Polish Cabbage & Noodles

If someone were to ask you to name a typical Polish food, you'd likely say "pierogis" or "kielbasa," as these foods are very tied to Polish identity, but .... Back in the first half of the 1500s, the Polish king, Sigismund I (Polish: Zygmunt), married Bona Sforza of Italy as his second wife (his first wife had died after childbirth). The new queen helped to bring Italian cuisine to Poland, including the common use of pasta. In this dish, the pasta is paired with cabbage and mushrooms. The Polish word "łazanki," pronounced as if, "wah-zahn-kee," is a type of noodle; thus, pasta. There are numerous variations to this dish, including the type of pasta used, but I've used egg noodles. Polish cooking, as well as other cooking styles in Belarus, Lithuania and Russia, uses a good deal of sour cream in recipes, something that the Germans in eastern Europe, especially in East Prussia, picked up from these various national/ethnic groups over the centuries.   

Ingredients:

5 cups fresh cabbage, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 pound mushrooms, chopped
4 tablespoons butter + 4 tablespoons canola oil
10 to 12 ounces wide egg noodles
2/3 cup sour cream (low fat type is fine)
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a large skillet or in a large heavy bottomed pot, then add the canola oil. Add the onion and saute for about two minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes, stirring further. Add the cabbage and cook over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage has cooked down and is tender. Sprinkle the paprika over the mixture, season with salt and pepper and stir. Meanwhile, cook the noodles per the instructions on the package. Drain the noodles and mix into the cabbage. Stir in the sour cream and serve.

With some sliced tomatoes and red onion...

WORD HISTORY:
Pierogi (Singular form: pieróg)-The ultimate origin of this word is unknown, and its history is shaky in places, but "apparently" it goes back to transliterated Old Slavic "pireh," which meant, "feast, drinking and food celebration." This then produced the transliterated Slavic "piru," with the same meanings. In some Slavic dialects/languages, it then seems to have taken on the meaning, "pie," perhaps from a common food served for large occasions (feasts). With Polish and some other Slavic languages, it came to mean "filled dumpling," seemingly tying in with the notion of "pie;" that is, "a filled dough." English borrowed the word from Polish immigrants to America in the mid 1800s, with further reinforcement from Yiddish as Eastern European Jews immigrated into the U.S.

"Is It 'Rumania' or 'Romania?' " Part 3

Note: Initially I intended to end this series with Part 3, but as I sometimes do, I decided to continue for a likely two additional parts, in order to do justice to Rumanian history, especially the World War Two and postwar eras. 

While manufacturing and oil production expanded after Rumanian independence, wealthy landowners derived much of the benefit. Discontent boiled over in 1907 in the Rumanian Peasants' Revolt, but the government used the army to put down the revolt in which thousands of peasants died and thousands more were imprisoned. In 1913 Rumania gained the territory of the ethnically diverse Southern Dobruja from Bulgaria in a localized Balkan war (known as the "Second Balkan War").

The beginning of World War One in the late summer of 1914 saw Rumania remain neutral, although with its army at the ready. German influence through the German-based monarchy, a branch of the Hohenzollerns,* and German business investment in the country after its independence, made possible a Rumanian entry into the war on side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, but the Allies offered Rumania Transylvania (then under Hungarian control **) when Austria-Hungary was defeated, and this, and a generally more pro-Russian (Russia was on the Allied side) and pro-Allied sentiment within Rumania, had the country enter the war in August of 1916. The Bolshevik  Revolution of late 1917 saw Russian involvement in the war essentially end, and this brought Rumania to the peace table in December 1917.*** As the war approached its end in November 1918, Rumania again entered the war on the Allied side. Votes by various segments of representatives of Rumania territories led to a united Rumania, as Transylvania joined the nation, however, along with more than a million and a half Hungarians, a sore spot which festered thereafter, with a brief clash of arms which ended in 1920. 

* King Carol I died in the fall of 1914 and was succeeded by his nephew, Ferdinand, who was born in Germany, and who ruled as Ferdinand I. 

** Formerly known as the Austrian Empire from 1804, an agreement in 1867 saw the empire divided between Austro-German control of the western areas and Hungarian control of the eastern areas; thus, "Austria-Hungary," or more formally the "Austro-Hungarian Empire." The Habsburg emperor was simultaneously King of Hungary, and foreign policy and military matters were held in common.

*** Russia was the only close ally of Rumania in eastern Europe, and without joint military operations with Russia, the Rumanians were unable to continue the war on their own.

WORD HISTORY:
Vampire-The ultimate origin of this word is unknown, but English seems to have borrowed it from French "vampire," a borrowing from German "Vampir," which was borrowed from Hungarian "vampir," borrowed from Serbian "vampir." Serbian is a Slavic language and there are forms of the word in many other Slavic languages. Whether a form of the word was a Slavic invention or whether Slavic acquired the word as a borrowing, perhaps from a Turkic language source, is uncertain.

Here Come The Cossacks!

While the actual origins of the Cossacks is a bit sketchy, most people probably think of the Cossacks as the elite cavalry of Tsarist Russia, or others may think of the nomadic horsemen of the Russian Steppe. When I was a kid, the movie "Taras Bulba" was released. It starred Yul Brynner, who just seemed perfect for the role as the Cossack leader circa 1600.* Tony Curtis starred as his son. It was one of those movies I saw back in those times that I still remember to this day, as the masses of horse mounted actors dressed in colorful Cossack costumes dashed across the big screen. The film was loosely based on a novel of the same name by Nikolai Gogol, who was actually born and raised in a Ukrainian Cossack community in the 1800s.

The Cossacks initially had a contentious relationship with Russia, at times participating in open revolt against the Tsarist government. Eventually the Tsars saw the Cossacks as great military assets, and in exchange for their military service, they were not taxed. Viewed as elite and loyal servants of the Tsar, they were revered, but also feared by the population, as the government of Tsar Nicholas II used them to help put down the revolution that started in 1905, a good deal of which took place in the countryside. This role was not to be repeated in the revolution that swept through Russia in the late winter of 1917. With many Cossack units serving at or near the front line during World War I, the Cossack units, and for that matter, other army units, stationed in the capital of St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd during the war) were largely made up of recruits and reservists who were witnesses to the lack of food and the terrible suffering of the population. When protests erupted, they did little to quell the disturbances, which encouraged more of the population to join in, and in fact eventually, these units went over to the revolution, helping to bring down Nicholas II and tsardom in favor of a "provisional government," which itself was overthrown later that year by the Bolsheviks.** This precipitated a civil war in Russia, with Cossack troops serving both in support of the Bolshevik government, as well as in opposition. When the Bolsheviks finally emerged triumphant, untold numbers of Cossacks were allegedly killed (likely true), and Cossack lands were confiscated, as the communist government sought to eliminate the Cossacks as a separate identity, and to bring their lands under government control. Later, many more died at the hands of Stalin and his forced collectivization program, which brought widespread starvation to the Ukraine and to parts of the Caucasus region, both home to many Cossacks. Exact numbers are unknown, but some estimates are that at least a million Cossacks died at this time.

World War Two brought new challenges for the Cossacks. Faced with defending the Stalinist regime, which had so decimated their people, some Cossacks defected and went into service for the Germans, while many others continued to serve in Soviet units. As the Cossack and other Soviet defectors to the Germans often served in units used to combat resistance fighters behind the actual front lines, there's no doubt in my mind that some of these forces participated in atrocities, but the details are beyond the scope of this article, although I may cover such details in a future article. Also, Tsarist Russia had a terrible history of mistreatment and repression of its Jewish population. How much Cossacks participated in this repression is something I need to research more, along with the specifics of the World War Two actions, but I wanted to at least make mention of it here. When World War Two ended, tens of thousands of Cossacks were prisoners of the Allies, who turned them over to the Soviets by agreement among the Allied powers. These were not just soldiers, but family members too, as they tended to travel in family groups. Some committed suicide, and how many were executed I don't know, but presumably all others were sent to labor camps.

There are some books available about the Cossacks, but I consulted the following for some of the information I used here:
"The Cossacks, An Illustrated History," by John Ure, published by Overlook Press, 2002.
"The Cossacks" by Philip Longworth, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston," New York, 1970.

* Yul Brynner was actually born in the Russian Pacific coast region at Vladivostok.

