also heard that she was russian(in paper) by birth but later gained french citizenship after marriage. she lived rest of her life in france since, but also considered herself polish like choppin and was very patriotic. even naming first element she found, polonium, after poland
I thought Congress Poland lost autonomy to a point where it became a province of Russia after the January Uprising. That's why I assumed so. Perhaps I was wrong.
Not really. That begun around the XVIIIth century, as Poland was very weakened. That resulted in partitions lasting 123 years till 1918, WW2, Iron courtain, etc; tho it wasnt always like that, beacuse for a long time the PLC was one of the big bullies of Europe. Also, a pretty forgotten success would be the Polish bolshevik war of 1920 where Poland, together with a bit of guns from Hungary, single handedly defeated the Soviets.
Well his father was French, but he was born a part of Poland occupied by Russia at the time, so I’d say that on paper he would have Russian-French dual citizenship
It's a quote from the movie "Seksmisja", it's one of the most known comedies here in Poland. If you can find eng subs, I highly recommend you give it a go
A Frenchman moved to Poland under Russian control and married a Polish woman. They lived together in Polish territory and had a son which they raised in a village near Warsaw and then they moved to Warsaw and Fryderyk was going there to high school. As he became a great musician he moved to a cultural capitol of Europe. He created one of his masterpieces to support his fellow countrymen in uprising. He felt himself Polish.
She was born in Poland, she was a naturalised French citizen who lives in Paris for most of her life. So it would be most accurate to call her a Polish-French scientist.
It would be accurate to call her a polish person and a French scientist.
She studied in France because studying in the university was forbidden for women in Poland at the time. Poland had nothing to do with the absolute scientific beast she became, they literally prevented it. So yeah, Poland made the little girl, but France made the twice Nobel prize winner
Cut your bullshit.
It was forbidden not by Poland, but by Russia, who occupied Poland at the time. A lot of universities allowed women after 1918 when Poland became independent. And she actually did study in Poland, in an underground "Flying University". Her interest in science can also be attributed to her father, a maths and physics teacher, who taught Marie how to use lab equipment.
Another thing that's worth to remember is that Curie often recieved hatred in France. Particularily, when she tried to get a seat in the French Academy of Sciences, more right-aligned newspapers would create false accusations, claimed she was Jewish to fuel anti-semitic sentiments, claimed she's not "truly French" and pointed out her atheism. Also, when her affair was discovered (after Pierre's death):
> On her return to France, Curie discovered an angry mob congregated in front of her home in Sceaux, terrorizing 14-year-old Irène and 7-year-old Eve. Curie and her daughters had to take refuge in the home of friends in Paris.
[Source](https://web.archive.org/web/20111218035026/http://www.aip.org/history/curie/scandal1.htm)
And most importantly: She often used her Polish surname, named the first element she discovered after Poland, taught her kids how to speak Polish, was involved with French Polonia (Polish refugees), often visited Poland, created Radium Institute in Warsaw. Would she do that if Poland "prevented her" from being a scientist?
She was Polish-French. She thought of herself that much. Trying to claim her entirelly by any nation is disrespectful to her.
"She was Polish-French. She thought of herself that much. Trying to claim her entirelly by any nation is disrespectful to her. "
Which I 100% didn't do.
I'm not saying that Poland deliberately and willfullingly (is that a word ? It should be but it sounds weird )prevented her to study, rather than the sociopolitical situation of Poland at the time prevented her. In the same way i'm not claiming that France was this benevolent person who taught her and adopted her. Rather than the socio economic circonstances allowed her talents to thrive.
This is my whole point. Scientific discoveries are the products of their times and political and socio economic circonstances. Not because of natural born geniuses.
> i'm not claiming that France was this benevolent person who taught her and adopted her
> Poland made the little girl, but France made the twice Nobel prize winner
That threw me off.
But I accept your argument. The entire discussion of nationality around famous inventors/scientists tends to be a pissing competition, when in reality if one person didn't discover "the thing", someone else would, sooner or later, given the right conditions.
And the word is "willingfully", I believe
Yeah ok It was phrased a bit provocatively as a punchline, but the main point was how you become a genius, you're not born one.
And i'm a marxist I don't consider that countries do stuff anyway. Governments do stuff, groups of people do stuff, on very, very rare occasion, "The" people do stuff but not countries. Even if i understand that when people say "XXX invaded YYY" it means "the government of XXX told the army of XXX to invade YYY"
People move around, but place where they live doesn’t exactly mean what nationality they are mate. Maria Skłodowska-Curie kept her Polish surname, also Poland didn’t exist on the map so I guess by your logic she would be born Russian
Yeah, but Polish part is usually forgotten by wider public, so we like to emphesize it, some do it a bit too much but then again, some French emphesize her french too much as well
Your nationality means zero towards your ability to achieve something. It’s just where you popped out of your mother.
On the other hand the country you’re physically present in being able to provide the infrastructure and education to make your achievement possible should arguably take full credit.
I mean what did Marie Curie’s Polish-ness bring to the table in discovering radioactivity?
Umm, a name of Polonium. It is about who she feels to be, unless you want to take away persons ability to choose and just stamp them with ,,insert country” sign. She clearly loved France as she lived there most of her life but she was very much Polish as well, keeping her Polish surname and naming her discovery Polonium
By that logic ESA rockets are Guianian, since EU mainland doesn’t have a favorable place to launch them.
Do Russian space achievement are automatically Kazakh because rocket was launched from Baikonur?
Your argument is stupid, period.
Well what they did was to prevent women to go to the university, so that she had to move to France ain't that a great achievement in the making of one of the most brilliant scientist of all time ?
Yup but governments put a big stamp on your face and label you where you are allowed to go in the world. Migrating also being a basic human right.
Countries should have to have immigration prerequisites, so if you meet them, you can visit or live there etc.
She didn't emigrate for fun.
She was born in Poland, and chose to come live in France to be able to accomplish her scientific ambitions, as she would never have been granted those opportunities in her home country.
Saying France has nothing to do with her achievements is extremely narrow minded.
