A Dutch City in Poland? | The Forgotten Dutch History of Gdańsk/Danswijk (1358-2023)
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- Опубликовано: 1 сен 2023
- Gdańsk, also known by its German name of Danzig, is a picturesque city on Poland’s Baltic coast. Visitors might feel a strong Low Countries vibe from its tall, narrow buildings with sleek facades lining the canals, looking more like Amsterdam or Antwerpen than Warsaw or Szczecin. Already since the Middle Ages, this city has had connections with what is today Belgium and the Netherlands, manifesting in various parts of its culture, architecture, and history as we will find out more about in this video. From the Hanseatic League and Flemish architects and painters, to the merchants of the Dutch Republic and Mennonites fleeing religious persecution to set up their own communities of Olędrzy, the history of Gdańsk has, in part, been shaped by people from the Low Countries.
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Is it just me or does anyone else find it really pleasing that he doesn't not anglicize the pronunciation of Dutch/Flemish names?
His name is hilbert
Well he is Dutch, so like
He can speak Dutch.. thats why
The pronunciation of Frysk, Nederlands and Vlaams is exemplary as well as the historical content. ( I can’t really comment on the Polish ) 🙂
I think it's irritating. When speaking English, it's incongruous to use vernacular pronunciations. I'd expect a native English speaker to use the vernacular. I found it so annoying I couldn't watch to be end
I am Polish, native of Gdańsk for some years, but now living in Delft. Finding out about Arend Dickmann was definitely a pleasant surprise.
z wiochy pochodzisz chamie ,Gdańsk był niemiecki pajacu
Obadaj książkę "Galeony Wojny" - podziękujesz mi później. :))))
Danswyk dit is Amsteldamm de Tweede :-)
Actually, the city was built of Dutch brick, which was used as ballast for ships on the way to Gdansk for grain.
then it may have served as balast but bricks require a labour intensive process to produce, they were a trade commodity
@@istoppedcaring6209 Yes of course! But remember the ballast on VOC ships on their return voyage was Chinese porcelain, which became a nice commodity as well. The brick ballast on their east voyage can be found in Malaysia.
A few buildings were. Most are built with typical local bricks, which are much larger than the Dutch ones.
Grain from Ukraine... Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth used to control Ukraine. History repeats itself?
@@dutchman7623 the chinese porcelain is a funny one, they first started producing it as cheap knockoff alternative for the dutch porcelain but it became so ubiquitous that the english still refer to porcelain simply as "China" and few people outside the netherlands know it was derived from our porcelain.
Gdańsk has a few different historical parts. What you describe as having some Dutchness within it is called the Main City (Główne Miasto), this was the Hanseatic part of the city, with multilingual merchants inhabiting that portion of Gdansk. Primarily using German as lingua franca. Stare Miasto or the Old Town is another different part of the city and it’s the oldest one. This was primarily a Polish and Kashubian settlement predating arrival of Germans. Then there are parts like Oliwa, which was a primarily Polish part built around a catholic monastery - but in later years during Industrial Revolution heavily germanized.
The Main Town - the Dutch looking part of the city was totally destroyed during the Second World War and while rebuilding it some of typically German architectural elements were purposefully removed and changed to more of Dutch influenced ones. That’s why it might look familiar to people from the Netherlands.
The German language is a modern thing as is modern Dutch. The language spoken in current northern Netherlands and current northern Germany regions (both countries didn't exist yet) were very close in Hanseatic League times.
@@giselavaleazar8768Indeed. The English call our mothertongue Dutch, as also in westernmost Flanders (pilfered by France in around 1700) we called it Duits, now used for German. And after all, the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium) were part of the German Empire from 870 (Treaty of Meersen) until Napoleone Buonaparte grabbed them in around 1800. Greetings from Waterloo.
The German used in the hanseatic context was Low German, quite diffent to what we call German today and in many aspects much closer to modern day Dutch...
@@vanbrabant6791 The reason the English call it Dutch is because we ourselves called it Diets.
It looks familiar in the same way every other Hanseatic city from Novgorod to Antwerpen looks familiar because they all have old houses in the same architectural style built by the same merchants. Not exactly a unique thing for Gdansk.
In the south of Poland, there is a small town of Wilamowice where there are still traces of Flemish settlement, although the beginnings of this phenomenon date back to the times of the Mongol invasion of Poland and Hungary (XIII). If I'm not mistaken, an ethnic group called the Vilamovians still lives there today and speaks a dialect derived from Flemish.
Although some linguists believe that the vilamovian languge is more related to central germanic languages more specifically; the dialects of Plattdeutsch that were present in modern day Silesia. Which actually makes a lot more sense considering the town's location.
I think Hilbert already made a vid about it ;)
Many "Olenders" were digging and cutting stones in Góry Sowie, being part of Karkonosze Mountains. You can even find writing on some portal in Venice, saying that "Karkonosze made Lords of them".
Apparently Hihlbert already did a video on it? Does somebody have a link? I just can't seem to find it.
Yes indeed, thank you. I got referral after this video. @@illmatic7752
Gdansk is similar to Amsterdam, because in the Middle Ages and early modern times there were many Dutch merchants (and also architects) who imported mainly grain and wood from Poland. Gdańsk was like a version of Polish Hong Kong with great autonomy and a large stock exchange. The city was multicultural, where lived Poles, Germans, Dutch, Lithuanians, Scots and Swedes
From 1308 until 1944 the majority were germans.
All the cities in the hanseatic league look rather similar. Even cities in the baltics and as far as st. petersburg and veliki novgorod the old merchants houses have the same architectural style. because they were the same merchants having these houses built all along the north sea and baltic coast where they lived and traded. you can go from Novgorod in russia to Kampen in the netherlands and see the same houses.
