was arrested for joining the Dalevski brothers’ patriotic youth group in Lithuania – the tsar had outlawed the organization and persecuted its members.

In other words, Želigowski did not come out of the blue, he was not from Silesia, Berlin, or Stockholm – he came from here. His fate is comparable to that of thousands of descendants of Polish and Lithuanian nobility who had to choose one or the other nationality in modern times.

Želigowski was a professional military officer at the tsar’s army. He studied military sciences in a Junker school in Riga, graduated in 1888, and later continued his service in the tsar’s army. He chose the military to escape poverty.

He participate in the Russo-Japanese war and World War One. He was already leading a division in 1917. He was on the White side in Russian civil war, fought in Southern Russia and Crimea. After that he led the 4th Polish rifle regiment, formed of soldiers that came from territories of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, crossed Romania and joined Poland’s army. He fought in Ukraine with the Polish regiment.

[. . .]

One could say that younger officers, born around 1890, tended to choose service in the Lithuanian army. Older ones chose Poland because their formative years, their socialization happened in a Polophone culture, within the ideology of Lithuanian-Polish nobility. They thought it was natural to choose Poland rather than the new non-historic ethnic Lithuania built on the peasant culture.

Another example – the Inavauskai brothers who chose different Belarusian, Polish, and Lithuanian nationalities. Tadas Ivanauskas, Lithuanian biologist who set up a zoology museum in Kaunas, had a son, Jerzy, who fought with the Armia Krajowa during World War Two.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster writes about the likely abundance of Earth-like planets in Earth-like orbits.
• Daniel Drezner writes (1, 2) about how ad hoc coalitions of world powers are able to deal relatively decisively in some matters of global affairs.
• At The Dragon’s Tales, Will Baird notes that Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes appear to have floating ice.
• Eastern Approaches notes the toxicity that disputes over war memorials in the Balkans, noting an Albanian memorial in southern Serbia.
• False Steps’ Paul Drye notes one rocket technology that, if adequately developed, could have let the Soviet Union reach the moon.
• At A Fistful of Euros, Alexander Harrowell notes that the United States does not want the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.
• Marginal Revolution asks questions about the geographical, historical, and other factors that let free cities survive.
• The Signal’s Bill LeFurgy compares digital archivists’ work to that of paleontologists. Nice analogy.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alexander Harrowell notes that conservative British pundits in the United States are a much smaller and more unrepresentative minority than is often believed.
• Window on Eurasia notes that Soviet-era apologia for the deadly assault on the Vilnius radio station in 1991 is being used in modern Russia.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• BlogTO notes plans by the City of Toronto to refurbish Front Street.
• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster points to astronomers who think current techniques might, just barely, be able to identify massive moons orbiting exoplanets–the more massive and hotter the moon the better, of course.
• Eastern Approaches observes the popularity, in Poland, of conspiracy theories surrounding the 2010 crash of the plane carrying Polish president Lech Kaczyński and 95 other VIPs in Smolensk.
• Geocurrents notes that Lithuania’s electorate has voted massively against building a new nuclear power plant to replace the recently-closed Ignalina plant.
• GNXP’s Razib Khan makes mention of the surprising fact that the near-totality of the wilderness present in North America four centuries ago at the beginning of European colonization is back.
• Language Hat comments on the etymology and usage of Rus, as ethnonym and political term.
• Language Log’s Victor Mair examines the origins and usage of the terms “Sinophone” and “Sinosphere.”</a
• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Robert Farley points out that with the single exception of North Korea, East Asia is actually reasonably demilitarized by the standards of the Cold War powers.
• The Numerati’s Stephen Baker praises Nate Silver and his methods of statistical analysis: they don’t make use of unquantifiable and misleading sentiments, they just make use very accurate statistical methods and models.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• BlogTO notes plans by the City of Toronto to refurbish Front Street.
• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster points to astronomers who think current techniques might, just barely, be able to identify massive moons orbiting exoplanets–the more massive and hotter the moon the better, of course.
• Eastern Approaches observes the popularity, in Poland, of conspiracy theories surrounding the 2010 crash of the plane carrying Polish president Lech Kaczyński and 95 other VIPs in Smolensk.
• Geocurrents notes that Lithuania’s electorate has voted massively against building a new nuclear power plant to replace the recently-closed Ignalina plant.
• GNXP’s Razib Khan makes mention of the surprising fact that the near-totality of the wilderness present in North America four centuries ago at the beginning of European colonization is back.
• Language Hat comments on the etymology and usage of Rus, as ethnonym and political term.
• Language Log’s Victor Mair examines the origins and usage of the terms “Sinophone” and “Sinosphere.”</a
• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Robert Farley points out that with the single exception of North Korea, East Asia is actually reasonably demilitarized by the standards of the Cold War powers.
• The Numerati’s Stephen Baker praises Nate Silver and his methods of statistical analysis: they don’t make use of unquantifiable and misleading sentiments, they just make use very accurate statistical methods and models.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• BlogTO notes plans by the City of Toronto to refurbish Front Street.
• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster points to astronomers who think current techniques might, just barely, be able to identify massive moons orbiting exoplanets–the more massive and hotter the moon the better, of course.
• Eastern Approaches observes the popularity, in Poland, of conspiracy theories surrounding the 2010 crash of the plane carrying Polish president Lech Kaczyński and 95 other VIPs in Smolensk.
• Geocurrents notes that Lithuania’s electorate has voted massively against building a new nuclear power plant to replace the recently-closed Ignalina plant.
• GNXP’s Razib Khan makes mention of the surprising fact that the near-totality of the wilderness present in North America four centuries ago at the beginning of European colonization is back.
• Language Hat comments on the etymology and usage of Rus, as ethnonym and political term.
• Language Log’s Victor Mair examines the origins and usage of the terms “Sinophone” and “Sinosphere.”</a
• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Robert Farley points out that with the single exception of North Korea, East Asia is actually reasonably demilitarized by the standards of the Cold War powers.
• The Numerati’s Stephen Baker praises Nate Silver and his methods of statistical analysis: they don’t make use of unquantifiable and misleading sentiments, they just make use very accurate statistical methods and models.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• At Beyond the Beyond, Bruce Sterling reposts some post-modernist revolutionary rhetoric from Québec’s ongoing student protests.
• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster writes about planet HD 189733b, a gas giant that orbits its star 63 light years away so closely that it’s literally evaporating.
• Geocurrents notes that recent rioting in Zanzibar, connected to the constitutional status of that autonomous island within Tanzania, may harm the island’s lucrative tourism trade.
• Language Hat starts a discussion on the language environment of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which despite its origins among the Baltic-speakers of the modern republic was increasingly dominated by Polish-speaking Slavs of one denomination or another.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money’s Eric Loomis blogs about the collapse of Appalachia’s coal industry, undermined by cheaper competition and the exhaustion of local resources, making things much for the poor locals.
• The Naked Anthropologist Laura Agustín examines sex work from a Marxist perspective.
• Registan’s Joshua Foust is quite right to note that Pakistan’s prosecution fo Dr. Shakil Afridi for aiding the CIA’s location of Osama bin Laden augurs a breakdown in Pakistan’s relations with the West once NATO withdraws from Afghanistan.
• Savage Minds’ Levi Jacobs posts a summary of a recent ethnographic investigation of Occupy Denver, and what futures are possible for the Occupy mvoement and its successors.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little is skeptical about the consequences of a recent conference concerned with triggering rebirth in Michgian.

[LINK] Two links on Poland’s debatable, debated 20th century frontiers

An Eastern Approaches blog post, “Ukraine’s faded gem” , takes a brief glance at the Ukrainian city of Lviv, once the Polish-Jewish city of L’wow until the Second World War.