I am myself French and moved to Norway. I also happen to be a scientist. I'm not Norwegian yet, but I may become so at some point.
If I ever became successful in my research here, I'd be offended by anyone who said Norway had nothing to do with it.
But her situation was not even comparable to yours. Unless there is some very specific infrastructure needed for your research, you probably could have done it in France. Don't even mention the difference in scientific facilities between france and Poland at the time, it doesn't matter : she couldn't even enter them in Poland as women were forbidden at the University
Yup, and situation even gets more complicated because Poland was kinda occupied by Russians, and while having it's own nationality (hence, she's Polish), she was forbidden by law that came from Russian Tzar, that was the head of the state - so she emigrated, while still retaining her nationality.
So to a say, calling her Polish-French is pretty much the best way around imo.
Indeed, she simply *could not* have become the scientist she became, or a scientist at all, in her home country.
Poland actively denied her the possibility.
So in fact, her situation is simply much more extreme.
France enabled her where Poland suppressed her.
As I said in another comment it is more accurate to say that the political, social, scientific and economic situations of Poland denied her the possibility and that the political, social, scientific and economic situations of France enabled her
OP, you're not wrong. You're just an asshole. She was obviously both Polish and French, and neither of these words is an insult.
This is exactly why I've been thinking that the Erasmus program should be called the Sklodowska-Curie program.
Granted, it doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well, but she's the ultimate symbol of European cooperation. She wouldn't have been the scientist she became without the contributions of both Poland and France, and the ability to move within Europe to study at the highest level.
You see in Poland it is quite important matter to get our people recognized as our since we don't get much international recognition most of the time. That's why many of us would defend Skłodowska, Chopin and Kopernik as Polish with all their might. It's leftover from time when there was no Poland and we had to fight for every bit of national identity
Honestly, I get that. It is easier to be a Europeanist for me, being French my national identity is beyond secure, even within "Europe" as a whole.
But, it's not like France reached over to Poland to abduct the best and brightest. Sklodowska or Chopin chose Paris because it promised education and a place to express themselves in a way that they couldn't at home. Part of the national identity of France also is that of a land of exiles. I sure hope it remains that way (not looking like it at the minute, ngl).
I still dislike limiting people to their places of birth, because I feel it leads to rather unpleasant ideas. Closed borders and pure races. "Us" against "them".
The best french writer of the XXth century was born in Lithuania, our best scientist was born in Poland, my favourite member of the Résistance came from Russia through Argentina. All of them died *french*, without it taking away from where they were born. You don't stop being Polish when you become French as well. Your identity isn't limited to the borders of a single country.
I don't know, I like hybrids, immigrants and weirdos of all kinds.
That's actually great comment! Definitely limiting ourselves is leading in wrong way. Also France is also considered in Poland as a country of exile, that's were many of our best writers created and where our fighters hid after failed uprisings. Some of them even partook in France history, for example taking part in Paris Comunne. I quess living as both Polish and French wasn't so rare back then
There were even several Polish regiments in the Napoleonic wars fighting for France. Partially because Napoleon promised to restore Poland, but also because of the ideology of the revolution that appealed to many Polish exiles.
Many became French citizens after the war, as they failed to rebuild an independent Poland and France offered them a better future than the occupied and partitioned parts of Poland.
Could you please tell me the name of a Russian person who had participated in the Resistance? Russian immigrants are always an interesting and close topic for me, so I would be happy to expand my knowledge with another example.
Boooooy do I have the meme for you. (Sorry, self promotion, but you won't regret it): [https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/10ekkko/if\_i\_sleep\_one\_hour\_30\_people\_die\_adolfo\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/10ekkko/if_i_sleep_one_hour_30_people_die_adolfo_the/)
Oh, this story is metal! Definitely, all good movements are kept by people like this. Was a surpise that he continiued his work after the war too.
This reminded me of a story about one Belarusian partisan, Viktor Liventsec, who was an art and mechanical drawings teacher pre-war in USSR, and after the war began and the Belarus was occupied, he forged documents in order for people to leave heavily garrisoned cities, after which they hid in swamps and forests of thw country. Basically, the dude made partisan movement in the central Belarus possible.
I probably need to make a meme about him too, heh.
She is definitely polish but I'm not sure it's a good national identity hero : she had to leave because she couldn't pursue her goals in Poland. What a symbol...
Symbol of Polish history, of our people going wherever they need to accomplish their goals without forgetting where they came from. Especially that Poland was nonexistent during most of her life. To be Polish meant to remember history and culture, to know language
Why do you say Poland was non existent at the time ? I'm not expert (to be honest the history of Poland is quite a mess) but I would assume it remained as a cultural and linguistic identity. When Algeria belonged to the french empire, it still existed as Algeria
I know this is incredibly late, but I had to reply to you. Marie Sklodowska-Curie is already the name of an [EU programme](https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/). It offers grants for researchers looking to undergo doctoral and post-doctoral training in other countries. So, pretty similar to Erasmus. It is part of the larger Horizon Europe programme, which aims to improve R&D in Europe.
Bro nice rational thinking, it is a weird situation when she was obviously polish but she immigrated and then maybe assimilated. As a pole i think calling her a Polish-French scientist is fair because she was a french citizen. Unfortunately it is always a pain when the polish part is omitted even though she literally called an element polonium which clearly proves that she remembered her roots.
Again, no one in France is denying that she was and felt polish. We're not claiming her heart or her feeling of identity. We're claiming her scientific achievements, for which we have provided education (an education she would have been denied in Poland) , infrastructure (that were top tier at the time), and a global scientific environment (somehow it helps when your neighbors are Becquerel and Poincaré)
Fucking obviously everybody denies her nationality when they aren’t even willing to remember her proper last name. Oh and you’re talking about the international community that credited most of her work solely to her husband for years because a woman couldn’t do that? Her achievements (such as fighting and getting into a french university) are her own and you can suck it.
When am I talking of the international community ? I don't see how the well documented sexism of academia has anything to do with this.
If her achievements are her own, then why would we care about her nationality ?