@@TheSuperappelflapdat is niet helemaal waar. Zeker Novgrod ziet er typisch Russisch uit.
@@TheSuperappelflap Gdańsk was special two ways. One, it was not freezing, secondly it was a main port of European superpower at the time. That resulted in Gdansk's golden age in 15th and 16th century
The reconstructed buildings are not "communist blocks with historical facades" - during afterwar reconstruction the interiors were just adapted to mid-XX century standards: with modern plumbing, electricity and bringing more light into apartments. Similar thing was done in Warsaw Old Town - after reconstruction the standard of living for local inhabitants have significantly risen.
Anyway - great material!
Fair enough! I couldn't find much material online in English about this but happy to see that the interiors are nice as well!
@@historywithhilbert146 Well, they were nice 70 years ago, now it depends on the place and its administration history, ownership and so on.
In this period of afterwar reconstruction it was also quite popular to build neighbourhoods that imitated historic ones - and they were also quite prestigeous with actors and artists living in them. Now they probably are not, but after the war it was big deal.
They actually are blocks. The bulk of the city was destroyed, and the whole thing was built anew according to modernist principle. And I am glad it was, to be honest, as we can actually breathe in this city.
They are blocks. Single facades never represent a single building except those which survived. All rebuild buildings were grouped into blocks with a single staircase and internal structure of an apartment building. They are also much shorter measuring distance from the street leaving large open backyards that are common space and not divided into small private courtyards like before war. So it is nothing like reconstruction. Only facades and streets were reconnected and even this only to the some degree
Daniel Fahrenheit was born in Gdańsk so you can blame him for our US temperatures.
I only blame US for sticking with it
It was called Danzig when he was born. He was German
And city was polish. Go figure out:) Pays contribute to polish kings(very little). been very loyal to Poland. During Swedish deluge 1655- 1660 withstand 5 years of attacking. Actually german speaking citizens should be thankfull to polish kings to let them stay in the city aand all other nationaties. Dont make it national. In these centuries doesnt make any sense.@@onurbschrednei4569
Danzig is just the German name for Gdansk. It's still Danzig, and it was Prussian, which is not the same
Godverdomme...
For anyone interested, Schwerpunkt talks about the Early Modern military Danzig in his series about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
There NEVER was a country called " Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth " lol
@@ThorOdinson167 Sure, cause everytime they should say Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. XD
@@patrickb1811
historicaly short name is just : "Commonwealth "
without Poland Lithuania )
@@ThorOdinson167 No nie koniecznie , Właśnie raczej Królestwo Polskie i Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie . Przynajmniej na początku co ulegało zmianom.
@@zhangzy123 You are both wrong. The historic name of Rzeczpospolita should be translated as "The Republic".
Very nice work! Interesting stuff!
Well done. Liked & subscribed. Thanks
Man you made my day. I am from Gdansk and seeing a video about its history on one of my favourite channels was the best thing that happened to me today.
I'd note that Warsaw Old Town is older in appearance then it was before the war.
That because when rebuilding it te architects model it after Cannaletto's painting made towards the end of the 18th century rather than pre-war photos.
Indeed many buildings which were built after the 18th century dissappeared
I’m part Dutch, Belgian, French, English, and German and in my South Africa (Western Cape) genetic group, Gdańsk was a location I had ancestors in during 1650s. It’s amazing how interconnected those of us of Dutch descent, fully or partially are.
To all the 'Central Europe, not eastern Europe' commenters: you are correct and I very much agree with you pointing this out considering all the cultural and political implications.
In western Europe almost every country that was once behind the iron curtain is considered by the general public to be in 'Eastern Europe'. Please bare with us while we adjust :3
completely agree, I fall into this trap often too
A country can be Central European and Eastern European at the same time, in different contexts.
Just like you can sometimes call Scotland for Northern European, sometimes Western European. You can sometimes call Portugal for Southern European, sometimes for Western European.
It's not really wrong, there's no clear limit, it just means different things in different contexts.
And Germany Eastern, Western and Central European. 🤯 🤒
@@Nabium no because "Central" and "Eastern" is more of a cultural distinction. For example, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks (so Slavs), have little to no in common with East Slavs. Consider, our religions (despite being irrelevant in today's world), architecture, linguistic features (we have more English, German, French, Latin, Greek words, they have more Turkish, Persian, Bulgarian), laws, respect for democracy and liberty, personal freedom, human rights, sense of citizen duty, etc.
Bear.
Thanks for this peace off history,Hilbert.
Very interesting. Informative & educative. Thanks for your time well spent.
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Apart from amber, the Dutch merchants bought Polish salt from Krakow, grain, timber - which was rafted to Gdansk from the Carpathian mountains down the Wisla River. Also, wax as a by product of extensive honey bee keeping and making mead, and furs of wild animals.
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Thanks for keeping this video free of stupidloudbadchoiceidioticmoroniccheaporfree musickness.
Missed the Wilhelmus too...
dont forget about the animal pelts which were hunted in the baltics and poland, and further south and east inland, that were sold through these ports. they were actually the reason the hanseatic league was started in the first place. very lucrative trade.
I'm 67 but learned a lot today. Thank you for the video. It is a nice history lesson.
I was in Gdańsk last week. Beautiful city
Gdansk was Hanseatic League city meaning it was trading with most of the Dutch and Italian cities. It was the main port through which Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was shipping grain to Europe. Ships which were coming from ports like Amsterdam were carrying small bricks as a ballast (to prevent them from capsizing). These bricks were used to build buildings in Gdansk.
Interestingly Amsterdam wasn't in the hanseatic league. Danzig broke the league to trade with Amsterdam and this was so profitable to Amsterdam that they called the grain the mother trade (de moedernegotie)
Part of Hanse Trade League for centuries, really nice video. Thank you.
