The narcissism of small Baltic differences | European Voice
The narcissism of small Baltic differences | European Voice
They should be the best of friends, so why are relations between Poles and Lithuanians “the worst in Europe”?
In a rational world, Poland and Lithuania would be best friends. They have centuries of shared history and culture. They worry about the same things (neighbours), for the same reasons (bitter experience). Each is in a position to help the other. Yet Polish diplomatic sources say relations with Lithuania are “the worst in Europe”. The foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, will not visit Lithuania until it allows members of the local Polish minority to use the letter ‘w' (and several others vital for writing Polish names) in official documents such as passports. Poland is blocking Lithuania's participation in a new French-German-Polish military unit, the ‘Weimar battle-group'.
To outsiders it is truly puzzling. NATO's contingency plans require Polish soldiers to risk death defending Lithuania from a (theoretical) Russian attack. The two countries need each other on everything from energy security (building a new nuclear power station) to better roads and railways.
So why is the mood so bad? Poles say Lithuanians are nationalist and stubborn. Lithuanians say Poles are arrogant – and (some say) stoking the row artificially in order to create a pretext for betrayal: selling the Mažeikiai oil refinery, Lithuania's biggest industrial asset, to Russia.
The best way to understand the issue is to imagine a couple that long ago were married but then separated when both went to foreign prisons. Released, they had a brief violent quarrel, followed by a frosty period during which they ignored each other. They then ended up in prison once more. Now they are free again and living as neighbours.
Trauma makes both twitchy. And they see things differently. One side (Poland) remembers the ‘marriage' 550 years ago fondly. Lithuania thinks it unfair and increasingly suffocating. The joint Polish-Lithuanian state eclipsed the once-glorious Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and ended in polonisation and the near extinction of national culture.
Superficially, the arguments now are trivial. Deep down they are serious. Lithuania (population: 3.5 million) still feels profoundly uneasy about the cultural and linguistic weight of Poland, more than ten times larger. Many suspect that Poles, deep down, do not regard modern Lithuania as a proper country: just a stray province with a funny language, supposedly ancient but in fact largely invented in the 19th century. Poland forcibly polonised the ‘occupied' Vilnius region in the interwar years. Now, even mild steps to restore Lithuanian language and culture there are stymied by pressure from mighty, forgetful Warsaw. Accepting a ‘polonised' alphabet or bilingual street signs would be painful and doing so under pressure from Poland would mean surrender to intolerable bullying.
Poles find this baffling, paranoid and irrelevant. In modern Europe, people should be able to write their names as they wish (Poland allows its Lithuanian minority to use their diacritical signs; the Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities are even allowed to have an extra line in their passports giving their name in the Cyrillic alphabet). Moreover, having promised to sort this problem out, Lithuania has repeatedly broken its undertaking. That makes Poland (and some top Poles) feel humiliated. They are also furious about the Lithuanian authorities' treatment of Polish-owned Mažeikiai (including pulling up some important railway track, and refusing to sell it an oil terminal). They believe that they bought Mažeikiai to help Lithuania survive a Russian squeeze on energy supplies. Now they wish they had not. (Lithuania believes that Mažeikiai's owners, PKN Orlen, are bossy, greedy and ungrateful.)
Readers may, glumly, feel reminded of another pointless, arcane argument: about the name ‘Macedonia'. Friends of Poland and Lithuania are hoping that it will not become as damaging. But politicians on both sides give little reason for optimism.
source: The narcissism of small Baltic differences | European Voice
They should be the best of friends, so why are relations between Poles and Lithuanians “the worst in Europe”?
In a rational world, Poland and Lithuania would be best friends. They have centuries of shared history and culture. They worry about the same things (neighbours), for the same reasons (bitter experience). Each is in a position to help the other. Yet Polish diplomatic sources say relations with Lithuania are “the worst in Europe”. The foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, will not visit Lithuania until it allows members of the local Polish minority to use the letter ‘w' (and several others vital for writing Polish names) in official documents such as passports. Poland is blocking Lithuania's participation in a new French-German-Polish military unit, the ‘Weimar battle-group'.
To outsiders it is truly puzzling. NATO's contingency plans require Polish soldiers to risk death defending Lithuania from a (theoretical) Russian attack. The two countries need each other on everything from energy security (building a new nuclear power station) to better roads and railways.
So why is the mood so bad? Poles say Lithuanians are nationalist and stubborn. Lithuanians say Poles are arrogant – and (some say) stoking the row artificially in order to create a pretext for betrayal: selling the Mažeikiai oil refinery, Lithuania's biggest industrial asset, to Russia.
The best way to understand the issue is to imagine a couple that long ago were married but then separated when both went to foreign prisons. Released, they had a brief violent quarrel, followed by a frosty period during which they ignored each other. They then ended up in prison once more. Now they are free again and living as neighbours.
Trauma makes both twitchy. And they see things differently. One side (Poland) remembers the ‘marriage' 550 years ago fondly. Lithuania thinks it unfair and increasingly suffocating. The joint Polish-Lithuanian state eclipsed the once-glorious Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and ended in polonisation and the near extinction of national culture.
Superficially, the arguments now are trivial. Deep down they are serious. Lithuania (population: 3.5 million) still feels profoundly uneasy about the cultural and linguistic weight of Poland, more than ten times larger. Many suspect that Poles, deep down, do not regard modern Lithuania as a proper country: just a stray province with a funny language, supposedly ancient but in fact largely invented in the 19th century. Poland forcibly polonised the ‘occupied' Vilnius region in the interwar years. Now, even mild steps to restore Lithuanian language and culture there are stymied by pressure from mighty, forgetful Warsaw. Accepting a ‘polonised' alphabet or bilingual street signs would be painful and doing so under pressure from Poland would mean surrender to intolerable bullying.
Poles find this baffling, paranoid and irrelevant. In modern Europe, people should be able to write their names as they wish (Poland allows its Lithuanian minority to use their diacritical signs; the Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities are even allowed to have an extra line in their passports giving their name in the Cyrillic alphabet). Moreover, having promised to sort this problem out, Lithuania has repeatedly broken its undertaking. That makes Poland (and some top Poles) feel humiliated. They are also furious about the Lithuanian authorities' treatment of Polish-owned Mažeikiai (including pulling up some important railway track, and refusing to sell it an oil terminal). They believe that they bought Mažeikiai to help Lithuania survive a Russian squeeze on energy supplies. Now they wish they had not. (Lithuania believes that Mažeikiai's owners, PKN Orlen, are bossy, greedy and ungrateful.)
Readers may, glumly, feel reminded of another pointless, arcane argument: about the name ‘Macedonia'. Friends of Poland and Lithuania are hoping that it will not become as damaging. But politicians on both sides give little reason for optimism.
source: The narcissism of small Baltic differences | European Voice
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