"None of The Countries That Bordered Poland In 1989 Exist Today"

Fun fact, passed along in illustrated form by Brilliant Maps.

Comments

[Ridgeway]

I thought (current) Russia is the legal successor to the USSR. This came up a while back talking about the UN and Security Council membership.

So wouldn't that weird Koenigsburg/Kaliningrad enclave still be the "same" country?

[Currentsitguy]

Russia is indeed the legal successor to the USSR and Koenigsburg/Kaliningrad is an enclave of Russia, but even though it is the successor Russia is not the USSR, so technically it is a different country.

[Martinned2]

*exclave

[Currentsitguy]

You are absolutely right. I stand corrected.

[Ridgeway]

pierogi/vareniki

[Currentsitguy]

I was raised Polish and was married to a Russian. Pierogi traditionally is more of a savory item, whereas Vareniki usually is more sweet, although my grandmother had some weird thing for prune pierogis.

[Ridgeway]

What did she call the savory dumplings in Russian? Pelmeni? I always thought those had meat in them.

[Eugene Volokh]

Vareniki can have either sweet or savory fillings. Potato vareniki are savory, and very similar to Polish pierogi. Farmer's cheese vareniki are usually sweet, though my sense is that there are similar Polish pierogi as well. (I know Russian food well, Polish not so much.)

Pelmeni tend to have savory meat filling; they are similar to vareniki, but not identical.

[Vryedni]

I’m guessing kasha varnishkes, a Jewish-American dish with a Yiddish name and no filling on the inside, derived at least etymologically from vareniki? In substance they sure are different.

[TextFirst]

Just doing a quick google of maps of the era, it appears to be a bit of a split decision whether the whole area was labeled as “SOVIET UNION” or each country was split out along with the area being labeled as SOVIET UNION. I gotta say, I think the latter mapmakers made the right choice– monstrous as it was, the reason it’s called that is because it was nominally a union of separate socialist republics. So I think Poland still borders some of the 1989 countries, they’re just under new management. Which, by itself, is not a “new country.” In our own history, the United States still had the same southern neighbor before and after the Mexican Revolution, it didn't suddenly become a new country.

[Martinned2]

Nonsense. The constituent parts of the USSR had a lot less independence than the states of the US. Just see how Crimea came to be part of the Ukrainian SSR. So unless you're going to show US states as separate countries on a map of the world, the only sensible solution is to show the USSR as a single country too. Which is what, if I remember correctly, almost all maps did.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

For a while at least, I believe Belarus and Ukraine were separate members of the UN.

[Currentsitguy]

You are absolutely correct. Came here to say just that.

[Martinned2]

They were. One of the many things the western allies did to humour Stalin when they still needed him. (And a lot less costly than some of the other things they did.)

[Mark Regan]

Being the legal successor to a 1989 state doesn't make any of Poland's neighbors the same country as existed in 1989. Presumably Lithuania, Belarus, the Koenigsberg enclave of the Russian Federation, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Germany are all successor states.

[Martinned2]

No. Lithuania is only the successor state of pre-1939 Lithuania, not of the Soviet Union. It was/is not bound by any treaties that the Soviet Union ratified, unless Lithuania ratified them again post-1990.

(Czechoslovakia is different. When Czechia and Slovakia separated, they agreed that they would both be successor states equally, and both take on the same treaty oblgiations.)

[WestIsDeceased]

This was a jeopardy question a few years ago.

https://fikklefame.com/final-jeopardy-5-28-21/

[Currentsitguy]

Fascinating website overall. I found this post particularly odd and disturbing:

Nations that have elected a politician named Adolf Hitler (There have been 3)
https://brilliantmaps.com/elected-an-adolf-hitler/

[Area Man]

“You are technically correct—the best kind of correct.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hou0lU8WMgo

[Bored Lawyer]

Are East Germany and Germany different countries? I think the former was absorbed into the latter.

[Currentsitguy]

Correct. Prior to reunification West Germany was the Federal Republic of Germany. Now it all is, so technically West annexed East. It wasn't a merger per se.

[Squirrelloid]

For even more fun, compare the land area of Poland over time. Compare, say, 1333 (smallest extent while Poland existed as a country?) or 1569 (largest extent?) to today.

[Ridgeway]

Is it bad that almost all my knowledge of that is based on Europa Universalis IV?

[Dan Schiavetta]

“Poland is indigestible.” — Karl Marx