I have no idea how that is possible that i didn't know that. Awesome work 👏
Watching this while travelling through Poland as Flemish from Bruges hits different.
What a wild ride that city has been on
what? the population was 90% german for basically all it's existence
Heel interessant! Als Bruggeling ook wel fijn om oze stad vermeld te zien worden, en dat je de polderregio met o.a. Lissewege en Damme. Ik kan me moeilijk inhouden wel op te merken dat je het uitsprak als "Lisseweg", maar het wordt met een lange "e" uitgesproken, nl. "Lissewege", ook wel conform het taalhebruik in de regio.
Hello Hilbert. Very interesting. I had Polish friends at school, both from WW2 refugee parents and fleeing at the time of Gdansk being in the news for Solidarity trade union. The Polish friends I made at work came for jobs, now that things are better, thankfully.
With your current topic of study, I thought you might have looked at whether there was a Danish early phase as it sounds like from the name?
Gdansk/Danish was one of the leading Hanseatic port cities and in common with other Hansa towns, shows a commonality of architecture, city laws and regulations of the time.
It looks remarkably like any of the Hanseatic cities
Not just Gdansk. 1997 Dutch movie Karakter, set in 1920's Amsterdam, was actually mostly shot in Wroclaw.
Interessant verhaal. Dank voor het delen. 🙂
Misschien een tip voor een toekomstige vlog. Begin vorige eeuw was er net onder Limburg een 4e land gelegen aan het toen vier- nu drielandenpunt. Namelijk Neutraal Moresnet.
Je kunt dit in Limburg nog zien aan de weg naar het drielandenpunt, die nog steeds Viergrenzenweg heet.
Omdat daar een zink-mijn was, en een monopoly van bv duitsland niet ok werd geacht.
correct :-)
Mooi werk. Uiteindelijk iets over Gdansk meer diepgaan. Dla mnie bomba. Ciesze sie.
When in Gdańsk visit KL Stuthoff. Very close to Gdańsk.
I don't think I have ever, not a single time thought about the history of Danzig. But, this was very interesting. Sticking to a lifelong principle of learning something new everyday this video has fulfilled my mission for another day of success.
Fascinating
🎶Don’t be fooled by the gates I have wrought, I’m stil, I’m still Abram van den Blocke
I used to build in Flanders, now build in Gdańsk, but I still know where I came from 🎵
That’s for the 0.001% of us that are both J-Lo and Dutch history fans
In all seriousness though, great video. Thank you for all your hard work Hilbert
Pomeranians/Kashubians are also a big part of Gdańsk history!
There's a Polish sea shanty about the Battle of Oliwa and Arend Dickman it's called "Szanta Oliwska"
Always appreciate how you refuse to anglicize names and places. I had no idea that Gdansk was pronounced like that. Looked it up and lo and behold.. you are basically spot on. tbf I always pronounced it as "kedangsk", very surprised it has an ai sound in there. Great video as always Hilbert.
12:35 indeed a bit hard but once you see it you can't unsee it. I looked an thought "Well dang... they ARE Red White and Blue!"
dont worry about it, polish is impossible to pronounce.
red white and blue flags are actually quite common. in fact back then the dutch merchants most likely used a flag with the coat of arms of their particular duchy or whatever, you can see flags with lions on them in other pictures in this video. alternatively depending on the time period they used the prinsenvlag which was orange white and blue, not red.
the red white and blue dutch flag in these paintings is likely anachronistic, a bit of artistic license.
@@TheSuperappelflap Thank youfor the extra bit of history :)
Fantastic work, I was born in Gdańsk, raised in the suburbian area and then lived here for 6 years. From the livability and economic reasons, this place is a hell, with horrible management, unfriendly geological hill environment that causes traffic jams, heavy winds and significantly colder climate, poorly maintained road infrastructure, rubbish public transport and barbaric housing prices adjusted to the AirBnb Booking short-term rent and rich Polish who utilize Gdansk as a place to invest into an empty apartment, leaving locals with horrible housing situation. However, it's amazing to see a tourist perspective, which truly highlights the pros of this amazing city - its unique soul and stunning old town architercture with amazing history. I won't lie, you've a little bit improved my negative bias ;) Cheers!
Hi! Just a small note: After the first partition of 1772 Gdańsk itself was actually still technically part of Poland. However the Prussian state effectively encircled the city therefore some linguistic influence did occur.
1800 - Danzig
W gdansku nie bylo 'linguistic influence', w Gdansku po prostu wiekszosc ludnosci poslugiwala sie niemieckim
@@johnynawalony5333 98%
+ 1% AshkenaZyd
+ 1% Pol = 100% niemieckim
@@johnynawalony5333 tak, ale mozemy zakladac, ze mniejszosc polska ktora byla wowczas Gdańsku systematycznie sie zmniejszała
Danswijk* GEKOLONISEERD
Great video! Thanks for this. I do have one teensy weensy critique, not meant to take away form the quality of our work at all. I think that in the name of highlighting the Dutch connections, you have understated the German-ness of the "Royal Free City of Danzig." Unfortunately I no longer have the book I am referring to, but it is a history of the city written by an Epp, a person of Mennonite extraction who is/was from there. (Full disclosure: my mother was born there during the League of Nations Free City period.)
