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‘German’ Poland vs. ‘Russian’ Poland

A curiosity of the 2007 Polish parliamentary election

THIS MAP displaying the results of the 2007 general election for the Polish parliament is overlaid with an outline of the nineteenth-century border between the German and Russian empires.

The areas formerly ruled by the German Kaiser tend to back the right-wing liberal Platforma Obywatelska (“Civic Platform”) party, while those formerly ruled by the Tsar tend to support the conservative Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (“Law and Justice”) party.

The green represents the centrist-agrarian Polish People’s Party, while the dark red represents the already-defunct “Left and Democrats” coalition.

Source: Strange Maps

Published at 8:24 pm on Wednesday 17 December 2008. Categories: Germany History Politics Russia Tags: , , , , .
Comments

Great map. I wonder what a “right-wing liberal” stands for?

Ray from MN 18 Dec 2008 5:25 am

There is one oversight: the south east part of Poland was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, never a part of Russia.
However, differences between regions which were ruled before 1918 by the three empires are quite strong even today.

Unfortunately, explaining the current state of the Polish politics, which is continuously influenced by the distasteful ‘shadows of PRL’,is rather hard work. Simple questions in Poland are not so simple like they seem to be – the awful truth.

Brunopolski 18 Dec 2008 8:59 am

So do the people in ‘Orange-State Poland’ complain about the people in ‘Blue-State Poland’?

Aaron Taylor 18 Dec 2008 10:16 am

Very interesting!

With the iron curtain descended across Europe, I went through my teens and everything knowing nothing of what happened in the former German immediately after the War. I was shocked when I found out about the mass expulsions, and worse (though hardly surprised); I wonder what German remnant there still is in Poland.

Mark M 18 Dec 2008 11:32 am

Yes Brunopolski, that region is Galicja, the land my paternal grandmother’s family who emigrated during Blessed Karl’s reign.

mcmlxix 19 Dec 2008 12:41 am

To be honest with you, this map exaggerates somehow the actual state, for example, the east part of Poland has less citizens, and PO has won in the vast majority of towns; but it does not mean that this map is no longer interesting.

People do not complain about any part of the country, they complain about the other people.

German remnants in Poland: communists were persistently and wantonly destroying them, especially during the first ten years after the War, like every other remains of non-communistic times – they were called ‘ideologically hostile’. Even bricks from gothic houses from Silesia were used for rebuilding Warsaw. Fortunately, the communists were rather not sedulous. Since mid 60’s people have been taking care of every monument, judging only by its historical and artistic value, not ideology. Of course it normalised actually and finally after 1989.
When it comes to Germans in Poland, they live mainly in south Silesia, in some places there are also bilingual names of places, labels etc.

Brunopolski 21 Dec 2008 6:18 am

German Poland/Russian Poland map is interesting.
Have you heard of Budzinsky family;Kraczyk family;
Piontkowski family?
One set of relatives lived in the German Poland and the
other in the Russian Poland.

Thank you.

Mary Budzinsky Kraczyk Piontkowski 4 Feb 2011 8:20 pm

Your terms German Poland and Russian Poland are inaccurate. Only 1/3 of the orange area is the former German partition, the rest is post-German lands where displaced people from the East live. In the blue area, the bluest southern part is the Austrian partition, not the Russian one.
A more accurate distinction is:
Blue area: native population
Orange area: resettled and Germanized population.

Piotr 17 Jul 2023 12:48 pm
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