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This is a question to all the Balkan Nationals and Central Europeans esp. the History minded group out there-
Now i know for sure no one in their worst nightmare wants the Tsar Back but what about the Kaiser- here i mean the Kaiser in Hapsburg terms.
Austria was not Russia with all the Pogroms or Germany with military discipline or France with its strict Catholic and French Language imposition instead it was more like my own country Bharat/India is - had it been a monarchy still (Personally, i am a monarchist at heart though i am related to no monarch).
Seeing the terrible balkan and central european history from 1914 to 2014, how many agree?

Shri wrote:This is a question to all the Balkan Nationals and Central Europeans esp. the History minded group out there-
Now i know for sure no one in their worst nightmare wants the Tsar Back but what about the Kaiser- here i mean the Kaiser in Hapsburg terms.
Austria was not Russia with all the Pogroms or Germany with military discipline or France with its strict Catholic and French Language imposition instead it was more like my own country Bharat/India is - had it been a monarchy still (Personally, i am a monarchist at heart though i am related to no monarch).
Seeing the terrible balkan and central european history from 1914 to 2014, how many agree?

Well, my family comes from Czech and Romanian stock, that's not quite IN the Balkans, so I'm not sure how much legitimacy I have to speak with.
I think, overall, for its time, being under the Hapsburgs was okay, considering the alternatives. I think people everywhere, almost all the time, can be pretty savage to anyone who is different. Maybe a unified nation like Austria-Hungary could have kept things together a bit better then the mess that happened after WWII in the Balkans, but I think historically the Balkans have always been a bit more savage then, say, western Europe. The reason the stuff in this last century sticks out more, in my opinion, is because modern times is really good at bringing us all kinds of information, quicker and more...accurate? Then they could ever in 1914.
But the Balkans where always a huge mixing pot of things to fight about, even before the 1900, Warring religious ideas of Catholic vs. Protestant vs Greek Orthodox vs. Islam, the Crusades, the Muslim invasion to the gates of Vienna. The Balkans have always been a hotbed, and decent chunk of the fighting wasn't just for land, but for ideas, culture, religion, and way of life.
So I think the Hapsburgs where probably a good thing to have around when they where running about!
I'm a monarchist at heart myself! But I'm glad the Czech's don't have a Hapsburg on a throne, the Hapsburgs where German(ish), and the Czechs are Slavs, I'd rather see a Tsar then a Kaiser on a Czech throne for that. :-)
But I wouldn't mind seeing a true blooded Czech royal line sitting on a throne there. Unfortunately, it cant be my family, my families last name was Bespalec, which means "Without Thumbs" and they where all illegitimate bastards. :-)

Romania is definitely part-Balkan if not whole. Yes, i am aware of the various Ottoman marches and the Hapsburg counter marches with Catholic, Orthodox and Sunni-Islam cocktail thrown in.
Czechs having a TSAR, now that is funny and interesting, the only Tsar that ruled the Czechs were the Andropov-Brezhnev combo and it didn't turn out that well.
On the other hand, Bohemia was a part of HRE and had a vote on the elite council electing the emperor.
Hapsburgs were wholly German, no denying, all i am saying is that- Hapsburgs were Hapsburg first and German second, they changed their colours, language etc as when the situation demanded and thus were more like modern day politicians.

Well I met the would-be heir to the throne once - his name is Ferdinand, 17 years old and trying to get a professional race career going in Formula Renault He races as Ferdinand Habsburg.

He is a nice kid and really just a regular kid interested in fast cars and girls
And I got the impression he didn't like to talk much about his family's history though he does carry a double eagle on his race car.

Shri wrote:Romania is definitely part-Balkan if not whole. Yes, i am aware of the various Ottoman marches and the Hapsburg counter marches with Catholic, Orthodox and Sunni-Islam cocktail thrown in.
Czechs having a TSAR, now that is funny and interesting, the only Tsar that ruled the Czechs were the Andropov-Brezhnev combo and it didn't turn out that well.
On the other hand, Bohemia was a part of HRE and had a vote on the elite council electing the emperor.
Hapsburgs were wholly German, no denying, all i am saying is that- Hapsburgs were Hapsburg first and German second, they changed their colours, language etc as when the situation demanded and thus were more like modern day politicians.