** Nicholas II abdicated for both himself and his son, who was afflicted with hemophilia. The Bolshevik takeover came to be known to most as "the Bolshevik Revolution."

WORD HISTORY:
Cossack/Cassock-These two words seem to actually be the same word, but the spelling variation and the different meanings having come to English from different "immediate" sources. They both go back to Turkic, a family of languages primarily from southwestern Asia, which then spread into southeastern Europe. ^ The exact Turkic root of the word is unclear, as some believe it be "qaz," which had the notion of "wander," and the various Turkic tribes were often nomads of the Asian plains, but there are other possible Turkic word sources. Whatever the case, the source word expanded to "quzzak/kazakh," with the meaning "wanderer, nomad, free man of the open plain," and this was borrowed by Slavic as "kozak." This gave its Russian descendant "kazak," which was later borrowed by French as "casaque," and English borrowed the word from French in the later 1500s or early 1600s. The word "Kazakh," and its plural form for a Turkic people from Asia, prominently featured in the name "Kazakhstan," is really the same word as "Cossack." The Cossacks' long history as nomadic horsemen made them expert cavalrymen and they eventually became part of the Tsarist military in Russia as elite cavalry units."Cassock" goes back to the same sources, except that Italian called a long riding coat a "casacca," after similar apparel used by the Cossacks. French likely borrowed the term from Italian as "casaque," simply with the meaning of "long coat," and English borrowed it from French in the 1500s. It began to be used for religious clothing in the mid 1600s.

^ The more specific language, "Turkish," is one of the Turkic languages, a language family just as is Indo European, the ancient ancestor of English. Linguists generally use a "family tree" setup in classifying languages, and Turkic has several branches, as does Indo European, with English belonging to the Germanic branch. Turkic also has languages in northeastern Asia. The Turkic-speaking Bulgars were a group that entered southeastern Europe, mixed with other people there, and became the modern Bulgarians, but a form of Slavic gradually replaced their own Bulgar language by about 1400. Bulgar is now extinct, as is Hunnic, the language of the famous Huns, which were also a Turkic speaking people.

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Five

I'm going to backtrack here in the first part of this article, as I feel I should explain a bit more about the political nature of the country in the post-Civil War era, largely during what is known as Reconstruction and thereafter. It was an important era that brought political alignments (coalitions) for decades.

In the last couple of decades our political system has become increasingly polarized, and we "may" have to look back to the Civil War era to find a time when Americans were so politically divided over such an extended period of time and over so many issues. Some Republicans have even mentioned "secession from the United States," not that I believe that anything  is imminent. The Civil War era division largely centered around slavery and federal power to bring it to an end; a concept opposed by many southern states, whose representatives argued that states had a right to do what they wanted. Of course, the major beneficiaries of slavery were wealthy interests, usually plantation owners and exporters,* who were able to make the "states' rights" issue appear to be at the heart of the matter, not the immorality of slavery. By promoting the idea of a bullying Federal government, which was attacking southern independence, the interests were able to rally a "southern nationalism" to help them keep slavery in place. Poor white farmers and town dwellers, essentially receiving little, if any, benefit from slavery, became its staunch advocates, as they saw attempts to end it as an attack on "the South." If some of this sounds similar to today, you are wide awake.

The defeat of the Confederacy brought occupation to the South by troops of the Federal government. Each former Confederate state had to agree to certain laws before they could be readmitted to the Union, mainly those guaranteeing rights to former slaves. Republicans, the big political winners from the Civil War, as the party had been formed largely as an anti-slavery party, gained political control of most southern states by forming a coalition of blacks, northern white Republican transplants, and "repentant" white southerners.** Former slaves made up a substantial percentage of each southern state's population, but remember, at that time, only men could vote, not women, and blacks were virtually 100% Republican, as it was Lincoln and Republicans who helped them gain their freedom. Many southern white Democrats were elected to local offices, and thus began a period of intimidation of blacks and gimmicks (like poll taxes) to keep blacks from voting. Gradually, white Democrats began to regain control of southern states. In an agreement reached in 1877 over the disputed election of 1876, where Republican Rutherford B. Hayes trailed Democrat Samuel Tilden by more than two percentage points in the popular vote, Hayes won the Electoral College by just one vote, but the agreement provided for the withdrawal of troops from the South, and the ascension of Democrats to power there until the latter part of the 20th Century. Cracks began to develop much earlier in the Democratic coalition, however, over race.

Progressive elements within the Democratic Party,*** with support from none other than Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, wanted black Americans to enjoy the same rights as other Americans, something that was not a fact in those times, even in the north, although the black population was still overwhelmingly concentrated in the states of the former Confederacy. Segregation was the fact, with separate seats for whites and blacks in theaters, restaurants, buses, etc, and separate schools and even separate water fountains. The movement for equal civil rights brought discord among Democrats, as southern whites, although staunchly Democratic, began to voice opposition to such rights for black Americans. At times, some southern politicians like Strom Thurmond, ceased their affiliation with the Democratic Party, at least temporarily, forming the so called "Dixiecrats," with the main aim being the perpetuation of segregation, although as like nearly a hundred years before, under the guise of supporting "states' rights." **** As more black Americans began to move northward to find jobs in northern industrial cites, conflict developed with the indigenous white population, much of it working class.***** The Democratic Party was finding their political coalition being strained, but fear of Republican pro wealthy policies (a carry over from Depression times) kept most Democrats scared enough to keep them in the fold election by election. When President Lyndon Johnson pushed for, and got, civil rights legislation in the mid 1960s, Republican political strategists found a potential opening to bring their stagnant party to possible majority status.******

The 1960s, more specifically the mid to late 1960s and into the early 1970s, were highly tumultuous. The war in Vietnam grew increasingly unpopular and divisive, with bloody protests and riots, at the same time as the civil rights movement for black Americans brought bloody protests and riots. The war brought antiwar people into activist positions within the Democratic Party (a group which also tended to be highly supportive of civil rights). Republicans won a close election for President in 1968 with former Vice President Richard Nixon. Republicans and conservative southern Democrats had been "flirting" for a number of years, but Nixon's appeal to patriotism and "law and order" (code for breaking up riots by antiwar protesters and civil rights groups; that is blacks) brought him a major victory in the election of 1972. Republican momentum to take control of Congress in 1974 or 1976 was derailed by the Nixon administration scandals, sort of collectively called "Watergate." Democrats won big in the 1974 congressional elections, and captured the presidency in 1976, but their era was out of gas, almost literally (oil and gasoline shortages). As the Democratic coalition unraveled, the Republicans were about to build one of their own.     

* The South was highly agricultural in those times, and heavily dependent upon cotton, of which much was sold outside the South, and overseas.  

** I've used the term "repentant southerners," for lack of a better term, but these were southern whites who essentially agreed with meeting the required conditions to rejoin the Union. "Unrepentant southerners" called these folks "scallywags" and they called the white northern transplants "carpetbaggers," after the travel bags they carried, fashioned out of carpet-like material, a fairly common  practice in those times.

*** Many progressives in the Republican Party began to switch to the Democratic Party in the 1930s and thereafter, but the progressive wing of the Republican Party remained fairly strong until 1964 and the nomination by Republicans of highly conservative/libertarian Barry Goldwater. After that, it was pretty much only a matter of time before progressive/liberal Republicans became an endangered species within the GOP.

**** It is worth noting that Thurmond later became a Republican and served in the U.S. Senate until the age of 100. It also is important to note that Thurmond, the staunch segregationist, fathered a child (a daughter) by a black woman. Hmm, I guess he didn't believe in segregation as far as sex was concerned.

***** As I've joked with black friends over the years, "Northerners opposed slavery, but we didn't think you were going to come up here and live next door to us." I'm not naive, and I'm sure someone will take this out of context, but I use it to point out that there were many racists in the North.

****** The 1964 election saw conservative Republican Barry Goldwater carry several southern states in a losing effort against Lyndon Johnson, an indication of how strong racial tempers were flaring in the Old South.

WORD HISTORY:
Slave-The ultimate origins of this word are uncertain, but it goes back to Old Slavic "slovo," the underlying meaning of which had to do with "sounds, utterances;" thus "speech." This then produced "sloveninu," meaning "Slav/Slovene," from the notion "group of people of the same or similar speech/language." This was borrowed by Greek as "Sklabos" ("Slav"), which in turn was borrowed by Latin as "Sclavus," but with the meaning "slave," as many Slavic people had by that time been conquered and enslaved by others. This gave Old French, a Latin-based language, "(e)sclave," and this was borrowed as "slave" by English in the latter part of the 1200s.   

