While Polish language was forbidden following the cold blooded assassination of Tsar Alexander II in the 1881, this was an extraordinary period not representative of Poland in Russian Empire as a whole.
Nope, Polish language was forbidden from 1772.
Smolensk was and is Russian territory.
As are many other places Muscovy conquered.
It is one of the oldest Russian cities
It was neither founded by Russia or Russians.
The Muscovites were not Mongols but were Russians who had broken free of Mongol rule.
The Muscovites were creation of Mongols who gave them their culture.
http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/r ... artar.htmlMany Mongols also entered the /Russian administrative and military services. At the end of the 17th century about 17% of the Russian upper class were of Eastern, chiefly Mongol, origin.
To claim Russians broke free of Mongol Rule is silly, the Muscovites were just one part of Mongol Empire that fought internal struggle to become dominant heir to that state.
That is a distortion of the situation
This is correct analysis of situation.
Poland tried to establish Russia as a puppet satellite led by the False Dmitriy pretenders.
This is false. Poles assisted Muscovite nobility that wanted freedom and democracy and fought against Mongolian totalitarianists who wanted to establish a new Khanate under a new name with Tsar having the role of Khan.
Poles wanted to incorporate Russia into their commonwealth
This is totally false. Muscovite region was underdeveloped, poor, and had no development that would be worthy for taking in the first place. Out of mercy for such desolate and forsaken place Polish nobles risked their lives out of friendship and desire to see such backward people embrace the light of civilisation that was extinguished when Musvovite region became part of Mongol Empire.
Sigismund later tried to take the Russian throne for himself.
There was no Russian throne then.
Russia genuinely tried to preserve the existence of Poland and prevent expansion.
Nope, Russia was interested in plunder, destruction and slaves which it could gain by invading one of the most progressive states in Europe the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
As Russia was backward, poverty stricken desolate wasteland it could not invade right away, instead led by greed and hatred for something it could not achieve on its own, it subverted the open-minded Polish society with bribes and manipulation in order to weaken Commonwealth before the invasion. This was Russian policy throughout the whole XVIII century.
Poland had actually been ruled by Swedish puppet Stanislaw Leszczyński.
Stanisław Leszczynski was backed by another civlised state against despotic tyranny of Russia that wanted a weak Poland in order to invaded it.
http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/eceurope/eralib.html
A German source is hardly objective as scholary knowledge. Germans were quite fond of Russian expansionism as they shar e the similiar goals towards Poland. Had Poland merged with European powers like Sweden or France, German and Russia could broke their hungry teeth on Polish bones they wanted to chew.
When Russia intervenes to drive out a foreign invader in Poland, Russia wants to colonize Poland.
Russia isn't not in the cultural sphere of Poland. Swedes and Poles are both European, their conflicts are their own, between brothers. Russia is the invader representing an alien culture of despotic Mongol Empire and totalitarian Byzantine. Both of which are opposite of Polish culture of freedom and invidualism. Russia thus is far bigger foreigner then Sweden.
Muscovy sought to unify the Rus lands in order to build a strong Russian state which would prevent further invasion by savages like the Tatars.
This is ridiculous. Muscovy wasn't connected to Rus lands in any way, because it was creation of Mongols. And they showed it quite well by slaughtering citizens of Novgorod in the same way Mongols treated their victism. If any legitimacy existed to Rus land it was by Novogorod with its alliance with Poland that sought to protect Rus lands from Muscovy-Mongolian invasion.
Neither Ottoman Turkey nor Poland from which Russia got the bulk of its territorial concessions were not more developed neighbour.
Sure they were. Even Russian nationalists admit it.
http://www.ucis.pitt.edu//nceeer/1989-802-05-Becker.pdfIn discussions of the situation in the European borderland s
(Finland, the Baltic provinces, Ukraine- Belorussia, and Poland )
the principal theme was the danger posed to Russia's nationa l
identity and pride, and even potentially to the integrity of th e
Russian state, by the Germans and Poles, who were "significantly
more cultured [i .e ., more European] than the Russians" themselves .
In contrast to the Habsburg monarchy, where the subject people s
"are less cultured and poorer" than the dominant Germans, whos e
rule is thus not threatened, in Russia the "Poles, Germans, an d
Finlanders are richer and more cultured than the Russians" an d
consequently posed a threat to the ruling nation . 8 1
2 7
How in the world you even know?
I studied history.
Have you lived in the Russian Empire?
My nation did. And left memories. Even German partition is viewed more positively then Russian one with its cruealites.Germans were seen as tough and ruthless. But Russians were seen as cruel, viscious, and sadistic.
Tens of thousands of Poles in fact escaped from Russian to German partition.
You call Russia "Prison of Nations" but probably view landlord-dominated Poland
70-90% of Poles in Polish Crown were serfs or city dwellers themselfs, not landlords.
Of course it is your naive soviet propaganda that sees all Poles as nobles.
Russia was by far the most tolerant of its ethnic minorities.
Yes, it showed this quite well by murdering 20,000 Polish civilians in Praga, Russification, deportations to Siberia, mass murder of Poles, sending 10year old children to Siberia for learning Polish.
How tolerant.
This was not any different from Russia.
Completely false as this Belarussian hero confirms:
http://www.belarusguide.com/culture1/people/Kastus.html Besides oppressive taxes and corvee, a basic source of grievance underlying the uprising was the recruitment of peasants for a twenty-five-year term of military service. This injustice contrasted sharply with past practices in the Commonwealth, where, as Kalinouski reminded, "whenever peasants wanted to go to war, they were immediately declassified from their peasant status and excused from performing corvee.
With his newspaper, as well as with his letters "from beneath the gallows," written in prison, Kalinouski aimed at three categories of audience: first and foremost, the peasants; second, the faithful adherents of the Uniate Church, which had been officially abolished since 1839; and third, those who cherished the Belarusian language (and were being discriminated against by tsarist authorities). The common denominator in all of these appeals was the assertion that life in the historic Commonwealth of Poland was immeasurably better than life under the tsars.
All Russians are East Slavs In terms of speaking East Slavic language. The original East Slavic tribes are gone.
All Russians are East Slavs and the vast majority of East Slavs are Russians. The other major East Slavic groups are the Ukrainians and White Russians.
All Poles are West Slavic and vast majority of West Slavs ar Poles. The other major West Slavic groups are are Slovaks and Czechs.
But unlike imperialistic Russia, Poland never laid claim to Praga or Bratislava.
I distinctly said that Poles were not victims because they controlled a major empire
In underground caves ? Because as hard as I can I can't see any Polish Empire in XIX century when Poles were murdered, discriminated, and enslaved by Russian Empire.
which oppressed East Slavic people.
Sorry Poles never opressed East Slavic people, they were gone when Poland emerged.
Then I said that the only victims there have been between East Slavs and Poland have been East Slavic peoples under Polish domination.
There never were East Slavic people under Polish domination.
Those tribes were gone when Poland emerged.
However Poles were victims of Russians, when Russian Empire plundered our country, murdered children and women, sent 10 year old boys as slaves to Siberia etc.
In the Eurasianists’ view, it was Tatars – to be precise, the Mongols of the 13th century – who laid the foundation of Russian statehood, culture, and, to some degree, even ethnicity.