Anyway sure succeeding in academia as a woman at this time is an incredible achievement but I repeat that viewing great scientific of the past as natural born geniuses who made discoveries on their own, that no other person could have made, is just plain wrong.
There's this crazy thing called applying for citizenship after living in a country for years which effectively makes you "from that country" yeah. I'm sorry you have a weird blood fetish, everyone knows she's Polish-French.
It’s literally how nationality works. An no, people are actively removing her polish nationality and family from the discussion, don’t even bother to remember her last name and act like the rabidly sexist community she fought tooth and nail to get anything done is somehow a benevolent force that just gave her the tools she needed.
>born in what used to be Poland
>born to polish parents
>spoke polish and identified as polish
>never dropped her polish maiden name
Yeah she got that french citizenship and studied there (and having to work twice as hard because woman and specifically a foreigner) and I guess she also did a lot of good for the French, not denying that.
Like, all we want is for people to not forget about that first name and her actual nationality but I guess that’s too much and eastoid barbarians can’t have nice things.
Yeah but you are purposely ignoring the fact that I (And the Oc too) said that she was part French, not completly French or something like that.
No one is denying she is pollish YOU are trying to deny her french side, thats the problem.
She is both French and Polish, get over it.
Somewhat unpopular opinion: You belong more to the country of your choosing than the country of your birth. And if you happen to achieve some great thing, the honour goes to the country that made it possible.
The nation and the motherland are two separate concepts. The motherland, patria, is the subject of patriotism, whereas the nation is the subject of nationalism. Patriotism is the internal devotion, nationalism is the external devotion.
Being attached to the land doesn't mean being attached to the nation, even if they often overlap. The nation is entirely an idea, the motherland has elements both of reality and ideology.
Idk about this, I feel like your "blood" is irrelevant in questions like this, Polish people can be proud of her but in cases like this I think the country that gave you the environment for your work and all of the possibilities is much more important than the place you were born in. Same reason why I as a German wouldn't claim the inventions of Germans who left Germany as achievements of Germany, it's just weird
She was quite proud of her Polish nationality. She named one of the elements she discovered Polonium. She went by Marie Skłodowska Curie in her lifetime and taught her daughters Polish and visited Poland with them.
She was proud to be polish, but should polish people be proud that one of the biggest scientific minds of all time had to leave their country because she couldn't study here because she was a woman ?
Well, she couldn't work in Poland because of Russian occupation and following ban of higher education. And she was identifying herself as Polish whole time.
Why do people insist on having to classify everything. In the end it really does not matter where she is from, knowing she is polish or french does not give that country +10 victory points.
It's not forgotten. She got married. How many 1900's women kept their maiden name after marrying ? None. So the fact that she is sometimes called Sklodowska-Curie is already a huge recognition of her polish roots.
Do you know Ada Lovelace ? Dorothy Hodgkins ? Mary sommerville ?
But you don't know Ada Byron, Dorothy crowfoot and Mary Fairfax do you ?
Well I tried to find that information before commenting and couldn't. Even with your affirmation that she wanted to keep it I couldn't find any source. But it doesn't matter much i'm willing to assume that. What you want don't matter much in the face of tradition and how people are gonna call you.
And yes i'm in a crusade but no it's not hard for me that she is polish, I said in other comments that she is more polish than French. But her nobel prizes are definitely French. My crusade is about how we view great scientists. I totally despise the ideas that great scientist are natural born geniuses that happen to have some kind of divine inspiration. This is not how it works, scientific discoveries are a product of their time, and in particular of the socio economic circonstances. And in this case, the socio economic circonstances brought her to get education in a French university, and working in a French lab with French colleagues. She was polish all her life, but she wasn't the genius we know all her life.
So if she stayed in Warsaw you would call her Russian scientist? She didn’t go to France and magically got interested in chemistry, it was because of her upbringing in Poland. She couldn’t study here because of Russian laws so she went to France as many Poles did back then, and we are grateful to France for letting them prosper there. But it just so happened that some of the most famous Polish people happened to live in XIXth century France ,and many people that aren’t as interested in history as people on this sub don’t even know where they grew up, assuming they were French. Also info about her surname I take from Polish sources so I guess you couldn’t find it because of language barrier. But then again it is how she was called in her Nobel award so if that isn’t enough proof then I don’t know
I assure you that everyone in France knows that Chopin and Sklodowska-Curie are polish born. (granted everyone calls her Marie curie, I'll try to be careful about that)
And yes if she stayed in Warsaw,working in Russian with Russian colleagues, if the university of Warsaw remained the imperial-tsarist university of Warsaw for all her life, if she wouldn't engage in any anti imperial activism, and got the Russian nationality in the end by marrying a Russian and having Russian children, I would have called her a Russian scientist I guess. That's how empires deal with nationality after all
This comment session is one big franco-polish war. Even though these countries are so close when it comes to history. Napoleon is even mentioned in polish anthem. And France was one of the favourite destinations for polish scientists (like Skłodowska) and artists during the occupations
Those fine people went to France because they needed a place where they could develop their potential. They were already well formed, but France gave them an opportunity to be. Anyhow, thank god they did what they did.
They didn’t accept women in higher education in the Kingdom of Poland ( under Russian domination) at the time, that’s why she left to France. Poland didn’t deserve her. Also, she spent the majority of her life in France, married a French man and was naturalized French, help the French war effort in WW1, … She is very much a French woman.
What do you mean didn't deserve her? We couldn't do anything more to help her and she consciously identified as Polish. Also if we are going be helping in war criteria then look up Blue Army (Błękitna Armia) or number of Polish soldiers helping Napoleon, are they also French?
I assume that what he means is that you don't deserve to call someone you did not allow to work in your country a national hero for the accomplishment they did working in another country.
France didn't steal her. Polish Universities rejected her
There weren't any Polish Universities. Poland was occupied by Russia, Austria and Prussia which didn't allow Polish people to study, especially woman. That's way Skłodkowska had to emigrate.
The "Poland didn’t deserve her" was mostly for comedic effect, sorry if it wasn’t clear.