The city was founded by the local Pomerelian nobles (the Pomerelians were a group that occupied the territory between the Pomeranians to the west and the Prussians (the Baltic people, not the later Germnanized version) to the east. They invited Hanseatic merchants to found a trading centre in exchange for certain privileges. The Teutonic knights were already active to the east "crusading" against the pagan Prussians (Marienburg as main castle). The lingua franca of the Hanseatic league was the Platt of Lübeck, which was the main Hanseatic city in the later Middle Ages. With the demise of the Pomerelian nobility, the Teutonic Knights became the liege power for Danzig and other cities in the region. In the 1400's, these cities rebelled against the oppressive policies of the Order, reaching out to the Polish crown for support, pledging to place themselves under Polish rule. This is how Poland came to control the mouth of the Vistula and the bridge of land to the Baltic Sea. From that point on, Danzig became a Royal Polish Free City, governed by its German (Platt) Hanseatic merchant elite, profiting handsomely from the transfer of raw materials (timber, honey, beeswax, minerals) from the Polish interior onto ships bound west. With the decline in Hanseatic power and the rise of the Dutch Republic, shipping came to be dominated by the latter. the Danzigers were very much the "middle men".
The shift from Platt to what we now call "High German" (in linguistics, that term means something different) came with the introduction of Luther's translation of the Bible. Across the Platt realm, this book had the unintended consequence of downgrading Platt from a status language to a regional language. By the end of the 1500's the new "High German" (which was actually based on the Middle German dialect of Saxony) had become the status language of all German elites. It should not be surprising, then, that tombstones and dedications would all be in German rather than Platt or some other language.
In connection to that Bible, the city fathers also brilliantly managed a peaceful transition from Roman Catholicism to Lutheranism by hiring a priest for the Marienkirche who was open to both the old teaching and the new. At first he offered mass at the high altar, and then in the afternoon, Lutheran worship in a side chapel. People voted with their feet. When the Lutheran service became better attended than the Roman Catholic, their times and locations were reversed. Once the numbers had stabilized and it was clear that the majority of Danzigers wanted the new teaching, the city fathers financed the smaller Eberhardskirche nearby to house Roman Catholic worship. From that point on, in the Marienkirche, German was the language of worship.
This is not to say that there weren't people from all over. Merchant cities are magnets for international travel and settlement. My own genealogy on my mothers side includes German, Polish, Danish, and English (remember, all those Dutch ships had to pass through he Sound to pay their sound Tolls to the Danish crown), and probably (based on some of the names that appear) Mennonites.
Thanks again. I love your stuff!
Hey Hilbert, how about a video discussing Königsberg, also formerly German and a very historic city?
interessante video weer, zou je misschien een keer een video over Olivier van Noort willen overwegen
The first mention of Gdańsk comes from the Life of Saint Wojciech, written in Latin in 999. It describes Bishop Wojciech's visit to this area in the spring of 997, and this date is often conventionally accepted as the beginning of the city's history. - it was and is PL city if you want talk about history of place tell all of it not only part
Nice and informative video.
The Dutch links continue to this day, particularly if we pick up a topic that your yourself brought up: the Carillon.
The carillon in the tower of St. Catherine's church consists of 50 bells which were all ordered from and delivered by Eijsbouts in Asten between 1989 and 2013.
Likewise, the present day carillon in the tower of the main city hall consist of 37 bells built by Eijsbouts around the turn of the century (2000-2002) if my memory is not letting me down on the dates on this one.
The interesting thing to know about the rebuilding post 1948 is that while the facades of buildings were somewhat authentically rebuilt where there was photographic evidence of their detail, the actual living space behind the facades was newly developed.
While the old town patrician houses were narrow and running deep, often with servants quarters added in as an extension at the end of the house, the post war rebuilding sought to give more day light and greenery to residents and the houses were not rebuilt to their original depth to allow for the creation of square like court yards in on the inside of blocks. You can often see some of these yards when you go down side streets running perpendicular to the main streets towards the Motlawa river.
Also, not all facades were rebuilt in the same location where they were prior to the war and those knowledgably about this will be able to pin point some facades which prior to 1945 stood in some neighbouring streets.
In several places you will find facades that have no doors, fake doors or a doorway leading to a first floor shop or restaurant, while the upper floors of the building actually belong to a neighbouring building. Some of the rebuilt apartment houses stretch across two or three facades running parallel to the road rather than running deep away from the road, but most people would not suspect it looking from the outside.
To know more about life in interbellum Danzig/Gdansk I can highly recommend the books by Günther Grass, who is best known for Die Blechtrommel / The Tin Drum
Tak danke dank u thank you sooo veeeel
If I am not mistaken, the Mennonites were forbidden to settle within the city walls. The Mennonites church still exists in Gdansk, but it is situated just outside the historic city walls and the moat. Their main territory of the settlement was, as we call it today, Zulawy Wislane, the area between Gdansk and Zalew Wislany.
Nice to see such an unlikely pairing
Lol 😆 very interesting 👌
It was an old Dutch dialect in Wilkowice near of City Bielsko Biala
Those narrow and tall structures predominately in Baroque architecture is found in many places in Poland not just Gdańsk, for example you can find it in Kraków around Sukiennice, Tourń, Warsaw, Wrocław etc. it was just a popular style of the time, given how the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was such a crossroads of cultures which you can really see reflected in the architecture, it kind of gives it quite its own unique appeal and appearance that you don't often find elsewhere.
Yes, but in Gdansk almost all houses in the old town are like that. Meanwhile, in other old towns, it's just some of them.
Even more broadly, this is just the Hanseatic architecture, and can be found all over the Baltic. Its certainly not a unique dutch thing. Seems like Hilbert is just not familiar with Baltic history.
@@onurbschrednei4569 He's correct and that doesn't mean You're wrong. It was spread along Baltic by the Dutch Merchants.
Intersting video thank you! An unrelated question, are you Dutch? As in Dutch is your first language? Because if so, congratulations on the English accent! I usually hear it instantly but, with you only when pronouncing Dutch names as you should.
Im Dutch and I can definitely tell you Hilbert still has a slight Dutch accent. But overall his british english accent is very good.
