[Freeciv-Dev] Re: historical background on nations/leaders Was: historical background on wonders

[Jerzy Klek <qpkjeek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Mathias Hasselmann wrote:

> Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> > 
> > On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 10:08:50AM +0200, Mathias Hasselmann wrote:
> > > Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> > > > Please, no.
> > > > National histories are all lies, damn lies and propaganda. :-(
> > >
> > > I believe, if we are careful texts written for FreeCiv could
> > > be relatively truth: Since we live in different countries we are
> > > hopefully not infected completely by the same propaganda...
> > 
> > How many non-Estonians wrote History of Estonia ?
> 
> My (very little) knowledge of Estonian history lets
> me ask the question completely the opposite way:
> "How many *Estonians* wrote History of Estonia?" ;-)
> I know Estonia mostly as member of the Hanseatic
> League were it was not lead by Estonians...
> And in the later time this young nation was occupied
> most of the time - I think.
> 
> Any Estonians or history gurus on the list, who
> can correct me?

Not Estonian, neither history guru but: Estonians are closely
related to Finnish and have been living in Estonia for a few
thousand years (of course not being really Estonians, just a
Ugro-Finnish folk). In 13th century it was conquered by Teutonic 
Knights. By end of 16th century it was taken over by Sweden that
has later grown into a regional power (with a short spell of Polish
rule in southern part of Estonia - btw dispute over Estonia was 
one of the reasons for some polish-swedish wars). In 18th it was
Russia turn to rule Estonia. In the end Estonia has gained its
independence after the end of 1st world war (1918). The independence 
was lost in 1940 when Soviets entered Estonia knowing that noone will 
protest when 2nd World War is being fought. This Soviet rule was
the worst of all foreign rules making a lot of Estonians being
deported to Siberia along with attempts to make them russian.
after the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 Estonians have regained 
their independance.
 
[cut]

As for the rest of your post, one can see that history is a sensitive
issue so it will require a good deal diplomacy to write something that
satisfy everybody :-) But it is really nice to see that people are
interested in it.

Provided that someone do the framework, I am willing to fill some entries
about history of some nations.

/Jerzy