What explains Poland's historical relative irrelevance and dearth of non-Jewish contributions and pre-communist lower wealth compared to Germany, despite their being next door neighbors with similar cultures?
Did the different states have very different institutions that promoted growth in one but not the other?
>>861353
are we talking just the interwar period or including pre-partition things?
>>861377
The whole period since late medieval/early modern times.
>>861400
The Commonwealth was a potent European power in the 16th and 17th centuries, both economically and militarily. I'd disagree that they were historically irrelevant.
>>861400
Poland was hardly irrelevant during the early modern period.
>>861498
Mostly because the nation didn't exist during the industrial revolution. Between the Deluge and and the Partitions the wealth of the land fell hard. The Poles also contributed a decent amount to the arts and science up until the Partitions. The largest differences between the German region and the Polish probably would be that the percentage of the population living in urban areas was much higher in the former, while the influence of the nobility was much greater in the latter.
>>861498
There was no Germany until 1871 m8. HRE is not Germany by the way.
>>861498
>industrialized
>in the early modern period
Nigger stop with the memes. And pre-partition Poland was economically very much on par with Germany and people all over Europe tended to move there.
>>861498
>not counting Jews
why wouldn't you count them if they were polish?
>>861353
Poland was a political punching bag through most of it's history. I think it was only under the Piast dynasty that they weren't having some fucked up problem with germans or russians.
>Poland gets baptised, and joins the rest of europe.
>Pagans get pissed so they move capital to Krakow.
>Germans get BTFO'd
>Invites Teutons over to deal with pagans.
>Teutons cause shit, but get BTFO'd most of the time.
>Mongols get BTFO'd
>Education becomes a massive part of the Piast's agenda. Poland begins to catch up with the west.
>PLC is formed.
>Teutons get BTFO'd (again)
>Fights with Russian (almost ends up ruling russia)
>PLC begins decline. Gets BTFO'd by Russians.
>PLC gets ruled by Saxons.
>PLC divided up among the powers that be.
>fastforward to WWI, and Poland becomes a state again, but incredibly backwards.
>Begins to modernize, but gets BTFO'd by Germany.
>Get ruled by Russians, and go full Communist for a while.
>Finally join the rest of the world and begin to catch up once again.
If the pattern follows, then Poland is in for some more shit here soon.
>>861353
Agrarism.
>>861353
There weren't so many Poles to begin with. It was only in the 20th century, that Polish population experienced a rapid growth. The Germans, on the other hand, are now the largest ethnicity in Europe for over 1000 years, greatly influenced and profiting from their neighbours (just as a the Slavs were influenced from the Germans)
And yes, Germany existed since the the HRE. Germany, the kingdom Germany, with the German king as the only worthy contender for the imperial crown.
If Poles happened to live Italy or France, it would be a completely different story. But just like Siberia, it isn't exactly getting more easy to live towards Eastern Europe.
Op is some /pol/ stormfag
>>861878
Lots of scots for instance
Another question /his/, why do Germans start so many great wars? They started the seven years war (Arguably the first world war), the First world war and the second world war as well as (I think) the wars against he French Republic that lead to the Napoleonic wars.
>>862960
Cause the country was founded in butthurt towards France and inferiority complex towards UK, so to make up for that they developped a superiority complex towards everyone else.
>>861353
population, urbanization, influence of nobility, agrarism, geography
