Polish democracy was like MySpace or Altavista, good overall direction but then suddenly failed spectacularly, during Stanisław II Augustus times. He got steamrolled by Catherine the Great.
The second iteration of democracy (like Facebook/Google) build on the other side of the Atlantic aged much much better.
Also, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a multicultural place (officially recognised languages: Polish, Latin, Ruthenian, German, Hebrew, Armenian) and a major European player.
Also, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a multicultural place (officially recognised languages
Although, not absolutely incorrect, it nevertheless sounds like a myth-making here. PLC (which is btw a modern, recently introduced term, the country was literally called Res Publica, Rzecz Pospolita in Polish) started as a union of Polish Kingdom where Polish predictably dominated, and Grand Duchy of Lithuania where Ruthenian was the language of state affairs. Ruthenian is also called Old Belarusian by Belarusians, and Old Ukrainian by Ukrainians and both are correct, because it's all more or less the same language at that time (modern Ukrainian, and Belarusian are still more mutually intelligible then different varieties of German). As eastern, and southern parts of the country were repeatedly thrashed by Russians, and Ottoman Empire, Poland became a dominant part (not the only reason, but I'm trying to be short), so Polish gradually gained the top position as the language of aristocracy, and politics all over the PLC, while other languages receded to unofficial home/family spheres, sometimes keeping official niches at municipal level. German, save for Prussian, and East Baltic lands, was in a very narrow use mostly because it was a sort of international language of Baltic trade, and Latin, as everywhere in Europe, was the language of education, and science. Then there were a number of ethnic, and religious groups such as Jews, Roma, Armenians which had some degree of self-government, so their languages where used in respective communities, but never had state-wide acceptance. Btw, it was not Hebrew which Jews spoke there, it was Yiddish which is very much a different thing. So the talk about 'officially recognized languages' is a little bit misleading as it can make an incorrect impression there were some sort of legal equality. And certainly PLC was polyethnic, with significant cultural variations, but majority of big medieval states in Europe were so. It's an interesting part of European history, with its own unique features, but I don't think making it too sugary makes any sense.
I enjoy that quip a lot, but some spoilsport wrote up that it was actually a translation mishap in the interview, and he was referring to the May 1968 insurrection (just a few years past at the time).
I meant that US Democracy is still younger then Commonwealth political system was when it had started to turn into anarchy and had been abused by plutocracy and foreign powers.
So Americans beware of Russia meddling in your elections... We had been there in XVIII century.. :-)
People overstate the catastrophic like they overstate the flaws of the liberum veto. Note that this system of government worked for hundreds (longer than most even remotely comparable states) of years and matured over time in precedential fashion. The royal elections were surprisingly civil and orderly. The distribution of power was according to principles of subsidiary. The 19th century provided historians an opportunity for overly critical assessments resulting from a combination of Poles looking for the causes behind the failure of their state and invaders rationalizing their partitioning of Poland.
The ultimate failure of the Polish state is complex, involving a confluence of factors including catastrophic invasions, uprisings, foreign meddling, and internal conflict that stifled necessary reforms to deal with all of these.
A good, short introduction to the development of the Polish state from the 10th century onward is Adam Zamoyski's "Poland: A History"[0].
> Włodkowic strongly supported the idea of conciliarism and pioneered the notion of peaceful coexistence among nations – a forerunner of modern theories of human rights.
In short Włodkowic argumented at 'International Tribunal' during the 1414 Concil of Constance that Teutonic Order cannot justify it's violence and conquest of neighbours just because they are pagans. That was some years before Columbus..
At that time it was customary for European knights to come as guest to Prussia and take part in military expeditions against pagans as a sort of hunting excercise (razzia).
His book "De Optimo Senatore" was highly influential abroad including Britain. Apparently, parts of his writings were the inspiration for the character of Polonius in Hamlet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/07/world/europe/kosciusko-be...
> “Belarus did not even exist when he was born,” said Veslav Wychodzki, a retiree from Poland who traveled to Kosava recently to pay tribute to Kosciuszko. “This was Polish land. They only put up a statue to him last year and never really talked about him before.”
> Mr. Nesterchuk, the Belarus historian, said: “The Poles say he belongs to them. The Lithuanians, the Ukrainians say the same thing. The Americans, too.”