SUMMER is in full swing in Lviv, a city that is a faded gem in western Ukraine. Some locals have retreated from the city to their dachas. Old men play chess on the shaded promenade while couples stroll along. The Mitteleuropa coffeehouses overflow with tourists. (One café is inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who hails from Habsburg Lviv.) Just two hours’ drive from the Polish border, the city is far from the politics of Kyiv. It is the self-proclaimed cultural capital of Ukraine.

Lviv is still coming to terms with life after Euro 2012, the football championship co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland in June. The new airport terminal is spookily empty. Polish tourists have long come to Lviv in search of prewar Lwów (on Polish territory) and a night at the magnificent opera house. Now new budget flights might make Lviv another Kraków or Riga, beloved by Brits on stag nights.

[. . .]

Ukraine’s language law, which was rushed through parliament earlier this month was not popular in this “most Ukrainian city”. The bill would make Russian an official regional language in predominantly Russian-speaking areas in the industrialised east and southern regions such as Crimea where Russia’s Black Sea fleet is based. In Lviv Russian would not qualify for the status of official regional language (it needs to be spoken by 10% of the local population) but Lviv’s citizens opposed it anyway. In the city centre, the mouths of six statues of famous Ukrainians were taped over in symbolic protest. Yaroslav Hrytsak, a well-known historian from Lviv, says the law encourages Yugoslavia-style confrontation. Politicians’ manipulation of regional differences has brought Ukraine to the “brink of civil war”.

[. . .]

On July 30th, the election campaign kicks off. In recent years, Western commentators have raised their eyebrows at the emergence of an extreme-right, nationalist party called Svoboda (Freedom), which has its stronghold in western Ukraine. It has held a majority in Lviv city council since 2010. Yet it is unlikely to cross the 5% parliamentary threshold, and may indeed be part of the ruling party’s “divide and rule” tactics. The big question is whether the October elections will be democratic. But whatever the outcome, Lvivians will continue to play chess outside, serve black coffee, and speak Ukrainian anyway.

At Strange Maps, meanwhile, Frank Jacobs’ post “Baltic Ifs and Polish Buts” posts a map showing the very fluid nature of Poland’s boundaries in 1920, before the 1921 Peace of Riga that stabilized the Polish-Soviet and Polish-Lithuanian frontiers for 18 years and similar phenomena with Germany and Czechoslovakia to the east.

We’re used to there being three Baltic states – or none, when they were gobbled up by the Russian/Soviet empire – but on this map, there are two. Or four, depending on how you count. The northern Baltic entity is divided in three: Esthonia (only covering the northern part of present-day Estonia), Livonia (spanning the south of present-day Estonia and a large part of Latvia) and Kurland (the southern part of today’s Latvia).

The other (or fourth) Baltic state is Lithuania, but remarkably smaller than it is today. The state is denied sea access by the territory of Memel, detached from Germany after the war by the League of Nations. On the other side, it misses a great chunk of its present eastern territory.

In turn, East Prussia is cut off from the German ‘mainland’ by the Polish Corridor, and by the Free City of Danzig. East Prussia itself is divided in two, with the southern half still an ‘area for plebiscite’ (which would have to determine whether the territory wanted to remain German or not).

A similar area is detached from eastern Silesia (note just east of that area’s border the small town of Auschwitz). Another, smaller area to the south is also detached, although it is not immediately apparent from which entity (Poland, Czechoslovakia or Silesia) and for what purpose.

Interestingly, the map also appears to show a Lithuanian enclave in Kurlandish territory, somewhere between Jakobstadt and Dvinsk (not to be confused with Minsk or Pinsk). Unfortunately, the enclave’s name is illegible.

