--- Andy F <andy274 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Interesting. The Czechs, by comparison, tend to
> show a lot of disdain
> for any pretensions of high birth, often to the
> point of conceit. I
> always figured this was because they formed the
> servant class to the
> Habsburgs for 300 years, with an icing of socialist
> mores. They lost
> their native aristocracy in 1620 and regard that as
> a national
> disaster, but didn't the Poles lose theirs not long
> after?
>
Woj knows better than I, but my understanding is that the Polish aristocracy was not destroyed until quite late. The Russian Empire tended to vassalize local elites, not wipe them out.
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