This is the most extraordinary map, courtesy of the superb strangemaps site. It shows Poland's last legislative election results overlayed onto the old border between the Tsarist Russian Empire, and the German Empire. Those who live in what was the German Empire were far more likely to have voted for Donal Tusk's Civic Platform, whilst those who live in what was the Tsarist Empire were far more likely to have voted for the Kaczynskis' Law and Justice Party. The Ukrainian divide is well correlated to the borders of the Poland-Lithanianian Commonwealth. Those who voted for Yushchenko (in the west) live in the lands of the former Commonwealth, whilst those who voted for Yanukovych (in the east) did not. When borders disappear from a map it appears they hang around in people's cultural and political memories. Can anyone help to explain this incredible phenomenon?
Monday, 29 December 2008
Map of the day - History strikes back
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12 comments:
We're all sheep.
Could the old border have lain along a national/ethnic boundary?
There appear to have been many national groups subsumed into the Prussian, Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires and modern political boundaries often bear little relationship to the boundaries between different national groups, at least back then (WWII and since had some major effects on these distributions)
Perhaps there is an explanation to be found in the physical history of the places.
The progress of historical reform of land ownership certainly is reflected in political attitudes (at least in my experience), while communal infrastructure such as roads or churches are the conduits and destinations of transhumance routes by which transport and transmission of ideas happens.
These maps say to me that there is still a significant lack of integration across the country between their former component parts which the leaders in the intervening period have done little to satisfy.
I suspect the over-spill from Upper Silesia is more to do with how the historic borders have been more easily broken down where urban and suburban networks have been developed to a higher level and that this trend will accelerate the longer countries such as Poland are members of the EU.
So it may be interesting to overlay the locations of the Prussian Junker estates and peasant farms, together with a picture of the expanding motorway network.
Tristan asked: "Could the old border have lain along a national/ethnic boundary?"
It used to, but after the second world war the Allies "shifted" Poland to West at the expense of Germany and to benefit of Soviet Union (see the map here, and Germans who lived in the areas ceded to Poland were expelled to the remaining Germany, and were replaced by Polish people from the areas ceded to Soviet Union.
Only a very tiny German minority survives in the Western parts of Poland (about 0,4% of the total population), and it's not enough to explain the difference in the vote.
To truely understand terrestial behaviour, I suggest we all watch 90210
Have taken your advice, James. Would appreciate it if you could contact me - my email can be found on my profile page.
I think it has something to do with access to information and therefore with the development of infrastructure... Usually you can see a difference in cultural/political ideas between people from the countryside and people from urban centres; at least if the information flow to the countryside is limited. I have never been to Poland, but I can imagine that in the Eastern side of the country, development is more slowly because it does not border a EU country, so there will be less or no interregional programmes (programmes funded by the EU that are about co-operation beyond borders between bordering countries... =) for the development of infrastructure.
Political decisions are also culturally dependent, I'd say. But again, I don't know anything about the culture in Poland, less of the differences between that in the East and the West.
That really is a fascinating thing, how political and cultural memory persist.
Sorry it's taken me so long to blogroll you, James.
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No worries James, haven't really been blogging (away, doing other things etc) but I'm back to it now. Just published my first post in a while.
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