The map still shows Vilnius (Wilno in Polish, Vilna on the map) as Lithuania’s capital; although it was the spiritual centre of Lithuanian nationalism, Lithuanian was heavily minoritary, the majority being Polish. After a Polish invasion and a period of detachment as the Central Lithuanian Republic (1920-1922), Vilnius and the surrounding areas were annexed by Poland. Kaunas – on this map rendered as Kovno, slightly to the west of Vilnius – was thereafter proclaimed Lithuania’s ‘provisional capital’.

[LINK] Two links on Poland’s debatable, debated 20th century frontiers

An Eastern Approaches blog post, “Ukraine’s faded gem” , takes a brief glance at the Ukrainian city of Lviv, once the Polish-Jewish city of L’wow until the Second World War.

SUMMER is in full swing in Lviv, a city that is a faded gem in western Ukraine. Some locals have retreated from the city to their dachas. Old men play chess on the shaded promenade while couples stroll along. The Mitteleuropa coffeehouses overflow with tourists. (One café is inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who hails from Habsburg Lviv.) Just two hours’ drive from the Polish border, the city is far from the politics of Kyiv. It is the self-proclaimed cultural capital of Ukraine.

Lviv is still coming to terms with life after Euro 2012, the football championship co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland in June. The new airport terminal is spookily empty. Polish tourists have long come to Lviv in search of prewar Lwów (on Polish territory) and a night at the magnificent opera house. Now new budget flights might make Lviv another Kraków or Riga, beloved by Brits on stag nights.

[. . .]

Ukraine’s language law, which was rushed through parliament earlier this month was not popular in this “most Ukrainian city”. The bill would make Russian an official regional language in predominantly Russian-speaking areas in the industrialised east and southern regions such as Crimea where Russia’s Black Sea fleet is based. In Lviv Russian would not qualify for the status of official regional language (it needs to be spoken by 10% of the local population) but Lviv’s citizens opposed it anyway. In the city centre, the mouths of six statues of famous Ukrainians were taped over in symbolic protest. Yaroslav Hrytsak, a well-known historian from Lviv, says the law encourages Yugoslavia-style confrontation. Politicians’ manipulation of regional differences has brought Ukraine to the “brink of civil war”.

[. . .]

On July 30th, the election campaign kicks off. In recent years, Western commentators have raised their eyebrows at the emergence of an extreme-right, nationalist party called Svoboda (Freedom), which has its stronghold in western Ukraine. It has held a majority in Lviv city council since 2010. Yet it is unlikely to cross the 5% parliamentary threshold, and may indeed be part of the ruling party’s “divide and rule” tactics. The big question is whether the October elections will be democratic. But whatever the outcome, Lvivians will continue to play chess outside, serve black coffee, and speak Ukrainian anyway.

At Strange Maps, meanwhile, Frank Jacobs’ post “Baltic Ifs and Polish Buts” posts a map showing the very fluid nature of Poland’s boundaries in 1920, before the 1921 Peace of Riga that stabilized the Polish-Soviet and Polish-Lithuanian frontiers for 18 years and similar phenomena with Germany and Czechoslovakia to the east.

We’re used to there being three Baltic states – or none, when they were gobbled up by the Russian/Soviet empire – but on this map, there are two. Or four, depending on how you count. The northern Baltic entity is divided in three: Esthonia (only covering the northern part of present-day Estonia), Livonia (spanning the south of present-day Estonia and a large part of Latvia) and Kurland (the southern part of today’s Latvia).

The other (or fourth) Baltic state is Lithuania, but remarkably smaller than it is today. The state is denied sea access by the territory of Memel, detached from Germany after the war by the League of Nations. On the other side, it misses a great chunk of its present eastern territory.

In turn, East Prussia is cut off from the German ‘mainland’ by the Polish Corridor, and by the Free City of Danzig. East Prussia itself is divided in two, with the southern half still an ‘area for plebiscite’ (which would have to determine whether the territory wanted to remain German or not).

