BTW, i posted Dagome Iudex in latin.
i will soon post article with discussion about Scandinavian beginnings of Mieszko.
(first version)
szopen
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You're going to have to do better than: It was a wise political move to maintain sovereignty and remain independent from the German state. --MichaelTinkler
Re the tribes -- are they tribes or peoples? I'm not trying to be troublesome, but Baltic ethnicity has been a thorn in my side for a couple of months now. Personally, I would like to see only pertinent information, with links to each ethnic/cultural group involved...
JHK
This article is *really* unNPOV and repeats lot of Polish nationalist propaganda. --
Taw
- ...et tu Taw contra me ? ;-)) --Kpjas
- yup, this Introduction really needed lot of NPOVification. --Taw
Old Introduction:
History of Poland is over 10 centuries long. It has been and to the present day is determined by Poland's geographical location. Poland has always been regarded as a bridge or barrier between the West and the (savage) East. From 966 AD Poland was included into the Latin Christian World and it was planned to make Poland as a forefront spreading Christianity eastward and defending the West at the same time.
On numerous occasions Poland's existence was endangered by aggressive expansion of her neighbours that were greedy for new land - in 10 and 11th centuries the Czech and then Germans, Swedes, Russians and Austrians. There were times when once the grand and mighty Polish state was reduced to a small dukedom that was almost totally dependent on Russia. Worse still, Poland was altogether wiped out from the maps of Europe for many years until 1918 when after the World War I it regained independence.
One of the features that best characterizes Polish people is that they stand strengthened in times of oppression and hardship. It is very well illustrated by the first line of the Polish national anthem :
"Poland will not perish as long as we are alive..."
Now, Poland is a proud nation of indisputable sovereignty, united with her allies in the NATO and aspiring to become a full member of the European Union.
Taw, I will be happy to copyedit for better English, sections, etc. In answer to your question about the use of the word 'duke', do you know what he was called in Latin documents of the time? I'm fairly familiar with those titles, and could probably come up with a correct translation in historical context. I am pretty sure that the title usually given is indeed Duke, but that meant something different in the 10th c. than in the 12th, and was also different for east and west...
JHK
The problem is that in Polish we have only one word 'ksiaze' for many different concepts. In this case, Mieszko was just a crownless Christian ruler of a country. I'm not sure about his relation to the Emperor. It changed too often during early Polish history, and all crownless rulers are called 'ksiaze' anyway.
Iirc he wasn't Emperor's vassal. --
Taw
- That's why I thought it would be good to see the Latin -- anybody know where to find it? JHK
- Oldest Latin documentation ('Dagome iudex') calls him 'iudex', which is probably a translation of some tribal function. But such name isn't used by Polish historical terminology, so it's not very useful. --Taw
Given the iudex thing, does anyone know (or have a good dictionary) any other possible translations for iudex (besides judge) in this context?
JHK
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