Then Poland is open
The German idiom “ Then Poland is open ” (or modified “Now Poland is open”) colloquially means something like “a situation that has gotten out of control” or “then there will be trouble” and can also be used as a threat . However, the proverb can have different meanings depending on the context.
According to an older interpretation, the phrase describes an exaggerated reaction to a minor occasion and is supposed to express the allegedly easy emotional excitability of the Polish soul.
origin
The phrase goes back to the partitions of Poland , during which the neighboring states Russia , Prussia and Austria divided the Polish-Lithuanian union between 1772 and 1795. The Polish state then disappeared from the political map of Europe for 123 years and was therefore “open” to external intervention. Hence the use of the proverb in the sense of “if that's the case, then anything can happen” or “if that's really the case, then it'll pop”.
swell
- ↑ Hubert Orłowski : "Polish Economy": On the German Polish discourse in modern times. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1996, ISBN 3-447-03877-2 , p. 135.
- ^ Jürgen Schiewe : Competence, Discourse, Contact. Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2006, ISBN 3-631-54109-0 , p. 139.
- ↑ Kurt Lück : The Myth of the German in Polish Folk Tradition and Literature: Research on German-Polish Neighborhood in East Central Europe. Hirzel, Leipzig 1938, DNB 580612449 .
- ↑ Hubert Orłowski : "Polish Economy": on the German Polish discourse in modern times. 1996.
- ^ Rudolf Köster : Proper names in the German vocabulary. A lexicon. De Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2003, ISBN 3-11-089620-6 , p. 142.