and Poles being called "the White Negroes of Europe" and officialy declared "black" by Haitian constitution.
But I don't really see how your post fits the "proxy war" myth westerners talk about today.
Yeah, our nations were fighting this kind of "proxy war" = fighting for someone else, because it helps your cause, but today this would be situation of Georgian Legion, Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion, Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment or Freedom of Russia Legion.
They are fighting "slavic type proxy war for ours and yours freedom"
I'm not sure how this applies to tankie myth of USA orchestrating and prolonging the war to damage russia using Ukrainians. The "evil imperialist kind of proxy war".
I was once surprised by the history of the Polish-Czechoslovak union. After the collapse of both Poland and Czechoslovakia, politicians in both countries opted for such a solution as enabling them to stand up to their larger neighbours. This was put to an end by Katyn, or rather by Czech calculations that Poland was too much of a burden in arranging relations with Stalin. Be that as it may, it is also a story about the quest for independence and about easteuropean brotherhood.
*
But as for proxy-war -- I was very annoyed by a friend who postulated that it was up to the US to get along with Russia. Again, I would go back to the Czech Republic -- the "betrayal at Munich" was all the more painful for the Czechs because they felt that they were not treated as a subject who had a right to have an opinion (and, for example, to want independence), but only as an object of bargaining by the powers. Whenever someone says that the great have the right to get along with the weak without asking for their opinion, this makes me think: isn't it a form of racism that certain peoples are deprived of their humanity and human rights and made into mere playthings of superhuman nations, or superhuman presidents?
One of the most fascinating examples of proxy war hero from the ww2 is Witold Urbanowicz. As commander of 303, he became ace (17 kills over UK), but due to unpopularity with Polish govt on exile in London, was sent to Washington as military attache. There he volunteered to fight for free China, and joined famous Flying Tigers in Chongqing. He shot around 6 Japanese planes, and wrote very good book about whole adventure (Fire over China).
There is an anecdote that during one of the battles of the First World War, soldiers of the First Brigade of the Polish Legions took a Tsarist officer prisoner.
The Polish officer interrogating him, Bolesław Wieniawa-Dlugoszowski, was asked by the Russian what the Polish legionnaires were actually fighting for.
Wieniawa replied: - We are fighting for freedom, what are you fighting for?
To which the Russian replied: - And we for honour!
- Apparently, everyone fights for what he lacks - Wieniawa-Dlugoszowski commented.
There's one more reason why calling it a "proxy war" is absurd: the strong support for Ukrainian cause in the two countries which shared in the past the same state with them: Poland and Lithuania. I don't particularly like the nostalgia for the P-L Commonwealth, and especially us Poles should avoid it, but I've recently watched this video by a Ukrainian historian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXPdAGenN2Q (it's in Ukrainian, but the sound quality is very good so most Poles should be able to follow it without much difficulty) and it blew my socks off: it's not just our nationalistic myth, (some) Ukrainian intellectuals also feel that they share a legacy of a political partnership with Poland. Therefore, the question isn't "why should Poland and Lithuania provide help to Ukraine, and rally their NATO allies to do the same?", the question is "how could we NOT do that??". It's not a proxy war, it's family business.
When we are talking about "for freedom ours and yours" it is tempting to also mention Haiti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution#War_of_independence
and Poles being called "the White Negroes of Europe" and officialy declared "black" by Haitian constitution.
But I don't really see how your post fits the "proxy war" myth westerners talk about today.
Yeah, our nations were fighting this kind of "proxy war" = fighting for someone else, because it helps your cause, but today this would be situation of Georgian Legion, Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion, Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment or Freedom of Russia Legion.
They are fighting "slavic type proxy war for ours and yours freedom"
I'm not sure how this applies to tankie myth of USA orchestrating and prolonging the war to damage russia using Ukrainians. The "evil imperialist kind of proxy war".
I was once surprised by the history of the Polish-Czechoslovak union. After the collapse of both Poland and Czechoslovakia, politicians in both countries opted for such a solution as enabling them to stand up to their larger neighbours. This was put to an end by Katyn, or rather by Czech calculations that Poland was too much of a burden in arranging relations with Stalin. Be that as it may, it is also a story about the quest for independence and about easteuropean brotherhood.
*
But as for proxy-war -- I was very annoyed by a friend who postulated that it was up to the US to get along with Russia. Again, I would go back to the Czech Republic -- the "betrayal at Munich" was all the more painful for the Czechs because they felt that they were not treated as a subject who had a right to have an opinion (and, for example, to want independence), but only as an object of bargaining by the powers. Whenever someone says that the great have the right to get along with the weak without asking for their opinion, this makes me think: isn't it a form of racism that certain peoples are deprived of their humanity and human rights and made into mere playthings of superhuman nations, or superhuman presidents?
One of the most fascinating examples of proxy war hero from the ww2 is Witold Urbanowicz. As commander of 303, he became ace (17 kills over UK), but due to unpopularity with Polish govt on exile in London, was sent to Washington as military attache. There he volunteered to fight for free China, and joined famous Flying Tigers in Chongqing. He shot around 6 Japanese planes, and wrote very good book about whole adventure (Fire over China).
There is an anecdote that during one of the battles of the First World War, soldiers of the First Brigade of the Polish Legions took a Tsarist officer prisoner.
The Polish officer interrogating him, Bolesław Wieniawa-Dlugoszowski, was asked by the Russian what the Polish legionnaires were actually fighting for.
Wieniawa replied: - We are fighting for freedom, what are you fighting for?
To which the Russian replied: - And we for honour!
- Apparently, everyone fights for what he lacks - Wieniawa-Dlugoszowski commented.
There's one more reason why calling it a "proxy war" is absurd: the strong support for Ukrainian cause in the two countries which shared in the past the same state with them: Poland and Lithuania. I don't particularly like the nostalgia for the P-L Commonwealth, and especially us Poles should avoid it, but I've recently watched this video by a Ukrainian historian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXPdAGenN2Q (it's in Ukrainian, but the sound quality is very good so most Poles should be able to follow it without much difficulty) and it blew my socks off: it's not just our nationalistic myth, (some) Ukrainian intellectuals also feel that they share a legacy of a political partnership with Poland. Therefore, the question isn't "why should Poland and Lithuania provide help to Ukraine, and rally their NATO allies to do the same?", the question is "how could we NOT do that??". It's not a proxy war, it's family business.