Hehe! Granted I'm sure any Tsar ruling Czech lands wasn't the greatest thing to happen. But the Czech culture group has a bit more in common with Russian then with German, if not by only by language alone. Even to this day I can speak Czech to a Pole or a Russian, and they can speak their native tongue back to me, and we can both understand what the other is saying and communicate.
To be fair. Bohemia was ruled on and off by Hapsburgs from 1437, and they did marry into the previous royal family, so...I cant really complain. Then those previous bloodlines did mix and match all over the place looking for alliances, mostly with German neighbors, so its all a big mess anyways.
My favorite pipe dream about Bohemia is having this badass Jan Zizka succeed in his rebellion and begin his own reign :-P [ATTACH]31959[/ATTACH]

Freddie_2 wrote:Well I met the would-be heir to the throne once - his name is Ferdinand, 17 years old and trying to get a professional race career going in Formula Renault He races as Ferdinand Habsburg.

He is a nice kid and really just a regular kid interested in fast cars and girls
And I got the impression he didn't like to talk much about his family's history though he does carry a double eagle on his race car.

That's pretty neat!

Freddie_2 wrote:Well I met the would-be heir to the throne once - his name is Ferdinand, 17 years old and trying to get a professional race career going in Formula Renault He races as Ferdinand Habsburg.

He is a nice kid and really just a regular kid interested in fast cars and girls
And I got the impression he didn't like to talk much about his family's history though he does carry a double eagle on his race car.

Cool!
Double Eagled Driver eh! Interesting also that he has dropped the 'von'.


@Jinx.
Not read about that guy, but if that 'Pic' is true, then he has my vote.
The mustache and eye-patch combo rocks!.

I think humanity had to pass from the multinational empires to national states to mature. Today we go, at least in Europe, back to multinational empires with the EU. Has pros and cons.

I still say just let me run the whole world and it would be better off

Mind you I think the Balkans would have erupted at some point, with or without the Hapsburg, Yugoslavia, etc being in the mix. Heck I still think it is a very volatile area is it not?

well there is a huge difference in apoach of poles and czechs toward russian

this can be noticed even now with tottaly different stand on security issues and Ukraine crissis

genneraly Poles would associate themselves more with germans than with russians, seeing russians as a main challange and a competitor

and as for the main question here

there was a strong pro austrian line among poles before 1914, loads of them were hopping to somewhow unite polish teritory under habsburg line, and create a third part of the austria hungary
other reasson for that was relative closnes beetween elites of poland and austria hungary - aristocratic and multicultural - there were quite a lot of poles running austri hungary as these guy for example

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenor_Maria_Go%C5%82uchowski

at the end of the day these option won with polish auxiliary units formed with austrians getting power and recrating polish statehood

the other intersting thing about habsburgs is that one of the lines of this fammily polonized

here is habsburg in a polish army uniform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Leo_Karl_of_Austria



btw - i am polish, with german family name , my grandfather fought agaist germany during the war just to be arested with his brother by russians in 1945
his brother, a polish officer, arested by russians was put in to gulag camp with german soldiers....

history goes very strange ways....

even with frau merkel having some polish orgins

"...Merkel has Polish ancestry through her paternal grandfather, Ludwig Kasner, a German national[16] of Polish origin from Posen (now Poznań .[17] The family's original name Kaźmierczak was Germanized to Kasner in 1930.[18][19..."

and grand father of the polish prime minister beeing able to serve both in polish and german army during WW2 ( with a short break for contration camp....

Jinx wrote:Hehe! Granted I'm sure any Tsar ruling Czech lands wasn't the greatest thing to happen. But the Czech culture group has a bit more in common with Russian then with German, if not by only by language alone. Even to this day I can speak Czech to a Pole or a Russian, and they can speak their native tongue back to me, and we can both understand what the other is saying and communicate.
To be fair. Bohemia was ruled on and off by Hapsburgs from 1437, and they did marry into the previous royal family, so...I cant really complain. Then those previous bloodlines did mix and match all over the place looking for alliances, mostly with German neighbors, so its all a big mess anyways.
My favorite pipe dream about Bohemia is having this badass Jan Zizka succeed in his rebellion and begin his own reign :-P [ATTACH]31959[/ATTACH]

despite how absurd it seems to me, there are lot of czech people's looking back to dual monarchy with great sentiment and there is even political party for monarchy restoration. but i think there are different problems to solve today. i believe concept of a state is about to die in near future. rather than bringing back old monarchs i'm more into hyperspace travelling

The problem a lot of people have with monarchs, nobility or emperors is that they act as if they are better, a different kind of human than the rest of us.
I find this whole idea really outdated. Sure I can see how some people like the grandeur of a monarchy, to me, it's something of the past and really in contrast
to what we try to achieve: equality for everybody.
I hate it if people act as if they are better, and a lot of powerful people do this.