> “But I always say that Kosciuszko does not belong to anyone,” Mr. Nesterchuk added. “He belongs to the whole world as a true democrat and a fighter for freedom.”
Another similar figure was Pułaski. Came to America in similar circumstances, achievements included the saving of George Washington's life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski
That's awesome! One thing I want Poland to have is to have more of these types of heros, to challenge their views and help them to shed their stereotypes. Poland's becoming too conservative lately. Great news for intersex people too, they can be proud.
BTW, another interesting thing about Pułaski is the sizable inheritance he left behind. The land that later Chicago and perhaps Philadelphia was built on. Would be worth trillions now. Nobody claimed it.
Chicago (a city with many Polish immigrants) celebrates Casimir Pulaski day on the first Monday of March. Up until 2012 the Chicago Public School system had the day off.
American pilot volunteers fighting along Poland during Polish-Bolschevik war of 1920 named their squadron after Kościuszko.
Polish Squadron 303 fighting during Battle of Britain had been continuing traditions of American Pilots.
> Perhaps the most famous successor to the original Kościuszko Squadron would be the World War II No. 303 "Kościuszko" Polish Fighter Squadron (Warszawski im. Tadeusza Kościuszki), the most successful fighter squadron in the Battle of Britain.
New York City just finished replacing the Kosciuszko Bridge, a critical segment of the BQE (I278). Most people in New York say "the koss-key-oss-ko bridge", though my understanding is that the pronunciation is more like "Ko-shuz-kuh"?
Neither :). It’s a pretty hard word for people outside Poland. I would say it’s pronounced more like “Kosh-choosh-kuh”. It still won’t be perfect, but close enough.
These kind of shenanigans are exactly why Mr. Karadžić [1] pushed for an orthographic alphabet in Serbia, and why it quickly got adopted by neighbors as well.
Indeed, it's one of the peculiarities of the Polish language that it has Slavic phonetics but a Latin alphabet. Hence why typically Slavic phonemes, which in Cyrillic are represented by single letters (such as sh = ш), in Polish get represented with two (sz), and why you need a double-letter context to know how to pronounce a given sequence of characters.
Unfortunately, back in the 10th century, the choice of an alphabet was essentially a pure consequence of whom the first ruler of Poland would adopt Christianity from: the Western part of the Church (this was before the official Schism) or the Rus (Ruthenia). The Rus had a liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, and for the liturgical books they adopted an alphabet, the Glagolitic (a predecessor to the Cyrillic), which was more suitable for the phonetics of the language (and, indeed, of Slavic languages in general). Poland adopted the Latin liturgy and the alphabet was part of the “package”.
Unfortunatelly, neither. Main problem with his surname is the ‘ś’ (proper spelling is ‘Kościuszko’), which doesn’t appear in English at all. The closest equivalent I can think of is Japanese sound at the beginning of words such as ‘shinobi’, which I guess English-speaking people still pronounce like ‘sh’ in ‘fish’…
And then there’s ‘ci’, which is pronounced similar to ‘s’…
The closest I can get is ‘Koshch-oosh-kuh’, but that’s still not it (that would be spelled ‘Koszczuszko’).
Similar to the tallest mountain in Australia, named after the same person and in general people pronounce it Ko-zee-os-ko. My father was particularly proud to correct people's pronunciation of it and to try and get them to say it the proper Polish way.
There is a small town in Mississippi named Kosciusko, and they pronounce it kosi-'uhskoh, or, in IPA, /ˌkɒsiˈʌskoʊ/. It's not far from my mother's home town and it is the home town of James Meredith and Oprah Winfrey.
If you listen to NYC traffic reports on AM radio(1010 WINS)where this bridge is mentioned almost daily its pronounced "Koz Cuse Ko." I have never heard anybody use the pronunciation you are referring to.
Growing up near Middle Village, I only heard “koz-e-oos-ko” or “koz-e-us-ko”. Have lived in Brooklyn & Manhattan ever since, and the same there. Definitely don’t listen to the radio. Can you find any clips where they say it this way on NY1... literally have never heard it that way.
What strikes me the most whenever I read about this period is how no-hassle moving between countries used to be. For some reason we think of the modern world as finally "global" and "open", but it doesn't necessarily seem as such when you try to get a visa.