A similar area is detached from eastern Silesia (note just east of that area’s border the small town of Auschwitz). Another, smaller area to the south is also detached, although it is not immediately apparent from which entity (Poland, Czechoslovakia or Silesia) and for what purpose.

Interestingly, the map also appears to show a Lithuanian enclave in Kurlandish territory, somewhere between Jakobstadt and Dvinsk (not to be confused with Minsk or Pinsk). Unfortunately, the enclave’s name is illegible.

The map still shows Vilnius (Wilno in Polish, Vilna on the map) as Lithuania’s capital; although it was the spiritual centre of Lithuanian nationalism, Lithuanian was heavily minoritary, the majority being Polish. After a Polish invasion and a period of detachment as the Central Lithuanian Republic (1920-1922), Vilnius and the surrounding areas were annexed by Poland. Kaunas – on this map rendered as Kovno, slightly to the west of Vilnius – was thereafter proclaimed Lithuania’s ‘provisional capital’.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• 80 Beats reports on how the Chukchansi tribe of California has used more than a million dollars’ revenue from their on-reserve casinos to try to fund the revival of their language.
• The Burgh Diaspora comments on how Brazil and Mexico, even though they are similar in being upwardly mobile middle-income Latin American democracies, respectively enjoy and suffer from very different portrayals in the international media (Brazil as successfully social-democratic country of the future, Mexico as seat of horrific drug gang warfare).
• Eastern Approaches has two posts describing the contestation of the Second World War in post-Communist Europe, one from Hungary commenting on the rehabilitation of that country’s dictator Admiral Horthy, the other in Lithuania with the provisional government that took over immediately after the Soviets were driven out by the Nazis in 1941.
• Geocurrents portrays Tunisia’s Djerba island, an ethnolinguistically and religiously diverse and economically cosmopolitan island that despite terrorism still hosts annual visits by members of the departed Jewish community.
• GNXP’s Razib Khan wonders, in light of a recent study suggesting human musical preferences are non-arbitrary, if classical music with its hierarchical associations is fading, if our (possibly emerging) “world of nearly free music and amateur dispersed production may return to the roots of our species, from the vaulted arches of aristocrats back down the earthier tastes of the commons”.
• Language Log’s Julie Sedivy comments on the role of greetings in commercial establishments in Montréal as markers of identity and language change.
• Torontoist’s guest contributor Krista Simpson notes that Toronto artists are staging guerrilla takeovers of the city’s remaining telephone booths as impromptu art galleries.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• 80 Beats reports on how the Chukchansi tribe of California has used more than a million dollars’ revenue from their on-reserve casinos to try to fund the revival of their language.
• The Burgh Diaspora comments on how Brazil and Mexico, even though they are similar in being upwardly mobile middle-income Latin American democracies, respectively enjoy and suffer from very different portrayals in the international media (Brazil as successfully social-democratic country of the future, Mexico as seat of horrific drug gang warfare).
• Eastern Approaches has two posts describing the contestation of the Second World War in post-Communist Europe, one from Hungary commenting on the rehabilitation of that country’s dictator Admiral Horthy, the other in Lithuania with the provisional government that took over immediately after the Soviets were driven out by the Nazis in 1941.
• Geocurrents portrays Tunisia’s Djerba island, an ethnolinguistically and religiously diverse and economically cosmopolitan island that despite terrorism still hosts annual visits by members of the departed Jewish community.
• GNXP’s Razib Khan wonders, in light of a recent study suggesting human musical preferences are non-arbitrary, if classical music with its hierarchical associations is fading, if our (possibly emerging) “world of nearly free music and amateur dispersed production may return to the roots of our species, from the vaulted arches of aristocrats back down the earthier tastes of the commons”.
• Language Log’s Julie Sedivy comments on the role of greetings in commercial establishments in Montréal as markers of identity and language change.
• Torontoist’s guest contributor Krista Simpson notes that Toronto artists are staging guerrilla takeovers of the city’s remaining telephone booths as impromptu art galleries.