Allied Commanders of World War Two/Marshal Zhukov

"Georgi Zhukov" Part 1
("Georgi" also transliterated at times as "Georgy" and "Georgii")*

Notes and Commentary:
First, the Soviet Union took over the former "Russian Empire," which was a multi-ethnic, multi-national empire. Because it was the "Russian Empire," citizens were often called "Russians," regardless of their actual ethnic background.** That terminology continued when the empire became the Soviet Union, and I will continue that terminology here to try to keep things simple, even if not politically correct. Second, while not popular, especially, but not exclusively, with super patriots of the political right in many western countries, we need to remember that the Soviet Union suffered more dead and casualties against Hitler and his allies than all of the western Allies combined. On the other hand, super patriots of the former Soviet Union don't like to hear how western countries helped them stave off defeat early on by supplying them with all sorts of war materials, especially tanks, trucks, etc. I'm just saying we all need to keep some perspective here. Also, I know some of my articles contain extensive footnotes, but I believe it is important to give some explanations about events or ideas. So often books or articles mention something, but the reader may not really know the meaning of that "something." I'm sure I haven't been perfect on this subject either, but I usually do try to give some basic definition to terms used, as well as to express opinions on a particular subject (Hey, it isn't called "Pontificating" for nuthin'...I mean nothing).

Zhukov was born to a poor farming family in the Kaluga area of Russia, southwest of Moscow. The harsh "you're on your own" philosophy of the Tsarist Russian Empire undoubtedly influenced his, and many other poor Russians, beliefs when revolution against Tsardom became likely. He served in the cavalry in World War One, where he further saw the huge differences between the the mainly peasant and worker soldiers and the noble and aristocratic officer corps.*** He was decorated for bravery during the war. He joined the Bolshevik Party after the Bolsheviks came to power by revolution in November 1917.**** He fought as part of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War,***** where he showed leadership qualities and rose to command a cavalry regiment.

*Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian (all Indo European languages, and therefore related to English further down the "family tree") and several other languages (some Indo European and some from other language families) use a different alphabet system called "Cyrillic." It was a writing (alphabet) system developed back in about the 900s (A.D.) and is named in honor of the Eastern Orthodox saint, Cyril. When someone "transliterates a word," they put it into the closest rendering of another alphabet system, and there are variations of how to do this; thus some spelling differences occur.

** Part of the neighborhood where I grew up had a sizable Ukrainian population, those Ukrainians being from the western part of the Ukraine, where Ukrainian Catholic was the predominant religion, not Eastern Orthodoxy, which dominates in the rest of the Ukraine. Understand, defining the "Ukraine" is not an easy issue, as borders have changed numerous times over the centuries, and even since World War One. When I was a kid, it was a part of the Soviet Union, and was called "the Ukraine," but since the break up of the Soviet Union it has become independent and is simply "Ukraine," without the article. Anyway, if you called one of the Ukrainians in my neighborhood a "Russian," most would quickly, but politely, correct you, but a few might even get downright hostile about it.

***Growing income disparity in America over the last three (plus) decades has been making it less and less possible for Americans to rise (or fall) through the social ranks. "Social mobility," as it is called, has declined markedly in the U.S., and the nation now lags behind many developed countries like Canada, Denmark, Finland, Australia, Spain, Germany, and France (based upon statistics from the "Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development"). As wealthy earners pass on wealth to their descendants, the nation has been losing its reputation as a "meritocracy;" that is, a system where people are rewarded, promoted, and paid according to their achievements, as opposed to aristocracy, where people are rewarded simply because of birth to aristocratic families. The push by American conservatives in the last few years to do away with inheritance taxes on wealthy Americans will only make matters worse, as even some wealthy individuals, like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have noted. You would think the "free marketers" would oppose the elimination of inheritance taxes for the nonsense it is, but not so in many cases. If you notice the numerous European countries on the list above (they are not in any particular order, by the way), many American conservatives like to say, "We don't want to be like Europe." I wonder if this is what they mean? Let's be honest here, there is currently an exemption of 5 million dollars from such taxes (Federal, but there are usually state taxes, too). So, Uncle Randy leaves you $10 million. You get $5 million automatically (subject to whatever state law applies to you), and then you pay (currently) 35% Federal Estate Tax on the other $5 million, leaving you $3.25 million (again, subject to any state law pertaining to you). I have a sneaking suspicion you wouldn't turn down a grand total of $8.25 million because you had to pay a tax of $1.75 million. American conservatives say how unfair all of this is. The tax was once much higher, and should be again, but with a hearty exemption.

**** It is often called the "October Revolution" by Russians, as Russia used the Julian Calendar (developed by Julius Caesar; thus "Julian"), as opposed to the Gregorian Calendar (developed by Pope Gregory XIII) of western countries.

***** The Russian Civil War was fought between the Bolshevik Red Army and the White Army, a coalition of pro-monarchist and anti-Bolshevik forces, including foreign elements. The end of the war is a matter of opinion, as it took the Bolsheviks a few years to actually gain control of the country. Some historians say it ended in 1921, while others say 1923. I lean toward the latter.

WORD HISTORY:
Kremlin-The ultimate origins of this word are uncertain. It goes back to Old East Slavic "kreml" ("кремль") which had the notion of "separate; thus a fortress part of a city or town." This gave Old Russian "kremlinu" which later became "kremlin." English seems to have borrowed the word in the 1600s from either German or French. German had borrowed it initially from Russian as "Kremelin/Kremelien." While used for the citadel/fortress of any Russian city or town, the use of the term for the central part of Moscow dominated even a few hundred years ago, as it still does.

Allied Leaders of World War II/Stalin

NOTE: Bolshevik/Communist politics was highly complicated, with various party factions vying for power at times. While a fascinating subject, all of this is far beyond the scope of this article, but there are many books and articles available on this subject, as well as on Joseph Stalin's abilities to outmaneuver his rivals.

Stalin's real family name was "Dzhugashvili" (there are variations in the transliterated spelling in English), and he was born in Georgia, an area of the Caucasus, in the southern part of the Russian Empire. The language was not Russian, but Georgian, a Kartvelian language unrelated (as far as is known) to Indo European, which is the ancient ancestor of English and Russian. Russian was taught in the schools of Georgia. Stalin suffered from smallpox as a child, and it left his face permanently scarred.

While in school during his later teens, Stalin came into contact with a number of people with Marxist beliefs, and within a couple of years he joined the Bolsheviks. He was arrested numerous times, and he wrote some revolutionary articles under the name "Stalin," a word for "steel," which Russian had borrowed from Germanic, and it is by that name that he came to be known and feared. He moved up through the ranks of the Bolsheviks, and after they had overthrown the moderate government that had replaced the Tsarist government a few months earlier,* his closeness to Lenin helped his power to grow. When an assassination attempt was made on Lenin in the fall of 1918, Stalin urged a severe crackdown, directed mainly at the more moderate socialists, which resulted in the execution of thousands without a trial, although the actual number is not truly known. Lenin made him General Secretary of the Communist Party. Lenin suffered a stroke in 1922, and Stalin was able to consolidate more power unto himself, although his relationship with Lenin went down hill. Lenin died in early 1924 and Stalin's power-base and his absolute ruthlessness gave him an advantage over other Communist officials, but it took time for him to truly become the absolute ruler of the Soviet Union. His use of the secret police to spy on rivals and citizens is legendary, and he had so many people killed or sent to labor camps, no one really knows with any certainty just how many there were, but it was in the MILLIONS! While not as concerned with "racial policies," like Hitler, I've always said you could put Stalin and Hitler into a bag, shake it up, and you wouldn't know which one would pop out first!

Stalin felt the Kulaks** were too independent minded and not interested enough in the overall good of the nation, and he wanted farming consolidated into "collective farms," which brought resistance from the Kulaks. Perhaps as many as five million were sent to camps in Siberia, where many died, while others were just outright executed. Stalin also wanted industrial production increased to build a formidable army to discourage incursions by European nations; that is, by the "capitalists." A severe crackdown was launched against worker absenteeism and workers who failed to meet production quotas. In the early 1930s, the Ukraine was hit by a major famine, and millions died.*** Ukrainians were independent minded, and many to this day believe much of the famine was orchestrated by Stalin (there was severe rationing and the border was closed off to stop Ukrainians from leaving for other, better supplied areas) to beat down Ukrainian independence. Disease and outright starvation claimed many lives.

