Board:
Message Boards > Topics > Immigration and Emigration > Immigration
URL:
http://boards.rootsweb.com/topics.immigration.immigration/3814.3.1/mb.ashx
Subject: Re: Where is Polvanka?
Author: halpark
Date: Thursday, June 25, 2015
Classification: Query
Surnames:
From approximately the 1790s to 1919, Central Europe was divided up between three great Empires, Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian. Poland was roughly divided between the three and did not exist as a separate country, so a Pole could be either, Russian, German oir Austrian (Austro-Hungarian) by nationality. Prussia was the largest state in the German Empire and stretched, in bits and pieces, from west of the Rhine to the Russian frontier in what is now Lithuania. It was entirely within the German Empire so could hardly be part of Poland, which did not exist, nor part of Russia which was another Empire although people who were Polish, Russian, Jewish by ethnicity could all be German by nationality. To say "..it's a "Slovakian country" is totally meaningless - Slovakia is a sovereign, independent country today, during the 19th century it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and from 1919 to the 1990s it was the "Slovakia" part of Czechoslovakia, a post WW1 creation. Googling up a few maps to compare would be very helpful, as would a basic investigation into 19th century European history. Hope this is useful.