Poland – as it wants to be seen in Europe

 

Some time ago I downloaded a pdf file from the EU’s official website europa.eu. In it, every country is represented by its contour and symbols it is, or wants to be, associated with. Bulgaria, for example, is represented, amongst others, by a hunky Roman (I guess) soldier, Byzantine churches, wildlife and beaches. Spain has references to the country’s old and modern architecture, art and science, food and the great explorations and so on.

It’s easy to imagine what France, Italy or the UK had as their symbols but what about Poland? What did Poland have to offer and wanted to show off to the rest of the EU?

Well, this:

 

Let’s do a little analysis:

• starting from the top left corner, we have a ferry, probably full of Polish workers coming back from Sweden and Norway.
• Gdańsk shipyards, which the EU wants to close down due to their unprofitability and illegal subsidising by the State
• Lech Wałęsa, Noble prize winner carrying a banner of the Solidarity movement and saying ‘Hi’
• under the Solidarity banner, a yellow, probably radioactive fish
• Nicolaus Copernicus -  nothing wrong with him, although some Germans might claim him to be one of them
• Carp – a kind of fish traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve. This tradition began as early as the communist times so it’s not really a true tradition
• Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Science which was a present from out ‘brothers’ from the Soviet Union at the same time being one of the ugliest and the most conspicuous buildings in Poland
• Frederick Chopin – a true European, Poland and France are still fighting over whether he was more French or more Polish
• to his left, we have, probably, some general. I don’t know that that is (UPDATE: it’s Piłsudski, right?)
• further up, another disputed guy. Considered Poland’s greatest poet, lived in Belarus which was then Lithuania (or maybe it was the other way round) and who started his greatest work with ‘Oh, Lithuania, my fatherland’
• above him, a European bison (wisent) with an enormous tool (but who knows, maybe they are usually this hung)
• the woman next to the sign of radioactivity and a bottle with some green liquid is Maria Skłodowska, Marie Curie, Marie Curie-Skłodowska, Maria Skłodowska-Curie. Now some explanation: she was originally called Maria Skłodowska, born in Wa rsaw in the Russian Empire, when she married a Frenchman  she became known as Marie Curie or Marie Curie-Skłodowska to the French, and as Maria Skłodowska-Curie to the Polish (and as long as you’re not a traitor that’s how you should call her)
• the coal under her shows how much easier it was for the Poles to discover radioactivity than to make any use of it. Almost 100% of the country’s energy comes from this ‘incredibly’ hi-tech method of acquiring energy. Let’s not forget how polluting burning coal is. I see no reason to be proud of this
• to the left of the coal mine potatoes are growing. Lovely, looks like Poland is the only country in the world to grow this exotic vegetable
• the same applies to the sugar beet
• the lady in the picture is the actual Queen of Poland. Her name is the Black Madonna (who said Poles were racist?)
• next, we have, what I believe, is the oldest shopping centre in the world, about to be destroyed by a giant pope.
• a cute Polish peasant girl who has probably escaped from a museum is standing next to the papas gigantus
• a salt mine located somewhere in the mountains in the south. It might be the oldest active salt mine in Europe but the place they put it on the map makes me doubt
• and finally, the biggest picture of all, a peasant driving a tractor and whistling to himself

 

Now, take a look at these happy and smiling people representing each country who say ‘hi’ in their respective languages:

 

 

And now the representative of Germany:

     :)

 

 

 

You can find the whole pdf file here.