Talk:Wojciech Korfanty

message: Molobo, your edits are unacceptable. Rather than reverting immediately, I will comment here first and give you an opportunity to present your rationale. I am pessimistic about reaching a compromise, given mine and other's previous experience with you, but that doesn't mean we do not have to try. 
The main problem about your edits is their somewhat flowery, un-encyclopaedic style. First off, about K. as "national hero" - we are not here to decide who is a "hero" and who isn't. This is a normative, and inherently POV-ed question. The fact is that K. was considered a hero by some of his contemporaries, and most other people after his death. That fact, however, was already in the article, in its proper chronological place. For a significant part of his lifetime, K. was not a hero, but a persona non grata in public life. He was in opposition to Piłsudski, who a majority of Poles supported (grudgingly or otherwise), and following P. and considering K. a hero was mutually exclusive. His elevation to official "hero" status ultimately commenced after 1945 - and ironically, it was initiated by communists, something which K. probably wouldn't have appreciated much.
"He fought to protect Polish people from discrimination in the form of forced Germanisation policy pursued by Germany in Upper Silesia" - this simply is a more flowery and convoluted version of the information already included: "He opposed the policy of Germanisation in Upper Silesia". 
"one of the chief advocates of joining Polish inhabited regions of Upper Silesia to Poland after the war." Wrong. He advocated joining the whole of Upper Silesia to Poland. It was practically impossible to distinguish regions inhabited by just Poles or just Germans. They were living next door to each other, and a significant part of the population didn't really care whether they were Polish or German. 
"This came as Catholic Centre Party became more focused on the issues of German catholics, and didn't support Polish fight for equal rights." The Centre Party had always been focused on the issues of Catholics, regardless of whether they spoke German or Polish. "Equal rights" for Germans and Poles was simply not an issue for them - equal rights for Protestants and Catholics was: The party was interested in the rights people had on grounds of their faith, not of their nationality. That the Catholic party would be dominated by German Catholics was quite inevitable in a predominantly German speaking country. (Note that while close to 100% of the Polish speakers in the German Empire were Catholics, they formed less than 10% or so of the overall Catholic population.) The point is that previously, many (kind of) Polish-speaking inhabitants of Upper Silesia did not mind this, as being Catholic was more defining for them than being Polish. With time, this began to change, and Korfanty worked hard to reinforce this ongoing change. Note that I am not saying this was bad, as you seem to assume. But is should not be implied that Korfanty's politics were in any way a response to a change in the Centre Party's position. It was the Poles who changed, not the party. Whether this was "good" or "bad" is simply not for us to discuss. If you want to do this, why don't you get one of those free blogs? Who knows, if it's any good, we may include a link to it here.
You changed "pseudo-democratic" and "quasi-dictatorship" as descriptions of the Sanacja government to "government that possesed authoritarian tendencies." Now there is a broad consensus in Polish and international scholarship that Piłsudski's government was far from democratic, even if a democratic facade remained intact. It did not just "possess authoritarian tendencies" - this was a de-facto dictatorship effectively controlled by P. and people loyal to him. In Poland, there is no disagreement over the non-democratic character of P.'s regime. What people disagreed about was whether it was a benevolent dictatorship or not. Many people then and now agree that it was - but that does not make it democratic. By the way, Korfanty, as a Christian Democrat and earlier a comrade of Roman Dmowski's, would have been about the last to call it democratic, with some slight "authoritarian tendencies" perhaps... There was an enormous cleavage between Sanacja on the one hand, and Centrolew on the other hand. Of course, if one is preoccupied with the "Polish-German" political cleavage, one may tend to overlook the Polish domestic cleavage, which was at least as acute at that time. This may explain why you are paradoxically praising Korfanty and downplaying Piłsudski's role as a dictator at the same time. This makes about as much sense as praising Robespierre and Louis XVI because they were both great French leaders. ;)
I hope you will think about what I wrote and reconsider your edits. Here is your chance to demonstrate that you have something valuable to say about internal Polish affairs and are not a Polish-German one trick pony. --Thorsten1 01:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mazowiecki is primarily a Christian Democrat, not a liberal. Also, I do not see how your creative representation of my alleged "opinion on Polish matters" is supposed to relate to Wojciech Korfanty in any way. I would really appreciate it if you could remain on topic or at least anywhere near it.--Thorsten1 02:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Molobo's edits [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wojciech_Korfanty&diff=38531100&oldid=38302426] 

message: Historia Polski 1871-1939 Profesor Roszkowski, Dr. Anna Radziwiłł Warszawa 2000 Polish Ministry of Education, :name the government authoritarian and note on several times that Piłsudski refused to implement a dictatorship.
Sorry Thorsten but MEN doesn't agree with you it seems after all.
--Molobo 01:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but what is this supposed to be - an instruction for Polish teachers of history? ;) If so, I do not feel obliged by this doomed attempt to reconcile Polish raison d'état and historical fact. Of course, Piłsudski never modified the constitutional structure, so Poland remained a democracy on paper. He even withdrew to seemingly marginal cabinet positions after his coup. However, he continued to pull the strings from behind the scenes - nothing significant ever happened without his approval. An opposition, although legally and sometimes physically harassed, continued to exist and participated in elections, however to no real effect. As I already said clearly enough, the facade was democratic, the inner workings were not. Not even Piłsudski's most ardent supporters call him a democrat, neither then nor today. The only point of contention is whether his and his successors' regime worked for the benefit of the people or not. A decisive proportion, if not a majority, of Poles then and now assume it did - especially considering that an Endecja-led regime might have been the alternative. But that does not make the Sanacja regime a democracy. A monarchy remains a monarchy, even if the monarch is popular; the same goes for a dictatorship. Korfanty - which brings us back to the initial point - was an outspoken opponent of Sanacja and not shy to call it a dictatorship. He did not go into exile for no reason, and he was not imprisoned upon his return for no reason. No matter how you look at it - your attempt to praise Korfanty as a national hero and water down Sanacja to a "democratic government with authoritarian tendencies" at the same time is an attempt to square the circle. --Thorsten1 16:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Authoritarian democracy

message: 1. Korfanty was born in 1873 in Upper Silesia/Germany.
2. The University of Breslau was not only German administrated, it was a German University in a German City (territory and population).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.145.89.65 (talk) 15:41, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Corrections

message: "He was also the head of the Polish plebiscite committee in Upper Silesia.[11] He was one of the leaders of the Second Silesian Uprising in 1920[11] and the Third Silesian Uprising in 1921,[12] which were Polish insurrections against German rule in Upper Silesia. The German authorities were forced to leave their positions by the League of Nations. Poland was allotted by the League of Nations roughly half of the population and valuable mining districts, which were eventually attached to Poland. Korfanty was accused by Germans of organizing terrorism against German civilians of Upper Silesia.[13] German propaganda newspapers also "smeared" him with ordering the murder of Silesian politician Theofil Kupka.[14][15]" - Only so few lines concerning his greatest "oeuvre" = the bloody Upper Silesian Civil War ?????? Is it Wikipedia here - or parody ? :-(  Not serious, not enough !  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16B8:AD58:5500:F1E3:362:4A97:8669 (talk) 18:21, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  parody ?