Re: [OT] aargh.. the big swirl of offtopicness sucks me in, too. help!
On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 12:18:58 +0100
Michael Dominok <du.lists@dominok.net> wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, den 07.03.2007, 09:43 +0000 schrieb Liam O'Toole:
> > On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 10:14:38 +0100
> > Michael Dominok <du.lists@dominok.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Am Mittwoch, den 07.03.2007, 09:02 +0000 schrieb Liam O'Toole:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > > I see plenty of linguistic diversity in Europe. Or are you
> > > > referring to this newsgroup?
> > >
> > > Well, if you're talking about languages literally you're above
> > > statement is nonsens. There was "plenty of linguistic diversity"
> > > in the USSR or the Third Reich.
> >
> > Not at all. Both the Nazis and the Soviets went to great lengths to
> > Germanise or Russify the areas they acquired or inherited,
> > brutally suppressing other languages and cultures in the process.
>
> Puh. Two different approaches. The Nazis wanted "colonies in the east"
> for their masterrace to proliferate so they set up a german
> administration using german terms and names for cities, rivers ...
> They didn't care what their "slavonic slaves" spoke. As long as they
> understood when they had to pull the plow and when to stop.
> I totally agree with you about suppression of culture. But since the
> suppression of the slavonic languages wasn't the prime target i would
> speak of a "walk-by-suppression" (of language).
> Anyway, nothing like this happened in the west, the south or the
> north. Neither Amsterdam, Paris, Tripolis, Copenhagen nor Oslo got
> germanized names.
> So, concerning nazi-germany 3/4 of your statement is wrong.
The Nazis had no long-term interest in Amsterdam, Paris, etc. My point
about the regions they intended to control permanently (well, for a
thousand years, anyway) still stands.
> My knowledge of soviet-history isn't that good but IMHO there was
> "only" a small period of time, during Stalins earlier years, when the
> relocations of many ethnic groups (That's what i think you're probably
> refering too) took place.
> And looking at how easily the remnants of the USSR regained their
> national identities i doubt that it was official soviet policy to
> suppress their languages and cultures - simply because they would
> probably have succeeded. If you take into account the amount of time
> (about 3 generations) and the means they had it seems a rather easy
> job. Especially if you look at what the Nazis did to Germany in such
> a few years.
The effort was more determined than you think. The fact that national
identities survived shouldn't surprise you --- they do so all over the
world, and in the most difficult of circumstances. Look at the
re-emergence of the Catalan, Basque and Galician identities after the
long Franco dictatorship, for example.
>
> > Why do you think the world remembers the horrors of Auschwitz,
> > rather than Oswiecim?
>
> Because they remember the horrors of a german concentration-camp named
> Auschwitz-Birkenau and not the small polish village Oswiecim nearby
> (Named Auschwitz during Nazi occupation) where (i guess) no horrors
> took place?
Now that's just hair-splitting. They didn't call the camp
Oswiecim-Brzezinka either, now did they?
--
Liam
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