At 1939 there were few Poles in Gdansk - about 3%. But there were many Kaszubs which were not Poles, nor speaking Polish, but when asked if they are Poles they often responded "yes" what for them meant "we are not Germans".
Well, nice to watch Gdańsk history video, being citizen of it and also having menonite surnames in family tree, cheers
Waarom is het geluid niet verwijderd van de verschillende clips van gebouwen in Gdaňsk?
Can you do a video about Dutch Brazil?
This Dutch or Hanseatic influences may have had their good or bad side (after all the city has been Polish for most of its history and it's important if a city that belongs to you doesn't serve interests of another country). What's curious is that today we have some micro-culture. Famou citizens are icons no matter if they were Polish or German (Schopenhauer achieved a meme status and you see his face on bags and t-shirts and of course his house and that of his family are there too). But of the Dutch it's Arend Dickmann who comes to mind. Our Nelson. It's cool that you can visit his gravesite in the basilica even though it's easy to miss unless you know where to look for it beforehand.
Interesting, never heard of Arend Dickmann before and can’t find anything in English on RUclips, would love to learn more.
Cheers
I thought Danzig was German for most of its history?
@@wurzel9671 it was German for like 265 years and Polish for around 595 years
@@StalinLovsMsmZioglowfagz
Well his Opus Magnum is the Battle of Oliwa. Oliwa is actually the oldest district of Gdansk and maybe back then it had access to the coastline (?). Polish Trafalgar, small because the Baltic rarely saw huge battles but fitting for Polish (while in fact Dutch by birth) Nelson, Dickman also died in the moment of his greatest triumph. 1627. Other than a shanty I'm not sure how much people remember him. His deed is remembered for sure, there's a rather famous painting of the battle. Looks like he was a merchant navyman before he entered the service under the Polish king during the war with Sweden and quickly became an admiral and of course he won the battle so he must've known his stuff.
But despite comparatively minor naval traditions in Poland (except I guess during WWII, there's even a book about it called Great Days of the Small Fleet) Gdansk has this very 16th-18th c. marine feel to it. There used to be an official function of a pirate (for tourists), there really was a pirate who lived here ages ago though name escapes me and today if you walk around the old town you may spot some folks, men and women, wearing what I guess are 18th century clothes and military uniforms. It's a reconstruction group "Garrison."
There are some photos of them here. Looks like they do all kinds of stuff and from Napoleonic era as well.
www.gdanskstrefa.com/podsumowanie-roku-garnizonu-gdanskiego/
@@ShHeMiLeRe Thanks so much, I really appreciate it. My ma is Polish and my dad is German. Best from the United States, cheers
Would this Dutch influence also reach to places such as Riga and Talinn? Very interesting!
No, it’s just a bad take.
@@Anerisian the dutch part is because there were no dutch identity, the influence he found was just old northern german. the dutch split up from that at some point but it took them centuries and the big difference in culture and language are relative new.
the same architectural style was used everywhere from flanders up along the north sea coast and into the baltics, as far as st. petersburg and novgorod. this style isnt specifically dutch. it was a north german / hanseatic architectural style.
foreigners just associate it with the netherlands because they are usually exposed to it for the first time when they see pictures of amsterdam. and amsterdam is one of the few such cities that werent bombed to shit in one of the many wars that have happened in the centuries since this style was popular.
@@nox5555 depends, at many points in time you could argue that ethnic groups such as the batavians, burgundians, frisians and belgians definitely have a different identity from the saxons and other north german ethnic groups. the netherlands are a remnant of the middle kingdom that was founded after charlemagne died and it is a mix of north german and frankish genetic groups.
historically dutch people rather identified with their region in the lowlands rather than being dutch. dutch, or diets, was a low german language group that was mostly mutually intelligible and spoken in areas of what is now the benelux, northern and western germany, and northern france.
besides the language there was no common dutch identity.
people would rather consider themselves a citizen of holland or utrecht or antwerpen instead of a citizen of the netherlands.
a national identity really only started to emerge after belgium split off from the 17 provinces around 1830 and the remaining provinces in the republic sort of invented a dutch identity to keep the rest of the country together, with holland being by far the biggest influence on this identity. the accent from holland was taught in schools and regional accents or languages such as limburgs were seen as backwards and provincial.
in holland we still refer to everything outside of north and south holland as "the provinces" because thats what they were, areas that were exploited for mining, salt winning, agriculture, and later fossil fuel extraction, and of course for building vacation homes in nicely spacious parks in cities such as Arnhem to get away from the busy life in holland.
Tuurlijk wel:-)
This city is going on my list
Just looking at thumbnail, I am thinking Hanseatic League. I'll know soon.
From memory this was a trade league in the early middle ages that dominated Baltic trade. But I do remember reading that London was a Hanseatic League city at one point so north sea was covered. Do not know how entrenched it was in the low countries.
London was never in the Hanseatic league. It was however the city that had the largest Hanseatic trading post while not being a member of the league.
The cities in the league were exclusively located along the continental coastline from Flanders through the coast of Holland, then in the Southern Sea, which at the time had not been closed off by the Dutch. It is now closed off by a dike and is called the Ijsselmeer. Some of the largest Hanseatic cities such as Dorestad and Kampen were located in this inland sea which was not as exposed to storms and floods as the North Sea coastline.
From there the cities were spread along the German North Sea coastline and across Denmark into Poland and the Baltics, and of course many cities were located inland along rivers that ended at this coastline, from where goods where shipped by flatbottoms, to be loaded onto seaworthy vessels at the sea ports, and vice versa.
This transhipment role and the tariffs imposed for that service are what made cities such as Amsterdam and Antwerpen ridiculously wealthy. And later, the port of Rotterdam which now fulfills that function for most of western Europe.
