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

[Tomasz Wegrzanowski <maniek@xxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jul 12, 2000 at 09:29:43AM +0200, Jerzy Klek wrote:
> 
> 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.

Not sure.

CHANGE IN ESTONIAN POPULATION DUE TO WARS
1558                      250 000
    Livonian War
1640                       70 000
1690                      350 000
    Great Northern War
1712                      170 000
1934                    1 061 300
    World War II
1945                      845 000

( from EXPO brochure "A dozen questions about Estonia",
  Hannover or http://www.expo2000.ee/ )

> 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.

Wait until we'll be writing Chinese or French history :-)
This will be a lot of fun.

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