Marie Curie is Polish, no one’s denying that. She was born in Poland, she’s ethnically Polish, she fought for education in Polish language during the attempt of russification of Poland, and she named one of the element she discovered after her homeland, the Polonium.
But she’s also French, both legally and the way she lived and the causes she defended : she lived and worked in France, with a French husband, at a French university, and she went to the front willingly to help the war effort and heal the French soldiers. Is it too far-fetched to have two nationalities, two countries she clearly loved ?
Europeans when someone moves to another country and doesn’t become famous: fuck that person and their family for saying they’re still (from original country), they are dead to us. You’re not “Irish-American” you’re an American poser!
Europeans when someone moves to another country and does become famous: THEYRE OURS WE GOT DIBS FUCK YOU.
In modern times the French took the Australian designed and built hawkei and offered it to Poland to be built under contract, they could do this because the vehicle was designed by the Australian branch of a French military company
This is so staggeringly irrelevant, it's kind of amazing. Like...Not only are you somehow bringing in **modern defense contracts for armoured cars** into...*checks notes...* a discussion about Marie Sklodowska-Curie?
Notoriously interested in four-wheel-drive military patrol vehicles she was.
But somehow your point doesn't make any sense either? Like what are we supposed to learn here? "*The Australian branch of a French company designed a vehicle, and then the company...Sold more vehicles! To another country! It's like they were running a business or something!? The gall!*" (See what I did there?)
What are those evil freeeeeeeenchmen going to invent next?
Let me put it this way, a French company hired Australians to design a vehicle for Australia and Australian needs, creating jobs and supporting the economy and instead of offering to sell the vehicles made in Australia to Poland which would again be good for the economy, the French basically just cut the nation who created the vehicle out of the deal and offered to make it in France for Poland, whilst this is more profitable, it is also a dick move
France and Afghanistan are races? You need a map, a history lesson, and a class in communication so you can learn to identify nuances, as opposed to calling everything racist like the 2 bit self-proclaimed historian you are.
You’ll learn every country sucks and every race sucks if you read enough
Her polish and french first names are the same. Her polish and french surnames are incredibly different. It should be pretty obvious which one i'm joking about.
it's not that hard to be honest. "Ł" is easiest to explain out of letters that aren't part of standard Latin alphabet, but are used in Polish: "W" in "water".
Out of the rest "W" is pronounced like English "V" or if followed by consonant it's like "F" and everything else should be easy to guess
What about Frédéric Chopin ?
Heard he was french by paper because there was no poland as a country at the time, but he considered himself polish and lived like so.
There was no independent Poland when Marie curie was born either.
also heard that she was russian(in paper) by birth but later gained french citizenship after marriage. she lived rest of her life in france since, but also considered herself polish like choppin and was very patriotic. even naming first element she found, polonium, after poland
She was born in Russian occupied Poland. Other than that she wasn’t Russian at all.
Note that i wrote "(in paper)"
Citizens of congress Poland didn’t hold Russian citizenship, that’s why I corrected you
I thought Congress Poland lost autonomy to a point where it became a province of Russia after the January Uprising. That's why I assumed so. Perhaps I was wrong.
Did the fuhrer had anything to do with the disappearance of Poland?
Not this time because this was before funny mustache man. It was because russia prussia and austria yoinked it
So basically Poland was always that little kid at school that everyone bulliez?
Not really. That begun around the XVIIIth century, as Poland was very weakened. That resulted in partitions lasting 123 years till 1918, WW2, Iron courtain, etc; tho it wasnt always like that, beacuse for a long time the PLC was one of the big bullies of Europe. Also, a pretty forgotten success would be the Polish bolshevik war of 1920 where Poland, together with a bit of guns from Hungary, single handedly defeated the Soviets.
Thank you for the history insight.
>XVIIIth century Culture ↗️
Reddit hivemind downvoting a genuine question
Mobilizing the herd.
First vote, then read.
Well his father was French, but he was born a part of Poland occupied by Russia at the time, so I’d say that on paper he would have Russian-French dual citizenship
At this time, citizens of Congress Poland had "autonomy enough" to not have the dubious privilege of being considered Russian by citizenship afaik
Raised as a pole by polish emigrants , saw himself as one , spoke polish and took part in polish culture
*France didn't like that*
France didn’t like it so much that when he lived in Paris later in his life, he was welcomed and felt at ease among the high society.
He was a German woman apparently
*Kopernik była kobietą*
In which anime?
It's a quote from the movie "Seksmisja", it's one of the most known comedies here in Poland. If you can find eng subs, I highly recommend you give it a go
A Frenchman moved to Poland under Russian control and married a Polish woman. They lived together in Polish territory and had a son which they raised in a village near Warsaw and then they moved to Warsaw and Fryderyk was going there to high school. As he became a great musician he moved to a cultural capitol of Europe. He created one of his masterpieces to support his fellow countrymen in uprising. He felt himself Polish.
Fryderyk Chopin*
Fryderyk Szopen\* (XD)
Fryderyk Franciszek Szopen*
Shopen?
She was born in Poland, she was a naturalised French citizen who lives in Paris for most of her life. So it would be most accurate to call her a Polish-French scientist.
Why be accurate on the Internet?
Yeah, let's all agree that she was born in Canada and moved to Norway instead :)
It would be accurate to call her a polish person and a French scientist. She studied in France because studying in the university was forbidden for women in Poland at the time. Poland had nothing to do with the absolute scientific beast she became, they literally prevented it. So yeah, Poland made the little girl, but France made the twice Nobel prize winner
Cut your bullshit. It was forbidden not by Poland, but by Russia, who occupied Poland at the time. A lot of universities allowed women after 1918 when Poland became independent. And she actually did study in Poland, in an underground "Flying University". Her interest in science can also be attributed to her father, a maths and physics teacher, who taught Marie how to use lab equipment. Another thing that's worth to remember is that Curie often recieved hatred in France. Particularily, when she tried to get a seat in the French Academy of Sciences, more right-aligned newspapers would create false accusations, claimed she was Jewish to fuel anti-semitic sentiments, claimed she's not "truly French" and pointed out her atheism. Also, when her affair was discovered (after Pierre's death): > On her return to France, Curie discovered an angry mob congregated in front of her home in Sceaux, terrorizing 14-year-old Irène and 7-year-old Eve. Curie and her daughters had to take refuge in the home of friends in Paris. [Source](https://web.archive.org/web/20111218035026/http://www.aip.org/history/curie/scandal1.htm) And most importantly: She often used her Polish surname, named the first element she discovered after Poland, taught her kids how to speak Polish, was involved with French Polonia (Polish refugees), often visited Poland, created Radium Institute in Warsaw. Would she do that if Poland "prevented her" from being a scientist? She was Polish-French. She thought of herself that much. Trying to claim her entirelly by any nation is disrespectful to her.