Next, the conclusion of the Stalin info, which will include his role in World War Two.

* There were two revolutions in Russia during that era. The first took place in March 1917 and resulted in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, thus ending the many centuries of Tsarist rule. A "provisional (temporary) government" was set up to rule the country until national elections could be held. It was socialist, but not really radically so (compared to other elements, like the Bolsheviks), and in fact, it continued to fight the war (World War One) on the side of the Allies. The continuation of the unpopular war and the economic mess of the nation kept discontent alive, and in late October 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in a second revolution, although it took them a few years to actually consolidate their hold on the country.

** During much of Russia's history, peasants were really serfs for large landowners. Tsar Alexander II freed the serfs in 1861, but most peasants remained illiterate and poor. While serfdom had "officially" ended, the rents peasants owed to landowners pretty much guaranteed a perpetuation of poverty. During Tsar Nicholas II's rule, one of his prime ministers, Peter Stolypin, implemented a program where peasants could own land and truly be free of the large landowners, thus keeping peasants supportive of Tsarism. The program was limited, especially considering Russia's enormous peasant population, but these farmers came to be called "Kulaks." Revolutionaries saw the reforms as a threat to their desire to overthrow the Tsarist system, so Stolypin was assassinated. Nicholas unfortunately took a turn back toward repression, which only served as a prelude to the revolution that brought him down. When the Bolsheviks came to power, they kept much of the Kulak system in place, at least at first.

*** Records from those times are scare and it is difficult to determine how many people died, but 4 or 5 million would be a good guess, although Ukrainians believe the number to by about double that.

WORD HISTORY:
Vodka-The "vod" part of this word is related to "water," and indeed it goes back to Indo European "wod/wed," the same ancient ancestor, which expanded to "wotor/wodr," which meant "water. This gave Slavic "voda/woda," and this then gave Russian "voda," meaning "water." The "ka" ending is a diminutive; that is, it makes it "smaller" or "endearing;" so "little water." It was borrowed into English circa 1800.

The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Four

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/F 1
"Germany Versus the Soviet Union" Part One "Background"

Going back to his book "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"), Hitler talked often about Germans needing "Lebensraum" ("living space"). In Europe (and elsewhere, for that matter), looking well back in history, as various peoples settled into areas, developing their respective homelands, they often lacked various resources to help with their existence or to keep up with the changes taking place over the centuries, or to keep up with their own population growth. This led to one of two things happening; either they developed some sort of commerce with other people to get the items or land they needed, or they tried to take what they needed by conquest. If you have followed this series, you have seen how rulers tried to gain lands or specific resources by a variety of methods, including "strategic marriages," trade deals, and certainly wars (indeed "ego" played a part, too). For centuries, the "ethnic" composition of a region did not much matter to the rulers. They wanted certain territories for waterways, raw materials or other resources, including later, factories these areas possessed, not necessarily for the people who lived there. Later, however, the people living in these various territories developed a much more cohesive sense of "belonging to particular groups," which brought on the development of "nationalism" and the desire of these groups of people to live together and be ruled by people with much their same background, especially language, and often other characteristics, like religion. With so many territorial changes over the centuries having been made with little or no regard to the "ethnic background" of the population, the new sense of nationalism was bound to bring conflict. With western and central Europe more densely populated, Hitler saw the more sparsely populated, but agriculturally, and even industrially productive, areas of the Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union as the target for German expansion.

The population of these areas would become slaves to Germans, or be "eliminated." In Poland, many Poles in the areas annexed to Germany were moved to other regions, and per the agreement with the Soviet Union, Germans were resettled from Soviet controlled areas to places like the former Polish Corridor. Further, again per the German-Soviet agreement, in 1940 the Soviets moved into the small Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and they then annexed them to the Soviet Union. There were German minority settlements* within both Latvia and Estonia, some of these German settlements dating back centuries. A process of resettlement of these "Baltic Germans" to former Polish territory started, but it was interrupted by Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Further, also per the German-Soviet agreement, the Soviet Union pressured Rumania for a large region of its eastern boundary, called Bessarabia, and also a part of the Bukovina region, and these areas were annexed to the expanding Soviet empire. The turmoil caused the abdication of the Rumanian king, who was succeeded by King Michael, a great-great grandson of Britain's Queen Victoria. However, much of the real power lay with right wing general, Ion Antonescu, who became Prime Minister. Antonescu was pro-German, and Rumania became much closer with Hitler's Reich as a consequence. Rumania signed the Axis alliance within weeks of Antonescu's taking power. Rumania was very important to Hitler's plans, because of extensive oil reserves and oil refineries located there.** German troops and military advisers were permitted on Rumanian territory. Germany now had a common border with the Soviet Union from northern Europe to southern Europe; that is, with its own border in East Prussia and in occupied Poland, combined with the pro-German nations in eastern Europe, and Finland, in the far north, a nation anxious to get back the territory it ceded to the Soviets in 1940. Hitler now prepared to use that lengthy border to invade his "pact partner," the Soviet Union.

* These Germans were often referred to as "Baltic Germans."

** So, as you can see, the battle over oil was well under way long before our own era. It also demonstrates the point I made in the opening part above about nations and resources. Germany was technologically advanced in the automotive and aviation industries compared to many other nations, including the various military aspects of these industries, but it lacked extensive oil of its own as fuel for its vehicles, although this was not a situation limited to Germany, as other nations suffered similar low domestic oil production.

WORD HISTORY:
Soviet-This word came into use in English in the aftermath of the Bolshevik takeover in Russia. It is a compound formed from "su" and "vetu;" "su" meaning "with" and "vetu" meaning "counsel, advise." The history of both of these words is sketchy beyond about 900 A.D., but the compound goes back to Old Church Slavonic "suvetu," with a general meaning of "with agreement" (to something). Old Church Slavonic was the oldest form of written Slavic, developed back around 900 to translate religious texts into Slavic; thus the "church" terminology. The term passed into Old Russian, still with the same spelling, before altering to "sovet" ("совет" in the Cyrillic alphabet used by Russian, Serbian, and Bulgarian, for instance), which meant "council." The Bolsheviks used the term for a type of "governance council of workers." Once in power, the Bolsheviks "united" these various councils, giving the former Russian Empire the name "Soviet Union," a shortened form of "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

The German Question, Part Eighty

"Kaiser Wilhelm & World War I" Part Two/J "The Germans At War"
"Germany's Jews During World War One"

Some information about Germany's Jews during World War One is very relevant here, as we are now approaching that terrible era of Hitlerism. One of the problems about researching German Jews during World War One is that when the Nazis came to power, the Nazi government "apparently" removed many records for Jewish war veterans. It seems at least 100,000 German Jews served in the German military during World War One, and some 12,000 died. The Jewish population of Germany at the time was about a half million. Further, the German Army occupied a large area of Russian territory (including Russia's Polish area), where Jews formed a relatively significant part of the population. The Tsarist government was noted for its oppressive anti-Jewish policies, and these policies made for mixed emotions for Jews in these regions during the war; as Russia was their homeland, but their treatment by the regime was often terrible, thus giving some Jews in these regions cause to hope for a German/Austro-Hungarian victory. That is not to say that Germany and Austria-Hungary were a paradise for Jews, but anti-Jewish measures tended to be less harsh than in Tsarist Russia.

Of the approximately 100,000 Jews who served in the German military during the war, some 30,000+ were decorated with some form of military honor. By the time of the war, many German Jews were undoubtedly assimilated a great deal into German society; that is, they essentially saw themselves as Germans, and many of their German neighbors accepted them as such.** There remained, however, an element of German society which did not accept Jews as Germans, and reports circulated that Jews were war profiteers and that Jewish soldiers were shirking their military duties to Germany. This brought about a count, or census, of Jewish soldiers and where they were serving, as anti-Jewish elements believed, and publicly espoused to inflame public opinion, the notion that Jews tended to serve, not at the front, but in rear areas of the army. The count proved otherwise, showing 78% of Jewish soldiers serving in front line units, but the information was not then released to the public, so the rumors persisted, as did anti-Jewish feeling. Some say anti-Jewish feeling intensified because the results were not released, and that conspiracy mongers then promoted the belief that the government was keeping the information secret to protect Jews from a hostile reaction to the negative information.***

Special note must be made here for Hugo Gutmann. He was a German Jew born in Nuremberg (Nürnberg in German), Germany in 1880. A decorated German soldier of World War One, being awarded the Iron Cross, both first and second class, he rose to the rank of lieutenant (Leutnant in German; pronounced "loit-nahnt"). In what became a terrible irony, Gutmann recommended the Iron Cross (First Class) for one of his regiment's soldiers, a man actually born on the Austrian side of the border, who, at that time, wore a broad mustache. Later the man would become famous, ah infamous, for his "toothbrush" mustache. That man was Adolf Hitler, and Hitler continued to proudly wear his Iron Cross for the remainder of his life; an Iron Cross recommended by a German Jew. Gutmann left Germany prior to the outbreak of World War Two, eventually coming to the United States, where he died in 1971.

