If Crimea rejoins Russia, it’s only the latest twist in 1,000 years of European border shifts

Marketwatch.com ^ | 3/17/2014 | Tim Rostan

[Cronos]

Correct, dfw --> Muddog, it would be interesting to read about the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. It truly was a multinational entity where Jews lived in peace (they called it "pol lan" in jest -- meaning blessed land I think in Hebrew or Yiddish).

Pilsudski had the right idea of creating a recreation -- it's a pity his międzymorze idea failed due to nationalists from Poland, lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus

The Austro-Hungarian Empire would have been better if they managed to made it the United states of Central Europe -- Archduke Ferdinand's idea

But WWI was inevitable from the point when Austria, Prussia and Russia divided the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. The PLC served as a great buffer state.

[dfwgator]

Well the one silver lining was that as harsh as the ethnic cleansing was, it did avoid the same problems that plagued Europe before the war.

Poland was virtually all Polish, the Germans were out of Czechoslovakia, Ukrainians were in the Ukrainian SSR.

[MUDDOG]

I can see you're a very knowledgeable person. I will check out the PLC. Thanks!

I think Joseph II made a mistake when when he abandoned Latin as the common administrative language of the Holy Roman Empire in the 1780s. One common language that didn't discriminate against any ethnic group would've avoided some of the later problems, especially with Hungarian being so difficult, and the Hungarians using it as a weapon against minorities in the areas dominated by Hungary.

(I believe though Latin was still used in the Hungarian part until the 1840s.)

[Cronos]

I'm not that knowledgeable. I just like history and focus on Indo-European and Assyrian history. I don't know anything about African or East Asian history.

the amount of stuff I don't know is huge -- the amount of stuff I don't know about history specifically is also large.

About the Austro-Hungarian split, from what I've read it's not only the language (have you heard hungarian? it sounds like nothing on this planet!), but also that other minorities were not given a chance to get their own kingdoms in the empire

[Cronos]

There are some online Hungarian language courses — would you like links to them?

[MUDDOG]

I've been offline for a few days.

Thanks for the offered links. I think though that if I were to study another language, it'd be Latin or classical Greek.

My knowledge of Hungarian is limited to Zsa Zsa's "dahlink." :^)

[dfwgator]

I have a Hungarian-English Phrasebook.....

"My hovercraft is full of eels."

[MUDDOG]

Uncle Tonoose rides again!

[Cronos]

I don’t know Greek, but tried to learn Latin (gave up when I had to focus on Polish when I moved here) — I strongly recommend that language — once you learn Latin, learning Italian or Spanish or French or Romanian is easy and it also gives you insights even into German and Polish (due to cases)