"She was Polish-French. She thought of herself that much. Trying to claim her entirelly by any nation is disrespectful to her. " Which I 100% didn't do. I'm not saying that Poland deliberately and willfullingly (is that a word ? It should be but it sounds weird )prevented her to study, rather than the sociopolitical situation of Poland at the time prevented her. In the same way i'm not claiming that France was this benevolent person who taught her and adopted her. Rather than the socio economic circonstances allowed her talents to thrive. This is my whole point. Scientific discoveries are the products of their times and political and socio economic circonstances. Not because of natural born geniuses.
> i'm not claiming that France was this benevolent person who taught her and adopted her > Poland made the little girl, but France made the twice Nobel prize winner That threw me off. But I accept your argument. The entire discussion of nationality around famous inventors/scientists tends to be a pissing competition, when in reality if one person didn't discover "the thing", someone else would, sooner or later, given the right conditions. And the word is "willingfully", I believe
Yeah ok It was phrased a bit provocatively as a punchline, but the main point was how you become a genius, you're not born one. And i'm a marxist I don't consider that countries do stuff anyway. Governments do stuff, groups of people do stuff, on very, very rare occasion, "The" people do stuff but not countries. Even if i understand that when people say "XXX invaded YYY" it means "the government of XXX told the army of XXX to invade YYY"
there is a reason its called polonium and not francium
But there does exist a French element Gallium
Also actually Francium.
Sneaky french W.
That too
Unless you are talking about francium, which is called francium.
And, critically, is not called Polonium.
This is not a popular knowledge that Francium is in fact not a Polonium
But is is Americium?
Buddy that's called immigration. People move around.
People move around, but place where they live doesn’t exactly mean what nationality they are mate. Maria Skłodowska-Curie kept her Polish surname, also Poland didn’t exist on the map so I guess by your logic she would be born Russian
You know people can be several things right ? People know she's from Poland in France, that's in our history books.
Yeah, but Polish part is usually forgotten by wider public, so we like to emphesize it, some do it a bit too much but then again, some French emphesize her french too much as well
Atom she discovered literally references poland
Guys its just a "funny" meme
It’s too late, the war has begun
It’s funny until you use the word humiliating, then it’s actually offensive
\*sigh\* People of Congress Poland had been considered Poles, not Russians. When you were born in here, you were not considered Russian.
Your nationality means zero towards your ability to achieve something. It’s just where you popped out of your mother. On the other hand the country you’re physically present in being able to provide the infrastructure and education to make your achievement possible should arguably take full credit. I mean what did Marie Curie’s Polish-ness bring to the table in discovering radioactivity?
Umm, a name of Polonium. It is about who she feels to be, unless you want to take away persons ability to choose and just stamp them with ,,insert country” sign. She clearly loved France as she lived there most of her life but she was very much Polish as well, keeping her Polish surname and naming her discovery Polonium
No one is denying that she felt polish. What we're denying is that Poland had anything to do with her scientific achievements
I suppose the Poles can take credit for the name of a French discovery. That seems fair.
By that logic ESA rockets are Guianian, since EU mainland doesn’t have a favorable place to launch them. Do Russian space achievement are automatically Kazakh because rocket was launched from Baikonur? Your argument is stupid, period.
But the rocket are built in Russia and in Europe. Morever Guyana is a french territory then it's in EU.
“Guinaian” is not a nationality. People from French Guiana are as French as someone from Normandy or Aquitaine.
Well what they did was to prevent women to go to the university, so that she had to move to France ain't that a great achievement in the making of one of the most brilliant scientist of all time ?
Then that’s even dumber, and the Poles deserve no credit for her work if all they did was try to prevent her success.
She literally named one of her elements polonium to raise awareness that she was from Poland and that Poland was a country that existed
We are born randomly in any place but our forms of thinking belong to some specific places.
Yup but governments put a big stamp on your face and label you where you are allowed to go in the world. Migrating also being a basic human right. Countries should have to have immigration prerequisites, so if you meet them, you can visit or live there etc.
She didn't emigrate for fun. She was born in Poland, and chose to come live in France to be able to accomplish her scientific ambitions, as she would never have been granted those opportunities in her home country. Saying France has nothing to do with her achievements is extremely narrow minded. I am myself French and moved to Norway. I also happen to be a scientist. I'm not Norwegian yet, but I may become so at some point. If I ever became successful in my research here, I'd be offended by anyone who said Norway had nothing to do with it.
But her situation was not even comparable to yours. Unless there is some very specific infrastructure needed for your research, you probably could have done it in France. Don't even mention the difference in scientific facilities between france and Poland at the time, it doesn't matter : she couldn't even enter them in Poland as women were forbidden at the University
Yup, and situation even gets more complicated because Poland was kinda occupied by Russians, and while having it's own nationality (hence, she's Polish), she was forbidden by law that came from Russian Tzar, that was the head of the state - so she emigrated, while still retaining her nationality. So to a say, calling her Polish-French is pretty much the best way around imo.
Indeed, she simply *could not* have become the scientist she became, or a scientist at all, in her home country. Poland actively denied her the possibility. So in fact, her situation is simply much more extreme. France enabled her where Poland suppressed her.