That's an overly romanticized view. Moving long distances was slow and/or expensive. There was little in the way of international banking, so if you wanted to have money in your new home, you had to bring gold or silver or sell other things. If you were robbed, you were pretty much out of luck -- insofar as there were police forces, they weren't much concerned about foreigners.
It's true that you now have to cope with passports and visas, but for most places you might choose to emigrate to, you can expect a more or less fair police force, shops that will take your credit card, ATMs that will translate your money, and Internet to talk to people back home.
Well yes, I understand that this is the price of increased convenience for an average person. I simply feel that there's a certain sense of irony in those new barriers been erected as the old ones fall. Now it's harder to pull a Kosciuszko but easier to post pictures of your vacation on instagram, that's the trade-off here.
Before if someone traveled half way around the world to enter your country you let them in because clearly they were rich or industrious enough to get there in the first place. The deadbeats were excluded by the difficulty of actually traveling. Taxes were minimal and services were minimal so if you let a bunch of poors or refugees or whatever in and half of them did nothing productive it was no big deal either way. Now that any deadbeat can travel across the world and literacy/information is widely available (so the poor in country A know how good things are in country B) many nations have social safety nets countries try to pick and choose who gets in.
Edit: And before anyone thinks they're gonna score cheap virtue points by calling me racist/classist, I'm not using "deadbeat" as a dog whistle for any group(s). I'm talking about people who will be a net negative (definition is ever changing and subject to politics and whatnot) if they stay permanently.
It seems like you're the one trying to score 'cheap virtue points' by signaling your dislike of people you consider to be economic freeloaders to people of similar temperament.
One of the weaknesses of utilitarianism is that it's predicated on an assumption of reliable foresight that's not grounded in fact but is subject to all sorts of selection and confirmation biases.
I notice every time I read about some historical figure too. They just seem to hop in boats and end up in foreign countries willy-nilly.
But I think it's important to remember that we only read the stories of typically-wealthy, often aristocratic people who accomplished enough to have their lives remembered for hundreds of years. There's a lot of survivorship bias here. For every Kosciusko, there's a thousand 17th century people who never once left the village they were born in.
I'm not sure if this comment is serious or sarcasm. Today, for those rich enough to own estates, it is very easy to move between countries, as it always has. Today, it is also much easier than in the past for those not as fortunate to move between countries. How can this be so, given the often onerous immigration requirements between countries? Well, a Polish (or any other European) peasant would have been considered part of the land (the way a house or a well is a fixture on the land it occupies), and would have had to have the permission of his local landowner to even leave the plot of land he/she is fixed to. Moreover, try finding a country who wanted more peasants. There has always been anti-migration sentiment when it came to the poor; the highly regulated, but still slow, systems we have today are a clear improvement over the past impossibility.
I'm not being sarcastic at all. In particular, during the Age of Mass Migration, it was very common for the oldest son who was to inherit the land because of primogeniture to stay home and for his landless young brothers to go try their luck in the New World.
> In particular, during the Age of Mass Migration, it was very common for the oldest son who was to inherit the land because of primogeniture to stay home and for his landless young brothers to go try their luck in the New World.
So, if you belonged to a class where any one of your father's sons was inheriting anything, then you were part of the upper class. The eldest son of peasants could expect the same as his brothers -- an inability to form an estate, acquire meaningful wealth (in the form of capital), and a life of grueling servitude.
It is ludicrous to suggest that it is harder today for the poor to migrate than before. It is much much easier.
I feel the same when reading books or watching films about people doing that in the 50s or the 80s. “Let me just go to Italy and live there for a year.” Completely legally, as far as I can tell, and without being bound by five-year employment contracts. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure few Western countries want more lowly software developers.
> ... you probably haven’t heard of Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kosciuszko. Nor can you spell it or pronounce it; join the club, but we’re working on it.
The largest mountain in Australia is named after him.
So most Australians know, and can pronounce, his surname at the very least.