* Former Russian Jews who had immigrated to the U.S. or England, often, but not exclusively, because of harsh treatment, tended to denounce the Russian government, an ally of Britain. This brought about some anti-Jewish reaction in Britain, and also among pro-Allied supporters in the United States, before America entered the war, and then among more Americans after America declared war.

** I don't want to overstate nor understate this, and to be fair, I suppose it would be just as appropriate to say that "some" of Germany's Jews did not see themselves as Germans, some perhaps out of religious belief, some out of the idea that German society would never truly accept them. The problem is, except for comments by some German Jews later on, how do we really know how many held a particular belief? The same can be said for the beliefs about Jews by the non-Jewish German population.

*** You can never get ahead of conspiracy mongers and the paranoid. If information not supporting their beliefs is released, they say it was doctored. If information isn't released, they say your hiding it because it confirms their beliefs.

WORD HISTORY:
Garden (also spelled "garten" as part of the compound "Kindergarten")/Yard-You get two words today. These words, which are really the same word, trace back to the Indo European root "gher," which had the general notion of "enclose, grasp" (when you grasp something, you "enclose it" with your fingers). The Old Germanic offshoot was "gardo" or "garda," which had the meaning "enclosure, enclosed section around a living area." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "geard," with the meaning "enclosed area around a house, a garden," and this eventually came to be the English word "YARD," but with only the meaning of "enclosed area around a house." Why you ask? I did hear you ask, right? Because the specific meaning "garden" went to that spelling of the word, initially "gardin," which English borrowed at some point in the 1300s from the Old Northern French word "gardin."^ French had the word from Latin "gardinus," which meant "an enclosed garden," and Latin had gotten the word from the Germanic dialect Frankish, also referred to by some as "Old Low Franconian," which had "gardo," again with the Germanic meanings given above. When Latin borrowed the word from Frankish, it had taken on more the meaning of "garden; an enclosed place for growing plants." So, this is one of those sort of strange events in English where our original word developed as "yard," and then English borrowed a form of the same word from another language (which had also borrowed it), but with a slight variation in meaning. (By the way, "yard," the form of measurement, is from a different source.) "Yard" and "garden" are (or were) widespread in the other Germanic languages in various forms, but their meanings vary, although the concept of "enclosed land" is present, as in some languages the meaning may be "farm" or "estate" or "grove" (an area enclosed with trees) and not all translate specifically to English "garden" and/or "yard," and it seems in some languages the terms may now be dialect, rather than standard. German has "Garten" (also used in "Kindergarten," "Tiergarten" and "Biergarten"), which in Old High German was "garto" before becoming "garte," and then the modern spelling, and it means "garden," as German uses another word, "Hof," related to English "hovel," for "yard," but German once had the word "Gart," meaning "an enclosure" but it has died out ; Low German Saxon has "Goorn," which means "garden," but also "yard," although the latter is usually part of compound, which designates whether the yard is in the "front" or the "back;" Dutch has "gaard(e)," but it may now only be dialectal; West Frisian had (still has?) "gard;" Norwegian has "gårdsplass" and "yard," but both seem to mean "yard;" "Danish has "guard"="garden" and "yard" (the spelling is a coincidence, and it is not related to "guard," a security officer); Swedish has "trädgård"=garden and "gård"=yard; Icelandic has "garður"=garden and "garðinum"=yard ('ð' is called an 'eth,' and it is pretty much equivalent to 'th,' although sometimes it is rendered as 'd') .

By the way, for those interested in Slavic languages, the Indo European base "gher," with that concept of "enclose," gave Old Slavic "gord" (notice the similarity to Old Germanic "gardo," and then the more modern base of many Germanic words "gard/gart/yard," and indeed some linguists feel Old Slavic borrowed the term from Germanic). "Gord" meant "an enclosed 'fort-like' living area, as in times of old, towns usually had some form of protection around them. This then became modern "gorod/grad/grade" (notice the transposed "r" and vowel sounds from the original "gord" in "grad" and "grade"), which means city or town (but not used in all Slavic languages). Some notable examples: Russia has the city of "Novgorod," and had, during the Communist era, "Leningrad," the renamed former capital of St. Petersburg, which has now reclaimed its original name, and "Stalingrad," the renamed city of Tsaritsyn, also renamed again, but as Volgograd. Serbia has "Belgrade."

^ Italian has "giardino," Spanish has "jardin" and Portuguese has "jardim," all seemingly borrowed from French. 

The German Question, Part Ten

Rather than any major ruthless annihilation of foreign people (I'm not saying there weren't any killings), the German eastward expansion resulted in many of the various peoples, Slavic and Baltic, simply being absorbed into the German population and losing their “ethnic” identity, including their languages. There were some exceptions to this gradual “Germanization” process, however, and in some locations a few groups retained both their ethnic identity and their language, although there certainly were some influences passed back and forth between these groups and the nearby, or even mixed in, Germans. Much of the area of Prussia had already been occupied by Slavic people for a period, and some of these Slavs, the Kashubians and Masurians, for example, retained a certain amount of their own identity, but with a German influence over time. The original Prussians eventually were completely absorbed into Germandom, and, if I remember correctly, the last known speakers of their language, called Old Prussian (related to Lithuanian and Latvian), died in the 1700s. Further south, below Berlin, another group of Slavs, the Wends, lived in an area called “Lusatia” (“Lausitz,”* in German and "Luzica/Luzyca" in Sorbian Slavic). Over the centuries this Slavic community has been whittled down, but it still exists, even to this day,** as does their language, called Sorbian.

* "Supposedly" the word comes from a Slavic word for “wetlands/swamp.”

** Much of “Lusatia” is in Germany, but a part straddles the border with modern Poland, and even with the Czech Republic. While I can’t confirm this, I’ve read where the people who call themselves Wends is down to like 60-70,000 in Germany. For those interested in further info, the area in question is around the German cities of Forst and Cottbus.

WORD HISTORY:
Shoulder-The overall origins of this word remain unclear and it "might" be a West Germanic invention derived from the Old Germanic ancestor of "shield," which was "skelduz," with the reference being to the "shoulder blade," but this is not a certainty. What is known is that is goes back to West Germanic "skuldro/skuldr" (English is a West Germanic language). This gave Old English "sculdor," and later "shulder," before the modern version. Forms in other Germanic languages are: German has "Schulter," Low German has "Schuller," West Frisian has "skouder" and Dutch has "schouder." One source notes that a form of the word was "borrowed into" North Germanic, as Swedish has "skuldra" and Norwegian and Danish have "skulder." The verb form, meaning to take responsibility, or take on a burden ("shoulder the load or responsibility") came from the noun, perhaps initially in the 1300s, but most definitely was in use by the 1500s.

The German Question, Part Five

Updated slightly 7/1/2015, then updated again (the Word History) on 6/9/22

Remember, it is believed by many historians (and seemingly supported by archaeology) that Germanic peoples spread into other parts of Europe, including eastern and central Europe, from the northern areas of Europe. Beginning in the 500s A.D., Slavic tribes* spread into areas often vacated by Germanic tribes in the eastern parts of Europe. It is believed that the primary reason that these Germanic peoples left the area was that they fled invaders from central Asia, especially the Huns.** In modern geographic terminology, the areas involved were Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, part of Belarus, and part of Ukraine (and undoubtedly a part of Lithuania***). Also included were parts of modern Germany, up to the area of the Elbe River. (A Word History is below the notes)

*Many linguists seem to agree that the various Slavic elements didn’t show great diversification in dialects for quite some time, making communication between these tribes relatively easy. Slavic is an Indo European language and is therefore related to English, but further down the family tree.