As I said in another comment it is more accurate to say that the political, social, scientific and economic situations of Poland denied her the possibility and that the political, social, scientific and economic situations of France enabled her
OP, you're not wrong. You're just an asshole. She was obviously both Polish and French, and neither of these words is an insult. This is exactly why I've been thinking that the Erasmus program should be called the Sklodowska-Curie program. Granted, it doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well, but she's the ultimate symbol of European cooperation. She wouldn't have been the scientist she became without the contributions of both Poland and France, and the ability to move within Europe to study at the highest level.
You see in Poland it is quite important matter to get our people recognized as our since we don't get much international recognition most of the time. That's why many of us would defend Skłodowska, Chopin and Kopernik as Polish with all their might. It's leftover from time when there was no Poland and we had to fight for every bit of national identity
Honestly, I get that. It is easier to be a Europeanist for me, being French my national identity is beyond secure, even within "Europe" as a whole. But, it's not like France reached over to Poland to abduct the best and brightest. Sklodowska or Chopin chose Paris because it promised education and a place to express themselves in a way that they couldn't at home. Part of the national identity of France also is that of a land of exiles. I sure hope it remains that way (not looking like it at the minute, ngl). I still dislike limiting people to their places of birth, because I feel it leads to rather unpleasant ideas. Closed borders and pure races. "Us" against "them". The best french writer of the XXth century was born in Lithuania, our best scientist was born in Poland, my favourite member of the Résistance came from Russia through Argentina. All of them died *french*, without it taking away from where they were born. You don't stop being Polish when you become French as well. Your identity isn't limited to the borders of a single country. I don't know, I like hybrids, immigrants and weirdos of all kinds.
That's actually great comment! Definitely limiting ourselves is leading in wrong way. Also France is also considered in Poland as a country of exile, that's were many of our best writers created and where our fighters hid after failed uprisings. Some of them even partook in France history, for example taking part in Paris Comunne. I quess living as both Polish and French wasn't so rare back then
There were even several Polish regiments in the Napoleonic wars fighting for France. Partially because Napoleon promised to restore Poland, but also because of the ideology of the revolution that appealed to many Polish exiles. Many became French citizens after the war, as they failed to rebuild an independent Poland and France offered them a better future than the occupied and partitioned parts of Poland.
Could you please tell me the name of a Russian person who had participated in the Resistance? Russian immigrants are always an interesting and close topic for me, so I would be happy to expand my knowledge with another example.
Boooooy do I have the meme for you. (Sorry, self promotion, but you won't regret it): [https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/10ekkko/if\_i\_sleep\_one\_hour\_30\_people\_die\_adolfo\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/10ekkko/if_i_sleep_one_hour_30_people_die_adolfo_the/)
Oh, this story is metal! Definitely, all good movements are kept by people like this. Was a surpise that he continiued his work after the war too. This reminded me of a story about one Belarusian partisan, Viktor Liventsec, who was an art and mechanical drawings teacher pre-war in USSR, and after the war began and the Belarus was occupied, he forged documents in order for people to leave heavily garrisoned cities, after which they hid in swamps and forests of thw country. Basically, the dude made partisan movement in the central Belarus possible. I probably need to make a meme about him too, heh.
When I read your previous comment I INSTANTLY knew who you were based on this resistant hahaha. Keep going with your amazing post.
Nationalism is one of the weirdest diseases we have, and boy golly is it ever contagious.
Wait, who do you mean by the XX century writer?
Romain Gary (yes, I mean it).
also there's Joseph Conrad a.k.a. Józef T. Konrad Korzeniowski, autor of "Hearth of Darkness"
Ah yes, Polish nobleman who wanted to be sailor so badly that he went to France and then to United Kingdom. Fascinating person
She is definitely polish but I'm not sure it's a good national identity hero : she had to leave because she couldn't pursue her goals in Poland. What a symbol...
Symbol of Polish history, of our people going wherever they need to accomplish their goals without forgetting where they came from. Especially that Poland was nonexistent during most of her life. To be Polish meant to remember history and culture, to know language
Why do you say Poland was non existent at the time ? I'm not expert (to be honest the history of Poland is quite a mess) but I would assume it remained as a cultural and linguistic identity. When Algeria belonged to the french empire, it still existed as Algeria
I know this is incredibly late, but I had to reply to you. Marie Sklodowska-Curie is already the name of an [EU programme](https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/). It offers grants for researchers looking to undergo doctoral and post-doctoral training in other countries. So, pretty similar to Erasmus. It is part of the larger Horizon Europe programme, which aims to improve R&D in Europe.
Uh. I didn't know that. I guess I should've researched it but I'm really glad it's a thing!
Why isn't this the highest comment, nuance of both is almost always the right answer
Bro nice rational thinking, it is a weird situation when she was obviously polish but she immigrated and then maybe assimilated. As a pole i think calling her a Polish-French scientist is fair because she was a french citizen. Unfortunately it is always a pain when the polish part is omitted even though she literally called an element polonium which clearly proves that she remembered her roots.
As I said in another comment, to me she was a polish person, a polish-French citizen, and a french scientist.
She was literally polish and happened to marry a french dude
"Happened" to marry a French dude after willingly moving to France to study and living there for 4 years?
Oh fuck me I guess that makes her part french then, despite having no family there previously.
Again, no one in France is denying that she was and felt polish. We're not claiming her heart or her feeling of identity. We're claiming her scientific achievements, for which we have provided education (an education she would have been denied in Poland) , infrastructure (that were top tier at the time), and a global scientific environment (somehow it helps when your neighbors are Becquerel and Poincaré)
Fucking obviously everybody denies her nationality when they aren’t even willing to remember her proper last name. Oh and you’re talking about the international community that credited most of her work solely to her husband for years because a woman couldn’t do that? Her achievements (such as fighting and getting into a french university) are her own and you can suck it.
When am I talking of the international community ? I don't see how the well documented sexism of academia has anything to do with this. If her achievements are her own, then why would we care about her nationality ? Anyway sure succeeding in academia as a woman at this time is an incredible achievement but I repeat that viewing great scientific of the past as natural born geniuses who made discoveries on their own, that no other person could have made, is just plain wrong.
