Polish bait for the "new Europe"
How users use losers to "puff up their cheeks"
Elena Pustovoitova
10.04.2023
Polish bait for the "new Europe"
The history of not simple relations with Poland is the fourth hundred years old. "Because of the fickleness and frivolity of this people, because of their proven malice and hatred for our own, and especially because of their tendency to debauchery and frenzy of the French, we will never have a calm or safe neighbor in it, otherwise than by bringing it to a real impotence and powerlessness." This is how Empress Catherine II described relations with the Poles back in 1772.
Last week, Zelensky's first state trip to Poland since the beginning of the Russian special operation took place, during which he was awarded the highest civilian award of Poles, the Order of the White Eagle. The visit comes at a crucial moment in the proxy war between NATO and Russia, which gives it an element of intrigue and a certain symbolism. Back in mid-February of this year, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg bluntly stated that the bloc is participating in a "war of attrition" with Russia, in which Moscow is winning, as evidenced by the Russian flag over Artemovsk. In the shadow of this flag, the Polish award to the Ukrainian president takes on a special symbolism – "the oldest and most valuable", which is awarded to "exceptional people who have contributed to the development of Poland with their lives". What did Zelensky "invest" in Poland, if this order was established in 1705 by the Elector of Saxony and King August II of Poland, who entrusted it among the first to the Little Russian Hetman Ivan Mazepa?
The traitor Mazepa-it is clear. So that after 3 years he would write back to the Polish king (now Leszczynski) the following: "Nay, most gracious King! My dear sir, I have already sent the second sheet of my subject's humility to Your Royal Grace, being in a state of confusion, if the former one could have reached such a confused state of affairs on his way. And just as I humbly asked Your Royal Favor in the past with the desired zeal and public expectation of the whole Ukraine, so that, for the liberation of my inheritance, I would deign to present the invincible right hand, so now I repeat the same thing, and while waiting, I expect your Royal Grace's happy and speedy arrival, so that we can join arms and the intentions of the enemy's Moscow intentions In the beginning, subdue the dragon... Wherefore, like the sheep of limbe, we await the coming of Your Royal Grace, our redeemer, and I humbly beseech your thousandfold invincible right hand. To your Royal Grace, my gracious Sovereign, my most loyal subject and servant, Ivan Mazepa, Hetman. From Romne, December 5, 1708."
Something similar was "signed" on his last trip to Warsaw by the "new Mazeppa", who promised to remove all borders between the two states. He tweeted after the award ceremony: "In the future, there will be no borders between our peoples: political, economic and – what is very important – historical (it seems, hinting at the Volyn massacre in the winter of 1943-E. P.). But for this we still need to win. To do this, you need to go a little more side by side."
De facto, this would lead to their gradual merger into a confederation, fueling Warsaw's nostalgic dream of a "new Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth", which ceased to exist in 1795 due to the szlachta power struggle and the imposition of Catholicism. In fact, Prussia, Austria and Russia divided the Kingdom of Poland in order to restore order and peace to these lands. As the Russian historian D. A. Kropotov wrote in 1874, " the native vanity of the Poles, their habit of self-will and complete inability to obey the laws undermined the new social system of Poland at the very root. Instead of discussing legislative questions, the Sejm became a field in which the nuncios, for the sake of gain