** The Huns were a nomadic group of people, long thought to be from Asia. They were excellent horsemen and fierce warriors, but their origins are murky. They appear in distant southeastern Europe in the vicinity of the Black Sea in the mid 300s A.D. Historians have generally believed them to be from central Asia and related to the Turks, but even the answer as to why they might have moved westward into Europe has never been clearly established. "Typically" the various tribes moved to find better sources of food, or because they lost their homeland to invaders. The Huns are, of course, best known for one of their leaders, Attila. The Huns took over large parts of Europe for a time, but eventually a coalition, largely of Germanic tribes in eastern Europe, defeated them in the mid 400s. The center of their empire became Pannonia, now basically modern Hungary.      

*** All of these modern countries still speak Slavic languages, with the exception of Lithuania. Many linguists feel there was a period of overlap between the Slavic languages and the Baltic languages, which includes Lithuanian, but that the two diverged from one another. On the other hand, some linguists still use “Balto-Slavic” as the term for these languages, as they feel the two are too closely related to be grouped separately. Lithuanian is thought by some (many?) linguists to be the least altered, and thus the closest, living language to the original Indo European, but this is a subject in its own right, and is thus beyond the scope of this article.

WORD HISTORY:
Toy-While this is a fairly common word in English, its origins are uncertain. In writing, as "toye," it came to be used in the 1300s with the meaning "amorous dalliance;" that is, "casual sexual affair." This later (in the 1500s) brought about the more expanded meaning of anything done for "fun, entertainment, or amusement," including "funny remarks," and by the late 1500s, "object for a child's entertainment" developed. Where did English get it? Did English already have a spoken form of the word in English dialect that was simply not used by the literate element of English society? Did an Old English form die out, ^ only to be resurrected by borrowing the word? The English traded goods heavily with the areas of the North Sea coast, which included the close relatives of English: Dutch, Frisian, and German (both Low German and High German). Low German has "tüg," and standard German has "Zeug" (the "eu" is pronounced as English "oy," and the "Z" is pronounced "ts"), with the generalized meaning "tool/implement (usually as the compound "Werkzeug;" literally, "work implement"), implement, stuff," and standard German has "Spielzeug," meaning "toy." Dutch has "tuig," also generally meaning "tool," and "speeltuig" meaning "toy." Danish and Swedish, also Germanic languages, have "toi/toj," and "tyg," respectively, with the meaning "stuff, gear." The verb "toyed" was derived from the noun during the 1500s. Some linguists have speculated (with good reason) that "toy" could be related to "tug" and "tow." English "tug" and "tow" are part of a "family of Germanic words" related through forms in Old Germanic. One of the other members of this family is German "ziehen" ("ziohan" in Old High German), which means "to pull, to drag, to draw." The Old English form of this word was "teon" (infinitive form, same basic meanings as the German word), and it's important to remember that German "z" is pronounced "ts." In this same family are the nouns, English "tug," and German "Zug," with the English word noun being the word for "a small boat that pulls a larger ship," and the German noun meaning, "a train (an engine that pulls a number of railway cars"). It most certainly seems that "toy" is a member of this overall family of words and it may well trace back to a form in Old English (see note below).

^ English once had "suhlgeteog," which meant "plowing tool/implement." A number of English words lost the ending "g" sound over time, as for instance, "day" and "may" (the verb form) both had an ending "g" at one time ("dæg" and "mæg"), as their German cousins still do: "Tag" and "mag/mög," the second form being the root for the infinitive and for the subjunctive.  

Rasputin's Importance To History, Part 7

One of the most controversial topics about Rasputin was his "seeming" ability to stop the bleeding in the Tsar's hemophiliac son, Alexei. There were people who believed (and those who still do believe) that Rasputin had some kind of supernatural powers, and others who felt that he used some sort of trickery, including hypnosis (and likewise, there are people who still believe this), and still others who believed he had an accomplice inside the palace who helped him by administering a mysterious drug to the boy, and then Rasputin would appear just as the drug took effect. My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that as to "supernatural" powers, I don't believe in any such nonsense. There may well be things in life that appear to have some supernatural cause, but enough research will show that there is some more natural explanation (Now what brings about that natural cause is open to debate.) As to an accomplice, I doubt it. As to a mysterious drug, I doubt that, too, as such a drug could have made any person possessing it a very wealthy person. To me, the explanation is more simple. Initially, Rasputin wanted status by being introduced to the imperial family. In order to improve that status and become even closer with the Tsar and Tsarina, he saw an opportunity in their son's illness. Whether he knew what the illness was at first, I doubt it, as hemophilia was not a common affliction. One thing Rasputin did know and understand was people; that is, personalities, and the desire by people to believe in supernatural forces that could counter what had been assumed to be incurable. His first "healing" of the boy could well have been a roll of the dice. He had nothing to lose. If I come to the bedside of a very ill person, say a prayer, make the sign of the cross, and in a time, the person's condition begins to improve, did I do this, or was it a process that was already underway, and I just got the credit for it? I believe the latter. That is not to say that later on, when Alexei had other bleeding incidents that Rasputin's presence did not indeed calm the boy and provide comfort to him, and especially to his mother, thus helping to control the bleeding. This is what many doctors have attributed to Rasputin's "healing" of Alexei. Again, you have to keep in mind that once Rasputin was given credit for saving the boy by the Tsarina, there was no turning back. At the next bleeding episode, what was he to do, say that he couldn't help Alexei? Rasputin derived any "power" and status he had by virtue of his association with the Tsarina and her belief that he could keep her son alive. His whole position would have been lost. The same was true with the next episode, and the next, and the next. There was no incentive for Rasputin NOT to answer the Tsarina's calls or telegrams, nor was there any reason for him to say that he couldn't help the boy.

The most famous "healing" episode, and the one that totally solidified Rasputin's position with the Tsarina came when the imperial family was at one of their hunting lodges in Poland.* Alexei injured his leg getting into or out of a boat. At first, it was thought that the injury was not serious, but the internal bleeding grew ever worse, and the boy lingered for several days in terrible pain, as the swelling from the blood literally disfigured his leg and caused terrible pain in his lower abdomen. The boy had to be fitted with a special leg brace after his recovery, so severe had his leg been damaged. The Tsarina was beside herself. Each cry of pain by the boy terrified her, and she rarely left his bedside, nor did she sleep much for days. Some of the people present claimed that Alexandra's hair had a gray tinge to it after these days at her son's bedside.

Rasputin was at his home in western Siberia at that time. A trip to Poland would have taken many days by train, which was the most effective means of long distance transport in those times. The Tsarina sent a telegram to his village and Rasputin replied to her. The exact text of his reply has been "quoted" in a variety of ways, and if I remember correctly, the telegram did not survive those times, as far as is known. The gist of Rasputin's reply was that the Tsarina should not let the doctors** bother the boy anymore, and that the boy would recover. Within about a day, Alexei's condition improved, and after a time he recovered, although with the severely bent leg, as I mentioned above.

Doctor's have speculated to this day about what actually happened in Poland. Most have said that if anything, Rasputin gave good advice in his telegram to the Tsarina; that is, keep the doctors away! Keep in mind, this was the heir to the throne of the Russian Empire. Any doctor would have felt the need to try to do something, anything, even though knowing that not much could actually be done (with the knowledge of those times). All of this fussing and Alexandra's sobbing and terror stricken appearance would unnerve anyone, let alone a small boy in terrible pain. The speculation is, that when the doctor's were withdrawn, and Alexandra had been noticeably calmed just by receiving Rasputin's reply, the boy also calmed down, allowing the natural healing process to take place.

To be continued in "Part Eight" ...

* Technically during that time, there was no Poland as a nation, only as a geographical description. Most of what had been Poland (including Warsaw) was then a part of Russia, with a smaller section being part of Germany, and an even smaller section being part of Austria-Hungary.

** Several specialists had been ordered to Poland from St. Petersburg.

WORD HISTORY:
Poland-This word for the eastern European country goes back to Indo European "pel," which had the notion of "flat, spread out." This gave its Old Slavic offspring "pole," which meant "plain, field." The Old Slavic form produced "Polans," the name of a Slavic tribe, with the more literal meaning, "people of the plains/fields." The Slavic form also later gave Polish (a Slavic language) "polje," with the meaning "field." The area where the Polans lived was called in Polish "Polanie," and the neighboring Germans picked up the word as "Polen," likely more from the Slavic tribe name "Polans." English seems to have borrowed the word from German, more than likely from Low German,^ in the 1500s, but likely owing to a misunderstanding of the "len" ending of the Low German form, assumed it to be equivalent to "land;" thus, "Poland."