Yeah, the wikipedia article addresses this somewhat;
The name of the mountain was previously spelt "Mount Kosciusko", an Anglicisation, but the spelling "Mount Kosciuszko" was officially adopted in 1997 by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. The traditional English pronunciation of Kosciuszko is /kɒziːˈʌskoʊ/, but the pronunciation /kɒˈʃʊʃkoʊ/ is now sometimes used, which is substantially closer to the Polish pronunciation [kɔɕˈt͡ɕuʂkɔ]
You're not wrong unfortunately. It hurts me on a few levels when I hear the pronunciation butchered by pretty much all Australians. I understand why / don't hold it against them, but it's still totally wrong pronounciation.
Created an account to just to say that Australians have no idea how to pronounce this name. As an Australian I worked with a polish guy, the only thing he knew about Australia was the name of its tallest mountain. I had forgotten at the time and when he said "mount coz chiz ko" I knew something was wrong. We call it "mount cozzie osko"
"The dude lived a metal life and I have no idea why there hasn’t been a movie made about him."
There are many historical figures that should have movies made about them.
i.e Witold Pilecki who volunteered for Auschwitz
- the whole team of the guys who decrypted Enigma (and I'm not talking about Brits.) - Rejewski, Zygalski and Rozycki
- mathematicians of the Lwow School of Mathematics and their Scottish Book
and many more.
But in reality there are thousands of scientists, explorers, soldiers, activits and politicians all of the planet, that deserve to be known by a wider audience, but they are being ignored by the Anglo-Saxons and their propaganda machine.
What are some of the people that deserve to be known by wider audience but are only known in your countries?
> being ignored by the Anglo-Saxons and their propaganda machine.
Polish propaganda machine is largely ignori ng the king of Poland (Tsar Alexander I), who had given to Poland the most democratic constitution of the time in Europe.
Also role of Tsar Alexander II is largely ignored in Polish history a ruler who succesfully abolished serfdom in Poland (a task where Kościuszko failed) and introduced custom union between Poland and Russia starting the largest economic boom in Polish history.
What is nation?
A group of people united in mistaken view about the past and hatred of their neighbours.
Tsar Alexander II was the ruler of the occupying nation, so forgive us for not considering him one of the best rulers in our history. Perhaps if Russia didn't partition Poland, Kosciuszko would have successfully abolished serfdom long before Russians even thought about doing it, so sorry for not being thankful for his great contributions.
Claims like this are essentially impossible to have a reasonable historical discussion about, because they do not concern history but rather alternative history, and the two are mostly disjoint. One is concerned with facts, the other – with fantasy. And facts are more interesting and meaningful.
When it comes to facts, it's worth understanding why Russia took part in the partitions of Poland (hint: as is well-known, Catherine the Great was the most hesitant of all the three rulers to take such an action). To have a better grasp of this highly propagandized (in typically Polish martyrological shades) period of history, I recommend the book The History of Stupidity in Poland by Aleksander Bocheński.
Thanks for the recommendation, I will definitely add it to my list .
So there is no misunderstanding - I agree with everything you said, however, the problem with facts when looking at history, are that we're really don't know all of them. Just look at the situation today - every country has it's own propaganda machine, trying to spin the truth so they can present their point of view as THE facts. In 200 years the facts will be not what really happened, but what we can piece from the few articles and books that will survive. And who knows how close to the real truth they will be?
But the truth usually is somewhere in the middle.
The idea behind my original post was to get people to give me some names of the important figures from their countries, so I can learn more about their history, views, and heroes. I don't want not to talk about the complicated history of one nation, but about these ignored (by the western society) heroes of exploration, science, politics that we never talk about because - how many people really know history of Tibet, or Uganda or.. _fill the blanks_. How many people heard about __ who discovered ____ but lived in a _____ so only few people heard about them?
But we can't talk about that because someone has to prove why your side is as bad, or worst as my side.. FFS
Tsar Alexander II had been killed by bomb thrown by Ignacy Hryniewiecki Polish person and part of Russian Narodnaya Vola conspiracy. Tsars bodyguard had been Polish noble.
I think people of XIX century would be laugh your narrow nationalistic schooling.
History is complicated, I know. And I've never claimed that Alexander didn't abolish serfdom, or even that he was a bad ruler. All I'm trying to say is nobody should be surprised that his accomplishments are not part of the school curriculum as he was simply an occupier.