The furthest Hanseatic city in the East was Novgorod in Russia, today called Veliki (Old) Novgorod to distinguish it from Niezni (New) Novgorod.
Most of the cities in the League were free cities, city states that were either completely independent or had a large degree of autonomy from whatever king or prince ruled the area it was in. This also often exempted them from a lot of taxes, which is one of the reasons why these cities are still rich to this day.
The inhabitants of Gdańsk did not want Mennonites in the city, but they allowed them to settle in today's Orunia district, which at that time was located on a large sea lagoon. As you can guess, the Mennonites did what they did best and over the following centuries they drained the entire huge reservoir, turning it into the most fertile fields. This entire region of the Vistula Delta between Gdańsk and Elbląg has become a small Netherlands.
Thank you for covering this interesting topic! Small note: Poland is in the most central geographical part of Europe (tbh the central point of Europe is literally in Poland).
West of center
Or in Lithuania 🇱🇹 😊. Is said 😊
@@jolotschka True, there is a lot of so called "central points of Europe". Some in Poland, some in Lithuania or Belarus.
Eastern Europe******** they speak Slavic there
@@randomtutorials9189 "they speak Slavic" is bullshit. Being Slavic has nothing to do with the distinction. This is a deep historical divide - Western Slavs alligned themselves in 10th century with the West - Latin script, Catholic Christianity (later Protestant too), exchange of culture and wives for the kings predominantly with other Catholic states, location of towns under the Magdeburg law, trade with the Germans (up the the point that many cities in the region were more German than local).
Eastern Orthodox Europe, under the influence of the Byzantine Empire and later the Russian one, was in direct opposition to that.
Being showed up under the "East" in 1945 felt like a betrayal (seriously, google the "Yalta betrayal" phenomenon or read Milan Kundera's essay "The stolen West, or the tragedy of Eastern Europe"). Joining the EU was dubbed "the return to Europe", for a reason.
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After 1772 partition of Poland Gdansk still was in Polish hands. Only in 1793 second partition Gdansk became Prussian city
Als ik had geweten dat je hier was had ik je graag even voor een kop koffie uitgenodigd en met je door de stad gelopen. Ken overigens ook genoeg amateur-historici die graag over de stad praten :-D
At 23:25 my understanding is that Gdańsk was not part of the First Partition of Poland, but the Second, in 1793. Between the First and Second partitions Gdańsk remained a Polish exclave port.
I'd like to watch a video about flemish/dutch/frisian settling in central Poland (area around Lodz). My ancestor was a flemish settler. Greetings from Lodz.
Thats cool beans my Dutch friend. You should do Göteborg next if you haven't already.
Could you explain me what you mean? I’m from Gdańsk but living temporarily in Göteborg and this archi style is very interesting to me
@@SnowWhiteArches The Dutch had a big influence on the city of Göteborg:
"King Gustavus Adolphus founded Gothenburg by royal charter in 1621 as a heavily fortified, primarily Dutch, trading colony. "
"The town was designed like Dutch cities such as Amsterdam, Batavia (Jakarta) and New Amsterdam (Manhattan)"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg
It was part of a trading network called De Hansesteden, The Hanseatic league or Die Hansestädte. That's Dutch, English and German but the network also comprised of some cities on the Baltic sea, France, Scotland, England, Italy and so on. Could see it as a forerunner of the EU or the Schengen zone as it was focused on trade. It's a very typical style that I'm very fond of, checking out as many former Hanse cities I can in my life.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Gothenburg#The_Gothenburg_of_Charles_IX
I learnt a lot from this, thanks. I visited the city in May, and knew some of the history, but the Dutch contribution didn't enter my head. With such a lot of it, my concept of the city has altered a lot.
France - there are many Flemish/Dutch architectural influences across northern France, almost down to the Somme. I'd like to know if there were living (linguistic) cultural links with Flemish/Dutch at the time these buildings were constructed. Were the architects Flemish/Dutch, or was it a style copied by the French? I know that Flemish is still spoken by some near the border with Belgium, but timelines and statistics of the presence of such speakers further across the north is very difficult to find. The place-names are often Germanic (all the way to Berck), which could be from the post Roman period, but maybe Flemish/Dutch was still spoken much later (I know it lasted into the second millennium), at least to some extent, even overlapping with the architecture spreading from the Flanders, and maybe it was a reason that this influence spread so widely in the region of northern France?
Basically, the old language border between the dutch and french language families, originally started at Calais, which in Dutch is called Kales. From there to the east, large parts of the French department du nord, the counties of Hainaut (Henegouwen), Artois (Artesië) and the princebishopric of Liege (Luik) through to Luxemburg and large parts of the German Rhineland spoke some dialect of Diets aka Low German.
If you go and visit towns in Northern France such as Arras (Atrecht) they look Dutch, because, well, they are. They just dont speak Dutch anymore. Events such as the Hugenots fleeing to the northern Dutch republic seeking religious freedom, the annexations by Napoleon in the 1700s, the founding of Belgium, up to modern times even, the language barrier has slowly crept up north.
Of course, the French being French they did absolutely nothing useful with the land they took from us. When it was Dutch these places were insanely wealthy, now go visit Lille, its awful.
@@TheSuperappelflap Thank you for that. So there is a lot of architecture, now in France, from the low countries' golden age, though I notice that Calais' town hall is a style revival built in 1912-25. I have read that French was already the main language in Artois by 1658, when France took possession of it. West of Artois, I think the language died out by around 1200, or so, but if If you know of any good articles on the Dutch history of Artois and eastwards to the Belgian border I would like to have a look. The French never refer to the Dutch when discussing their towns' attractions. I can use google translate of course.