^ Many of the Germans coming into contact with the Slavic tribes in what became Poland were Low German speakers. Since standard German, which is mainly derived from High German dialect, also uses "Polen," I "assume" it got the word from Low German, but I could not find confirmation of that. 

Rasputin's Importance To History, Part 5

Historians have been divided over whether Rasputin belonged to a religious sect that practiced, to put it bluntly, group sex. If I remember correctly, his daughter did say that Rasputin had been associated with the sect, but that he had rejected it. There doesn't seem to be any clear evidence one way or the other whether he truly rejected this sect. Further, just as in other countries and other general religious denominations, there are sects that may have some views differing from the main religious body, and such was the case in Russia and in Russian Orthodoxy. One other sect espoused a belief that the more a person sinned, the better it was, as God forgave sinners. If anything, even if Rasputin didn't belong to this sect, he certainly seemed to embrace the general philosophy.

It was during World War I that Rasputin did the most damage to the Tsar and Tsarina, although certainly not without their participation. It has to be noted here that Nicholas tended to give in to his wife's wishes on many, if not most, occasions. There seems to be no question that many involved with the imperial couple said that Alexandra was indeed the strong and decisive partner and Nicholas the weaker and indecisive. I'll go out on a limb here and say that it has been my experience that when you have a person with a weak and vacillating personality, when they finally make a decision on something, even if that decision turns out to be wrong, that they then have a hell of a time changing their minds, and they tend to cling too stubbornly to their incorrect decision. In my opinion Nicholas was certainly in this category. On the other hand, Alexandra was strong and convinced that God would bless any decision made by the Tsar and supported, if not urged upon him, by her, and also supported, if not urged upon her, by Rasputin. To be quite honest, it is sometimes difficult to sort out whether Rasputin always, or even frequently, proposed policies to the Tsarina, and that then she in turn urged the policies upon Nicholas, or whether Alexandra had general ideas about certain policies, expressed them to Rasputin, and that Rasputin, ever the wily one, then gave his blessing to the policies and perhaps even filled in some detail, never wanting to actually contradict the Tsarina, as he well knew that his position depended upon her. It was likely something of a mixture. It bears repeating here, Alexandra believed that Rasputin had a special relationship with God and even talked with God, and that it was only through Rasputin that her son remained alive. As such, she certainly discussed matters of government with Rasputin, and even military matters. If I remember correctly, Nicholas was upset to learn that at one point, Alexandra had told Rasputin about a coming Russian military offensive in order that he would bless the attack and thus guarantee success. As I mentioned in a previous segment, she exhibited poor judgment when it came to Rasputin.

With the Russian armies beaten and bloodied, the Tsar made a fateful decision, one that was supported by Alexandra and Rasputin; that is, Nicholas was to take charge of the Russian forces himself. What this meant was, just as an American president is the overall commander-in-chief of the armed forces, it was the same with the Russian Tsar, although at times in history, certain Tsars had actually participated in military matters, even being involved in military operations. In this case, what Nicholas did would have been the same as if Woodrow Wilson, who was president during World War I, had gone to Europe to actually supervise every day military operations. So, Nicholas left for the military headquarters in central (European) Russia, hundreds of miles from the capitol. He saw this as a necessary symbol to inspire confidence in the army and the populace. His advisers were adamantly against the decision, at least at that time, as they explained to Nicholas that with the Russian armies in retreat, and with the Tsar in charge, any further military failures would now be directly linked to the Tsar himself.* Further, his advisers told him that, with the Tsar away from the capitol, affairs of state could not be easily acted upon, as in the tsarist system, virtually every government decision had to come before the Tsar. Nicholas stated that when he left the capitol, Alexandra would take over the day-to-day matters of governance, and that she would pass along any major matters to him for his consideration. Alexandra and Rasputin both supported the Tsar's decision. The door was opened even wider for Rasputin to do damage, even if not always in fact, at least in the public mind.

To be continued in "Part Six" ....

* Up to this point according to historians, the Russian people blamed the military commanders for the terrible defeats, but the Tsar remained popular and essentially unscathed, as Russians had pulled together against the common foes, Germany and Austria-Hungary.

WORD HISTORY:
Dacha-This word, meaning "a small home (often vacation home) in the country," goes back to Indo European "doh," which had the notion "give, present, offer." This gave its Old Slavic offspring "datya," meaning "give," which was passed to Russian as "dat" (give), which then produced the noun "dacha," originally a small home "given" by a noble to someone for their valued service. English borrowed the word from Russian in the latter part of the 1800s. It is related to "datum" (more commonly used in its plural, "data," meaning "something given," usually now, "information given") and "donation" ("something freely given for a cause"), two words of Latin derivation borrowed by English.  

Rasputin's Importance To History, Part 4

So what was it that Rasputin did that earned him a bad reputation? He had periodic bouts of heavy drinking, seemingly more so beginning not long after the start of World War One. Rasputin didn't lack ego, and when the drink took over, so did his boasting, or his sexual appetite. By all accounts, when he made visits to the Imperial family, has was totally sober, and it seems that he did forgo alcohol for various periods of time, but the fact that he was associated with the Tsar and Tsarina made any public drunken spectacle a cause for news stories. He was also known for his blunt sexual advances to the ladies. He frequented prostitutes, but it was his advances to other women that earned him the scorn of many in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was even "accused," at one point, of having raped a nun. During his drinking binges, he was prone to boast about his sexual conquests, and during one outing, he kissed a woman in one of the bars, only to add that he did the same with the Tsarina herself!*

During one drinking session in Moscow, he reportedly unzipped his pants and exposed himself to the crowd. As his association with the Imperial family grew, people from all walks of life sought his aid in getting an audience with the Tsar or Tsarina, or in getting help from some government official. There seems little doubt that he took bribes, earning quite a sum of money by some accounts.** People lined up at Rasputin's apartment in St. Petersburg*** in order to try to get help. There were so many people, that instead of scribbling a note with his signature, as he had been doing, he had cards printed up to expedite the process. (Rasputin was what most people would say was "semi-literate.") While he took money and gifts of various kinds from many people, he also gave away a great deal of money to peasants and workers who came to him with hard luck stories, and his concern for the poor seems to have been genuine.

Once World War I started, the pot really began to boil. Fairly early on, the Russian armies suffered staggering defeats at the hands of the Germans, with hundreds of thousands of casualties. Rumors began to spread that Rasputin was in the pay of the Germans. As the Russian armies retreated, the rumors became even more caustic, claiming that the Tsarina was passing information on to her first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm (Alexandra and Wilhelm were grandchildren of Queen Victoria). Her German birth and what the public saw as her dislike of Russia (her limited use of Russian and her rare public appearances) only fed the rumors. Rasputin did associate with some surly characters supposed to be German sympathizers during this time period, and again, perception was reality to the public. Even some who supported Rasputin felt that in his drunken state of mind at times, that he might indeed say things to German agents (of the female variety). Some Russian military personnel also chose to associate with Rasputin, simply because they felt he had influence with the Tsarina and, therefore, the Tsar. Most mainstream historians have basically sided with Rasputin, saying that while he used poor judgment, he was always a patriotic Russian. Again, Rasputin's ego was his own enemy, as he boasted about being privy to important information that supposedly the Germans would have loved to have. How much information he actually had is perhaps another matter. Again, most historians have basically concluded that Rasputin was just boasting and that he had no such valuable information.**** The public didn't know this. People thought that he genuinely was an advisor to the Tsar and Tsarina, and as such, he had lots of important information. With Rasputin known to take bribes, the public felt that he would do anything for money, including selling information to the Germans. The stories about Rasputin are almost endless, and I don't intend to go into all of them, as many come from poor sources, but again, many in the public believed ANYTHING about Rasputin, no matter how sensational.