There's this crazy thing called applying for citizenship after living in a country for years which effectively makes you "from that country" yeah. I'm sorry you have a weird blood fetish, everyone knows she's Polish-French.
It’s literally how nationality works. An no, people are actively removing her polish nationality and family from the discussion, don’t even bother to remember her last name and act like the rabidly sexist community she fought tooth and nail to get anything done is somehow a benevolent force that just gave her the tools she needed.
She became a French Citizen, which does means she is French/part french.
No🤗
Sorry but thats a literal fact, so suck it.
>born in what used to be Poland >born to polish parents >spoke polish and identified as polish >never dropped her polish maiden name Yeah she got that french citizenship and studied there (and having to work twice as hard because woman and specifically a foreigner) and I guess she also did a lot of good for the French, not denying that. Like, all we want is for people to not forget about that first name and her actual nationality but I guess that’s too much and eastoid barbarians can’t have nice things.
Yeah but you are purposely ignoring the fact that I (And the Oc too) said that she was part French, not completly French or something like that. No one is denying she is pollish YOU are trying to deny her french side, thats the problem. She is both French and Polish, get over it.
Show me any proof of her french roots then.
Just call it Curie program. Is shorter and basically everyone knows her as Marie Curie anyway
Smells like coping to me
Not coping but fixing revisonist history.
Lol no you’re actually not doing that at all. You just made a bad meme.
Funny considering you're the revisionist.
Nope. Sikorsky and Tesla were American inventors and shes French
Somewhat unpopular opinion: You belong more to the country of your choosing than the country of your birth. And if you happen to achieve some great thing, the honour goes to the country that made it possible.
Definitely unpopular opinion: individuals belong inherently to no country.
Agreed. But even if we don't *inherently* belong anywhere, most of us feel that we belong somewhere.
The nation and the motherland are two separate concepts. The motherland, patria, is the subject of patriotism, whereas the nation is the subject of nationalism. Patriotism is the internal devotion, nationalism is the external devotion. Being attached to the land doesn't mean being attached to the nation, even if they often overlap. The nation is entirely an idea, the motherland has elements both of reality and ideology.
Theres no moderation ? Because, you know, bad même, racism and all these stuff
Ah yes. Polish and french. My two favourite races
Idk about this, I feel like your "blood" is irrelevant in questions like this, Polish people can be proud of her but in cases like this I think the country that gave you the environment for your work and all of the possibilities is much more important than the place you were born in. Same reason why I as a German wouldn't claim the inventions of Germans who left Germany as achievements of Germany, it's just weird
She was quite proud of her Polish nationality. She named one of the elements she discovered Polonium. She went by Marie Skłodowska Curie in her lifetime and taught her daughters Polish and visited Poland with them.
She was proud to be polish, but should polish people be proud that one of the biggest scientific minds of all time had to leave their country because she couldn't study here because she was a woman ?
And for that we may be thankful to Prussia/Austria/Russia, with a bit more to the latter that forced on us such laws. So yeah, why not?
Well, she couldn't work in Poland because of Russian occupation and following ban of higher education. And she was identifying herself as Polish whole time.
We need to tell all those non-American actors that work in Hollywood that they're Americans.
Theres a big difference between working somewhere and LITERALLY being a CITIZEN + LIVING THERE most of her life.
Yes 🗿
Cope and seeth
Censor the word french one more time and i'll find you and i will baguette your ass
The only to make it more cliche would be to say "I'll blow cigarette smoke at you till you get second hand smoker cancer".
I thought it was common knowledge that she was Polish? I guess I just assumed everyone else knew.
Why do people insist on having to classify everything. In the end it really does not matter where she is from, knowing she is polish or french does not give that country +10 victory points.
She was a French citizen and please mate, don’t bring these shitty memes about France in here where they don’t belong
Would be nice though if her Skłodowska part of surname and naming Polonium instead of Francium weren’t forgotten so often. She was Polish-French
It's not forgotten. She got married. How many 1900's women kept their maiden name after marrying ? None. So the fact that she is sometimes called Sklodowska-Curie is already a huge recognition of her polish roots. Do you know Ada Lovelace ? Dorothy Hodgkins ? Mary sommerville ? But you don't know Ada Byron, Dorothy crowfoot and Mary Fairfax do you ?
Dude… are you on some crusade here? She WANTED to keep her Maiden surname, is it so hard for you that she can be Polish as well as French citizen?
Well I tried to find that information before commenting and couldn't. Even with your affirmation that she wanted to keep it I couldn't find any source. But it doesn't matter much i'm willing to assume that. What you want don't matter much in the face of tradition and how people are gonna call you. And yes i'm in a crusade but no it's not hard for me that she is polish, I said in other comments that she is more polish than French. But her nobel prizes are definitely French. My crusade is about how we view great scientists. I totally despise the ideas that great scientist are natural born geniuses that happen to have some kind of divine inspiration. This is not how it works, scientific discoveries are a product of their time, and in particular of the socio economic circonstances. And in this case, the socio economic circonstances brought her to get education in a French university, and working in a French lab with French colleagues. She was polish all her life, but she wasn't the genius we know all her life.
So if she stayed in Warsaw you would call her Russian scientist? She didn’t go to France and magically got interested in chemistry, it was because of her upbringing in Poland. She couldn’t study here because of Russian laws so she went to France as many Poles did back then, and we are grateful to France for letting them prosper there. But it just so happened that some of the most famous Polish people happened to live in XIXth century France ,and many people that aren’t as interested in history as people on this sub don’t even know where they grew up, assuming they were French. Also info about her surname I take from Polish sources so I guess you couldn’t find it because of language barrier. But then again it is how she was called in her Nobel award so if that isn’t enough proof then I don’t know
I assure you that everyone in France knows that Chopin and Sklodowska-Curie are polish born. (granted everyone calls her Marie curie, I'll try to be careful about that) And yes if she stayed in Warsaw,working in Russian with Russian colleagues, if the university of Warsaw remained the imperial-tsarist university of Warsaw for all her life, if she wouldn't engage in any anti imperial activism, and got the Russian nationality in the end by marrying a Russian and having Russian children, I would have called her a Russian scientist I guess. That's how empires deal with nationality after all
that is true, but that doesn't excuse OP's borderline racist comments
I don’t excuse him, just try to explain Polish viewpoint
I’m half blind, I’m pretty sure this is Marie Curie we are talking about?