@@drychaf Most of what I know is from printed history books. If you search for the dutch words "taalgrens historisch" or "taalgrens geschiedenis" you will find plenty of articles about this topic
Well, it's easy to forget that you're not in Eastern Europe when seeing cities in Poland because it's in Central Europe.
How world history can bring a lot of changes for locals. Very interesting, the history of King's Mountain and of Gdańsk. Let's call this beautiful Polish city Dance World in English.👍
aye when you going bring back the five minutes series ? also can make a video on the Zapatista Army of National Liberation please and thank you
Love my Mexican Indigenous Comrades!! Greetings from Australia!!
first 10 seconds of the video and I'm already in pain. We're not eastern, c'mon guys the Iron Curtain is no more since 32 years :c
From a Dutch perspective, everything after west germany, starting from the ex-DDR, is eastern europe.
I am Dutch and all countries to the right of Germany and Austria are Eastern Europe for us. I think it is also due to the EU, in the past when it still consisted of 11 member states we always spoke of eastern European countries behind the iron curtain. Even when the EU was expanding, it was indicated that the Union was expanding to the east. I think that is why we Dutch people unconsciously refer to Poland as an Eastern European country. I also don't know a Dutch person who says that he is going on holiday to central Europe. It is often eastern or southern Europe. We also do not say, this is a (Polish) Central European player, but an Eastern European player.
So what countries been there before war word 2 to you way before irom curtin , communist countries too 😅😅😅 ?
Very interesting video, thank you for making it! But oh boy, good luck with keeping the comments section civil because from the looks of it some want to start WW3 in here 🤦♀️
That's nothing suprising. Any video about Poland attracts Russian bots whose role is to stir up trouble.
Love from Seattle.
Dutch connection!!!
but mostly flemings
but I get it, people don't generally know Flanders and Dutch eyes are more numerous as well, still it would have been nice to have Flanders included in the title.
Does read a bit like Netherlandish revanchism...oh well the Flemish nationalists and internet historians will lap it up. Because everywhere that speaks the same (or similar) language is the same, right?
@@liamtahaney713 what i take from it is that it ties in with why the dutch are mostly in favour of a "reunification" of Flanders with the netherlands,, there are flemish supporters of this but they envision it as an actual union of two countries into one new entity
the dutch tend to imagine it as flanders simply becoming part of the existing netherlands.
Flemings is a fairly new identity though. Most Dutch speakers in what is now called Flanders were not in any way seen as Flemish for their entire history. In this case, Brugge is actually Flemish. But People that immigrated from Brabant, Limburg or even Luxemburg in the middle ages are sometimes retroactively called Flemish because the current political borders within Belgium have made “Flemish” the overarching identity for Dutch speakers. However in the middle ages Flanders was a specific county, that also included a lot of French speakers
And ultimately saying they are Dutch is not necessarily wrong, even if they came from Flanders, Brabant, Limburg, Frisia or Holland. The Netherlands doesn’t have a monopoly on the word Dutch. Even linguistically, the institution that decides on matter regarding the Dutch language is shared with Flanders.
So Dutch doesn’t automatically mean “the Netherlands”
@@sebe2255 yeah, before Belgium and Luxembourg became their own countries, they and The Netherlands where one and the same thing. With Holland (part of The Netherlands) as the most famous part of the Low Lands.
So it makes (historically) sence to call everyone from the Low Lands in Dutch during that time.
To me Flanders is kinda like the far south of The Netherlands. Thay maybe a different country but they are as close to us as Frisians.
(Dutch and Flemish are like Step-siblings in my mind.)
Flanders was part of the Netherlands
My city ❤
Would it be correct to say it is more of a Flemish city than a Dutch city?
I think in some parts you overblow the dutchness of Gdansk/Danzig and some of the terms you use were likely never pronounced the dutch way nor intended to be (25:05)
heel interesant
26:35 - oooooh, it was going pretty well and you blew it... on the september 1st 1939 thing were, well, kicked off in the city of Wieluń, which was bombarded by the Luftwaffe quite a bit earlier than Gdańsk and it's shelling from Schleswig-Holstein started... About an hour or so earlier to be exact.
Interesting and valuable material. Slight correction. Poland lost Gdansk as a result of the second partition in 1793, not the first one.
better reupload because it stays at 360p
Well it doesnt look like eastern europe cause its in central europe
so you have just told to me that i was born in not a Polish, German or even a Kashubian city but a Dutch one? Wow my homecity is Mr. Worldwide over here.
You forgot to mention about Adam Wijbe
The Gulden had been one of the major currencies of the HRE for centuries. Danzig had been using a Gulden based on the Prussian Gulden even before 1793. The Gulden remained the currency in many parts of the former HRE until the late 19th century until the introduction of national currencies in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The choice of the name Gulden for the currency of the free city is not a sign of Dutch influence.
Polish currency name "Złoty" is direct translation "Gulden" into polish.
@@michakoniecko853 Thats funny, because the American dollar is a phonetic translation of the "daalder" or "thaler" in german, which was a coin equal in value to 1,50 gulden. until the euro was introduced we had a coin that was named "rijksdaalder" which was worth 2,50 gulden, about equal to one euro.
so i guess most currencies around the world are named after some form of dutch or low german coin.
@@TheSuperappelflap Daalder is the Dutch rendering of a Bohemiam coin, the "Joachimsthaler Guldengroschen" (High German Thaler > Low German Daler > Dutch daalder). Because Bohemia, the Netherlands and Spain were all Habsburgian ruled, the name spread through all of the countries. From there it came to the American colonies as an alternative name for the Ocho Real, the predominant coin in all of the Americas. And that is from where the US got the name of their currency.
sounds more like Dansk - danish to me ( there was some connections in early days with the Danes - Mieszko's daughter was married to one or sth.)