After the fall of Communism, Russians had a more open discussion about Rasputin's part in their history. One television documentary had an interview with an elderly St. Petersburg resident who claimed that she and her husband had been walking down a street one night in like about 1915 when a strange weakness came over her and she dropped to the ground. When she looked up, there a short distance away stood Rasputin. She claimed that he had that kind of evil power!!! Now, this is a lot of nonsense, but again, what people believe to be true is more important than the truth at any given moment. In more than a decade of association between Rasputin and the Imperial family, the drip, drip, drip of scandalous stories had taken a toll on the Romanov reputation. The many scandalous stories invigorated the revolutionary movement, kept the newspaper business hopping, and made the public question the capabilities and even the loyalty of those at the top.

To be continued in "Part Five" ....

* Revolutionary elements, long a part of Russian life (they assassinated Nicholas's grandfather, Tsar Alexander II), loved Rasputin's antics and never missed an opportunity to spread even more salacious stories about him. They especially targeted the Tsarina, displaying drawings of Rasputin and the Tsarina in various sexual situations. In one famous incident, a letter from Alexandra to Rasputin gained widespread circulation. In the letter, Alexandra wrote several loving expressions, only adding to the growing public belief that Rasputin was the Tsarina's lover. Later, after the Tsar had abdicated, a special board of inquiry was convened by the then provisional government. It found no evidence that the Tsarina had had any physical relationship with Rasputin. Alexandra's closest associates noted that she wrote to all of her friends in "flowery" language, and her letters to Rasputin were no exception. Things got so bad in the mainstream press, too, that the government forbid the use of Rasputin's name in the newspapers. (The Tsar's manifesto had granted basic freedom of the press in 1906, but not anywhere near like what we Americans have; therefore, the Russian government did still exercise a degree of censorship.) The newspapers got around the censorship by simply NOT mentioning Rasputin by name, but by alluding to Rasputin with statements like, "A well known peasant," "A supposed holy man," and such. The public knew EXACTLY to whom the stories were referring, and newspaper sales soared even higher!

** I must also add that Rasputin may not have had to openly ask many people for some sort of compensation (bribe), as they seem to have brought money and other items to give to him for helping them.

*** He eventually rented in St. Petersburg for his long stays there, while still maintaining his home in Siberia.

**** This is one of those difficult to determine items of Rasputin's life. Military information was, by its nature, secret, although I think he had at least some basic military information, but likely not much detail. Alexandra's judgment regarding "our friend," as she usually referred to Rasputin, was highly suspect, and if I remember right, Nicholas, in a letter to his wife from the military headquarters, once related some information to her, followed by the caution that the info should not be revealed to anyone, not even "to our friend." While Alexandra herself likely did not know many details of the military matters, even basic information could have been damaging to the Russian cause, as just imagine if Hitler had had the basic information that Normandy was going to be the site of the Allied invasion in 1944. No detail, but highly important, and likely decisive, info!

WORD HISTORY:
Babushka-This word, generally known in American English as a word for a "headscarf," goes back to Old Slavic "baba," which meant "old woman," and apparently came from baby talk. This gave Russian "babushka," an endearment term meaning "grandma, granny." The word came to America with Russian and Ukrainian immigrants and was borrowed by American English in the post World War One era. The "headscarf" meaning came from the fact that many older Russian and Ukrainian woman (including the immigrants) wore such a scarf, and the meaning thus transferred to that apparel.  

Rasputin's Importance To History, Part 3

Slightly edited and updated with a Word History October 16, 2014

One of the difficult things about Rasputin's life is trying to sort out fact from fiction. He was not a monk, as many have referred to him, nor was he any true official of the Russian Orthodox Church, nor was he in later life any kind of official in the Russian government. Rasputin derived any power he had, real or perceived, by his association with the Imperial couple, especially Alexandra, and then by way of her influence with her husband. Since he was not in any official capacity, there are scant records on him. The records available come from people who knew him, or who were associated with him at one time or another, or from police surveillance records.

One of his daughters wrote a couple of books about him, and the problem here is one of credibility, as she naturally defended her father (it does seem that Rasputin was seen by his children as a good father). His daughter tried mightily to fend off all of the negative stories about her father by saying that there was a plot by many in the Russian government, in Russian high society, and in the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy to discredit her father because he was close to the Tsar and Tsarina. Now, there's undoubtedly some truth in this, as many in Russian high society were jealous of the fact that Rasputin was a frequent visitor to the Tsar's palaces (especially at Tsarkoe Selo, which was in what we'd call today, "suburban" St. Petersburg, which was the Russian capitol). Further, officials in the Orthodox Church clashed with Rasputin at various times during his life, and I'm sure his daughter felt they wanted to "get even" with her father. Likewise, Russian government officials feared for their positions because of Rasputin, and his daughter tried to explain away their opposition to Rasputin for this reason. Again, all of these things probably have "some truth" to them, but they don't explain all of the scandalous stories about Rasputin. Another thing to remember is, by most accounts, when Rasputin was around the Imperial family, he was on his best behavior, and undoubtedly his own children did not see the Rasputin that was written about in the newspapers. For the most part, his family remained in western Siberia while he was off for long periods in St. Petersburg and elsewhere. From a historical point of view we'd like to know what was true about Rasputin, but also a part of that historical truth is the fact that the actual truth about him in those times in Russia didn't matter, rather it was what people THOUGHT was true that mattered, and many Russians believed the scandal stories, which led them to speculate that he slept with the Tsarina, molested her children, and drugged or hypnotized the Tsar.

The Tsar held absolute power until the autumn of 1905. A revolution had broken out during 1905 and continued into 1906. While it didn't succeed, and it was not really a truly nationwide revolution,* it was serious enough that the Tsar felt forced to sign a basic constitution (in this case called a "manifesto"), thus making the monarchy a constitutional monarchy, but only of sorts, as Nicholas began to try to take back or circumvent some of the rights he had granted. Part of that "constitution" granted a degree of freedom of the press. As Rasputin grew ever closer to the Tsarina, and to some extent, the Tsar, the newspapers began to print more and more stories about this Siberian peasant** who made frequent appearances at the Tsar's palaces. The stories began to really get the public's attention and the newspapers found that running stories about Rasputin was a profitable venture, as the public couldn't get enough about him.

More in "Part Four" ...

* During this revolution, the army remained loyal to the government, while elements, but certainly not all, of the navy rebelled, as did parts of the peasantry. Much of the violence took place in the countryside or at naval ports, thus I said that it was not truly a nationwide revolt, but the Tsar and his family remained pretty much confined to their palace just outside the capital for security reasons. Just a note, as this event naturally remained in Nicholas's mind throughout his life: as a young teenager, Nicholas had witnessed the death of his grandfather, Tsar Alexander II, who was assassinated by revolutionaries. One threw a bomb at the Alexander's carriage which killed one of his guards, and wounded the driver. Alexander made the fatal mistake of leaving the carriage (which had a certain amount of metal plating for protection) to see the wounded guard. Another bomb was thrown, which landed right at his feet. One of his legs was blown off and the other almost so, along with other serious injuries, but he remained alive, and he ordered that he be carried into his palace, where he later died with his young grandson present.

** Rasputin was actually his family name. His given name was "Gregory/Grigory," or "Grigorii," in the non-Cyrillic Russian version. Russian peasants had something of a society of their own, with a segment of the peasantry literally being "dirt poor," many living in huts, but another, smaller segment, being a bit better off, with better housing and more possessions. Rasputin's family belonged more with the latter group, having a decent house and more personal possessions.

WORD HISTORY:
Borscht-This word for a common Eastern European derived soup, most often made in modern times from beets, goes back to Indo European "bharsh," which had the notion "sharp pointed." This gave Old Slavic "borsh(ch)," which was used for the name of a common plant with "bristles," a plant whose root was a type of "parsnip." This gave Ukrainian, a Slavic language, "borshch," with the same meaning, and later the name for a type of soup which used that particular parsnip as the main ingredient. Yiddish^ borrowed the word as "borscht/borsht," and it was borrowed by American English in the 1880s, when Jewish immigration from the old Russian Empire (which included modern Ukraine and much of Poland) to America increased significantly.

^ There came to be a significant Jewish population in what are today western Ukraine, eastern Poland, and Lithuania, all once part of the Russian Empire. Yiddish developed about 1000 A.D. among German Jews living in the Rhineland area from some High German dialects back then. It also used Hebrew, and, over time, spread throughout Europe's Jewish communities, incorporating some vocabulary from several Slavic languages/dialects in eastern Europe. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet, but it is classified as one of the Germanic languages, as its base is dialectal German, thus making it a close relative of English.