de_oakville
06.02.22, 14:04
Geoffrey Blainey (ur. 1930) jest bardzo znanym i cenionym australijskim profesorem historii. Napisal w swoim zyciu mnostwo ksiazek historycznych, niezwykle ciekawych, ktore czyta sie doslownie "jednym tchem". Jedna z nich jest "Krotka historia XX-tego wieku", wydana w roku 2000. Byla ona przetlumaczona na wiele jezykow i jest czytana na calym swiecie. A jednak temu wielkiemu historykowi zdarzyla sie w tej ksiazce wpadka, ktora kazdy Polak zauwazy od razu i bez trudu. Oto ona (mniej wiecej):
"W latach 20-tych drugim co do wielkosci miastem Polski byl Breslau, ktorego ludnosc mowila po niemiecku i ktorego nazwe zamieniono na Wrocław. Wielu mieszkancow pragnelo, zeby ich miasto, ktore jeszcze niedawno nalezalo do Niemiec, moglo tam pozostac."
Wiekszy fragment o owczesnej Polsce i Wroclawiu w oryginale:
"Proud of its own distinctive language, literature, and traditions, Poland for its part longed to return to the greatness it had once possessed. But as a nation it was not united. While its population of well over thirty million was largely Catholic, its variety of nationalities was not conductive to harmonious government. In the 1920s ist second-largest city was the German-speaking Breslau, renamed Wrocław, and many of its citizens wished their city, recently part of Germany, could have remained there. Likewise many Poles who had lived under German rule until 1918 remembered how poorly they had been treated and retaliated by making it hard for resident
Germans to earn a living. Poland also held the largest Jewish population in Europe, and toward them there was often suspicion, or envy. The Poles were further divided among themselves. In 1926 the popular Polish soldier Marshal Piłsudski and his army entered Warsaw and choked democracy. Opposing politicians had to be on their best behaviour: some were imprisoned."