Nice to have some live footage as well! With regard to the Mennonites, I don't think they advocated a second baptism, but rather they rejected infant baptism.
🤷🏼♂️....all mumbo jumbo really tho init
The Menonites rejected service in the army, which was granted to the by the Polish king.
Any form of religion should be banned from history, unless it is necessary to explain when war was waged.
Basically war is a process that is religion based...
@@Paul_CAlso write that the first and second wars were a religious war. I sympathize with people like you
@@grzegorzrozynski8659Mennonites could not serve in the army. They settled in Poland where there was religious freedom - Confederation of Warsaw 1573. They had problems with themselves. After the partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795, they left Prussia because there was compulsory military service in Prussia
Great topic and interesting. The city is Dutch/German more so than Polish, it reverted back to Poland after WW2 and mainly thanks to Stalin.
Doesn't change the fact that it's origins and ownership is Polish since day one.
It always bothers me that Polish people have 'a lot of trouble' regarding this.
The Polish practically didn't use this land for 1000years, then came some German/Dutch/Prussian merchants who made this area florish, and suddenly this area was Polish all along, please... you guys did nothing.
And don't even mention the ( economic ) cutoff of this land from Germany prior to WW2.
Gee, I wonder why Germany invaded Poland, but such things are not to be spoken out loud.
And then to think that some Polish political guys recently asked to cut of acces to Kaliningrad from Russia. These guys really seem to never learn.
@@edwinbruckner4752 Duchy of Poland 997-1025
Kingdom of Poland 1025-1227
Duchy of Pomerelia 1227-1282
Kingdom of Poland 1282-1308
Teutonic Order 1308-1410 GERMAN 102 years
Kingdom of Poland 1410-1411
Teutonic Order 1411-1454 GERMAN 43 years
Kingdom of Poland 1454-1569
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1793
Kingdom of Prussia 1793-1807 GERMAN 14 years
Free City of Danzig 1807-1814
Kingdom of Prussia 1814-1871 GERMAN 57 years
German Empire 1871-1918 GERMAN 47 years
Weimar Germany 1918-1920 GERMAN 2 years
Free City of Danzig 1920-1939
Nazi Germany 1939-1945 GERMAN 6 years
People's Republic of Poland 1945-1989
Republic of Poland 1989-present
Let's count my German friend. 102+43+14+57+47+2+6=271. Now fuk off my German friend. :)
It was ours since at least 1000ad, it was even part of polish lithuanian commonwealth for years. We held it much longer than Germans, what are you even talking about?
@@wlodek7422 Its not about who "held it", but who actually lived in it. And the city was majority, and mostly completely, German speaking from the 1200s until 1945. So 700 years.
The fact that Polish navy does not contain a flagship called "admirał arrandt dikmann" i find beyond distasteful.
We are not really great at sea faring but we still should celebrate the greatness that we fostered in our land- even if it came from non-slavic or non-lithuanian stock. If polish panheon of greatness contains lithuanians (Adam Mickiewicz/Mickievichus- poer), belorussians (General Kościuszko) and many other nations it should also contain this Fresian!
I do not think that it is done on purpose, it's - I guess - simply due to the fact that XVII century, especially its first half is kind of "forgotten", and probably the reason for that was communist-era Russian occupation of Poland. The first half of the XVII century was the time when Polish-Lithuenian Commonwealth reached its maximum extent and was a European superpower. At that time we invaded Russia, seized the Kremlin and our king Władysław IV was chosen by Russian boyars a tzar of Russia. In Soviet( Russian ) era of occupation of Poland it was a tabu topic, to be forgotten forever... The Dutch-born admiral was in service of the Polish Crown exactly in that period of time. Now we can freely talk about it, and hopefully such figures will find due recognition and will be treasured in Polish memory as our heroes.
Is there “something rotten in Danzig” look up that phrase…. Having just tried to look the phrase up it’s referencing is hard to find. But it is in a number of pre-war cartoons in a play on words on “something rotten in Belgium” or Denmark. But referring to the Nazis in Danzig.
It’s from Hamlet, something is rotten in Denmark
@@robert9016 I’m referring to the 1939 Loony Toons cartoons that had the play on the phase “there’s something rotten in Danzig” in reference to the Nazis.
Even the modern houses look Dutch!
Danswyk was called: Amsteldamm the Second :-D Etc.
We all were a Laagland the Second :-D
Wer Got vertravet, der hadt wol gebawet! Culm n.b.d. Wijssel
Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival anyone go?
Isn't there still a Skotska ulica (sp?) / Schottengasse / Scottish Street in Gdansk / Danzig? Another forgotten fact about the city: its English / Scots name - now completely obsolete- is Dantzick. Try finding that on a map in 2023! 😀 Peace - and out.
Are there traditional German Fahrwerk houses in Poland and Baltic states? Germans were colonists and landlords for a long time in Estonia,Latvia(Livonian Order,Courland)
Interesting, but in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Germans were hired workers and poorly paid military mercenaries, or townspeople and peasants coming from medieval economic emigration. Quite different was situation in the region of the former Teutonic state, covering the area of Prussia and Pomerania. By the way, in the 15th century its citizens (mixed population of pruthenian, german and polish origin) rebelled against the Teutonic Order and asked the Polish king to be allowed to belong to the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The situation changed again at the end of the eighteenth century, when the Polish state was partitioned.
There are Fahrwerk houses in Pomerania and Silesia.
You may find Dutch surnames in Gdansk I guess. I came across some in Estonia. Also Dutch Silver coins, like daalders, can be found.
Not at all, those people with dutch ancestors were all expulsed in 1945 and resettled with Poles from Ukraine.
Can we see the flag from the thumbnail?
🥺