The historical profession is nowhere famous for its tolerance, but there are not many countries where historians can expect to pay for their opinions with penal servitude or the firing squad.
Norman DaviesRead
History must give the Poles the principal credit for bringing the Soviet bloc to its knees.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The Poles played a crucial role in weakening the Soviet bloc, as highlighted by historical events.
This quote emphasizes the significant impact that Poland had in dismantling the Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. Through various movements and resistance efforts, such as Solidarity, Poland set a powerful example that inspired other nations under Soviet control, eventually contributing to the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
Themes
PolandSovietHistoryResistanceFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
During a history lecture, to exemplify the power of grassroots movements.
More from Norman Davies
All quotes βTransience is one of the fundamental characteristics both of the human condition and of the political order.
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Nowadays, it is no longer possible to maintain that the Nazi-Soviet pact of 23 August 1939 was a fiction invented by bourgeois-imperialist enemies. Everyone has seen the film clips of Herr Ribbentrop landing in Moscow, and of Stalin smiling broadly as Ribbentrop and Molotov signed up side by side.
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Why are some things remembered and others forgotten? That is the theme I want to pursue about the Second World War.
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Our mental maps are distorted by who are the 'winners' of history and who are the powers of today.
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One might have thought that 70 years was time enough to work out what really happened in 1939. It isn't the case. Misunderstandings and misinformation abound.
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Germany has spent the decades since World War II in national penance for Nazi crimes. America spent the decades after the Civil War transforming Confederate crimes into virtues. It is illegal to fly the Nazi flag in Germany. The Confederate flag is enmeshed in the state flag of Mississippi.
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It's not right to think about all of Jewish-German history as shrouded by the smoke of the crematorium.
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I have not always been wrong. History will bear me out, particularly as I shall write that history myself.
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