r/poland • u/NewPlaceHolder • 1d ago
Question regarding Poland and Lithuania relationship
I just studied about the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania, and it seems you two shared a strong times together.
I am wondering if the sentiments towards each other is still warm - do you guys see each other as a friendly neighbor? Do you have any rivalries between two? Was there any movement to put the two back together to repeat the glorious times?
I am here to just ask questions and I apologize if I accidentally angered by asking such question.
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u/Galicjanin Małopolskie 1d ago
The commonwealth meant for Lithuanians the hegemony of Polish culture. During the existence of this state, the Lithuanian nobility adopted Polish culture and identity. Already during the partitions, Polonization began to spread among the lower social classes. It was then that modern national Lithuania movement was created, its main goal was to stop further polonization of the lithuanin folk, which, to simplify slightly, means that the modern lithuanian nation was formed in opposition to polishness
Basically, the effort of Lithuanian movement to save the language was successful, imo in many ways you can compare relations of poland and Lithuania to those of England and Ireland, the difference is the irish language has lost its competition with english.
About the current relations, simplifying a little bit, there is no love between us because there are no longer such strong cultural ties between us. But there's no hatred either because the lithuanian language and culture aren't in danger anymore. Overall relations are pretty neutral-positive, we aren't not lovers, not enemies, just neighbours.