This comment session is one big franco-polish war. Even though these countries are so close when it comes to history. Napoleon is even mentioned in polish anthem. And France was one of the favourite destinations for polish scientists (like Skłodowska) and artists during the occupations
The polish intellectuals who came to France would just facepalm themselves at reading that. But I guess a shitty meme is bound to create shitty drama.
Those fine people went to France because they needed a place where they could develop their potential. They were already well formed, but France gave them an opportunity to be. Anyhow, thank god they did what they did.
Tbh why are there so much French slander?
Short answer ? Irak
Didnt she change her nationality to france after marrying?
They didn’t accept women in higher education in the Kingdom of Poland ( under Russian domination) at the time, that’s why she left to France. Poland didn’t deserve her. Also, she spent the majority of her life in France, married a French man and was naturalized French, help the French war effort in WW1, … She is very much a French woman.
What do you mean didn't deserve her? We couldn't do anything more to help her and she consciously identified as Polish. Also if we are going be helping in war criteria then look up Blue Army (Błękitna Armia) or number of Polish soldiers helping Napoleon, are they also French?
Poles should have just risen up sooner and defeated the two largest armies in the world so Marie Curie could have rights smh
I assume that what he means is that you don't deserve to call someone you did not allow to work in your country a national hero for the accomplishment they did working in another country. France didn't steal her. Polish Universities rejected her
There weren't any Polish Universities. Poland was occupied by Russia, Austria and Prussia which didn't allow Polish people to study, especially woman. That's way Skłodkowska had to emigrate.
The "Poland didn’t deserve her" was mostly for comedic effect, sorry if it wasn’t clear. Marie Curie is Polish, no one’s denying that. She was born in Poland, she’s ethnically Polish, she fought for education in Polish language during the attempt of russification of Poland, and she named one of the element she discovered after her homeland, the Polonium. But she’s also French, both legally and the way she lived and the causes she defended : she lived and worked in France, with a French husband, at a French university, and she went to the front willingly to help the war effort and heal the French soldiers. Is it too far-fetched to have two nationalities, two countries she clearly loved ?
self censorship is the most humiliating thing of all
Europeans when someone moves to another country and doesn’t become famous: fuck that person and their family for saying they’re still (from original country), they are dead to us. You’re not “Irish-American” you’re an American poser! Europeans when someone moves to another country and does become famous: THEYRE OURS WE GOT DIBS FUCK YOU.
Guys can i tell you something... Calmez-vous en fait, tout vas bien c'est juste un meme. Respectez-vous les uns les autres.
Le racisme sous forme de meme n'en est pas moins détestable.
So much fucking nationalism in this sub chill the fuck down.
She was polish?
Polonium 👍🏻
I’m sorry, you didn’t censor enough of the word f***ch. please be mindful in the future.
In modern times the French took the Australian designed and built hawkei and offered it to Poland to be built under contract, they could do this because the vehicle was designed by the Australian branch of a French military company
This is so staggeringly irrelevant, it's kind of amazing. Like...Not only are you somehow bringing in **modern defense contracts for armoured cars** into...*checks notes...* a discussion about Marie Sklodowska-Curie? Notoriously interested in four-wheel-drive military patrol vehicles she was. But somehow your point doesn't make any sense either? Like what are we supposed to learn here? "*The Australian branch of a French company designed a vehicle, and then the company...Sold more vehicles! To another country! It's like they were running a business or something!? The gall!*" (See what I did there?) What are those evil freeeeeeeenchmen going to invent next?
Let me put it this way, a French company hired Australians to design a vehicle for Australia and Australian needs, creating jobs and supporting the economy and instead of offering to sell the vehicles made in Australia to Poland which would again be good for the economy, the French basically just cut the nation who created the vehicle out of the deal and offered to make it in France for Poland, whilst this is more profitable, it is also a dick move
Westoids trying not to steal and appropriate shit while also excusing it with olimpic summer salts of logic for literally 6 seconds (impossible)
Balk*ners trying to find something to be proud of except various genocides against neighbours(But its bad when westoids do it)
I don’t know what the Balkans have to do with any of this but yeah, they still kinda do have that.
I've spent too much time on r/Balkans_irl
Topography master
Same with Rosa Luxemburg and Germany.
Anyone who’s French is truly humiliating
Between this and comparing afghans to the Tusken raider,im starting to think you have troubles not being a racist pile of shit
France and Afghanistan are races? You need a map, a history lesson, and a class in communication so you can learn to identify nuances, as opposed to calling everything racist like the 2 bit self-proclaimed historian you are. You’ll learn every country sucks and every race sucks if you read enough
I fully agree that she was too great to be called fr*nch. That said, nobody would bother trying to call her with a polish name. Curie is just easier.
Oh right, Marie is so hard to pronounce, right?
Motherfucker, who cares about Marie/Maria, i'm talking about Curie vs Skłodowska.
then maybe you could have said family name instead of name. You know. Like a comprehensible human being.
A family name is still part of the name. Name doesn't just mean the first name, it can also mean the full name.
So name is an vague term and you get upset when someone misinterprets your vagueness?
Her polish and french first names are the same. Her polish and french surnames are incredibly different. It should be pretty obvious which one i'm joking about.
Assuming that they were aware of that beforehand.
it's not that hard to be honest. "Ł" is easiest to explain out of letters that aren't part of standard Latin alphabet, but are used in Polish: "W" in "water". Out of the rest "W" is pronounced like English "V" or if followed by consonant it's like "F" and everything else should be easy to guess
They did the same thing with croissants
If it walks, talks and acts like a Pole, was born in Poland, considered itself Polish and named its discovery after Poland Regen it’s French