That's not the history, as you just admitted yourself: he abolished serfdom and started a period of unprecedented prosperity in Polish history (when the Polish city Łódź had gone from a village to become one of the main industrial centers in the whole of Europe), among many other things. The list could go on but the point is this: you pick statements that suit your feelings and therefore are not even close to serve as an objective description of a historical figure.
I would even argue, as a separate point, that he wasn't an “occupier” at all, much like Donald Trump is not an “occupier” of Native American lands.
I think there are grounds to be surprised and dissatisfied when the school curriculum teaches kids shallow, anti-intellectual ressentiments, instead of actual history, with all its shades of gray. And when it does that, it's awful for their future. Indeed, as one great Polish historian once said, false history is a mistress of false politics. Mistress in the old Shakespearean sense. Although the modern alternate meaning of the word gives the saying quite an appropriate twist…
> when the Polish city Łódź had gone from a village to become one of the main industrial centers in the whole of Europe
To what degree it was his doing though? Industrial revolution was happening all over Europe, so what Tzar had to do with it? (I'm genuinely asking). I imagine that maybe he approved projects for building railroads which allowed industry to flourish, but otherwise I am out of ideas.
Well, this isn't so much a question of whether there was progress at all, because, as you're saying, the industry was booming all over Europe, but a question of what parts of the Russian Empire would benefit from it the most. One would think that a Russian Emperor would do everything to make sure that it's the metropolis that gets the cake, not the peripheries. All the more that Russia had been lagging in the industrial development, as would later be brutally demonstrated during the Revolution of 1917, so focusing on the western provinces would seem like a misinvestment (clearly, in the case of a war they would be the first ones to be chopped off). Of course, I'm not saying Alexander II was a covert lover of all things Polish. In fact, at times he, just like Alexander I during the Kingdom of Poland era (1815–1831), would have to back down under the pressure of the Saint Petersburg elites, who were not happy with a favourable policy towards Poland. Intuitively, one would think that a Russian emperor would put the interests of the metropolis first, and use, or even exhaust, the peripheries for the good of it. It's what the British Empire would do, for sure. ;-) Yet, under Alexanders I & II it was different. Which is why I think he deserves a radically more nuanced description than an occupier.
"I would even argue, as a separate point, that he wasn't an occupier at all, much like Donald Trump is not an occupier of Native American lands."
Alexanders policies against Poles were direct result of the January Uprising. Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainina and Belarusian languages were banned, and many people were sent to Siberia. You're comparing this to current situation of Native Americans? That's a joke right?
I know what your trying to say, but to my point - do we have any military insurrection of Native Americans going on right now? And I know you hate speculations but if in 200 years Native Americans regain their independence, do you think they will not think about every American president as an occupier?
No, there's no insurrection of Native Americans going on. And they can, if they wish to, speak their indigenous languages, and are not being expelled to Alaska. Indeed, you properly identified the cause-and-effect relationship between imprudent and reckless insurrections, and the repressions that follow. That link is the reason why so many residents of the Kingdom of Poland were strongly against insurrections at the time when they were provoked. And it is the very same reason why there was no such thing in Finland, which was also part of the Russian Empire. Finland, in contrast to Poland, kept its autonomy the whole time, and patiently waited for the right moment to say “cards up” to try to separate from the Empire and have an independent state, which was at the end of World War I.
And how do you know that the right moment will ever arrive? And when it arrives how would you know that it is the right time? If Poles waited until 1918, and gain their independence, but lost war of 1920 would you also claim that they simply made mistake - again? Maybe the repressions that we the result of insurrections where what solidified Polish nation, and helped us win independence in 1918.
Are Kurds wrong trying to fight for their independence? Probably ,in your opinion they would be better of if they just "waited for the right time"?
> And how do you know that the right moment will ever arrive? And when it arrives how would you know that it is the right time?
It's called political realism, so you look at the reality, do an analysis and try to draw conclusions based on a calculation of chances of success/failure and potential benefits and losses compared with the status quo. You look at how strong you are, and how strong is your opponent. You look at how much you have now and how much you could possibly gain. You look at who else could benefit from your action, and whether those foreign parties are not provoking you to take a certain course of action in their interest, not yours (the classical question cui bono?). Sadly, the ones who were bothered to do any of this, were being marginalized, and in today's pop historical discourse (fortunately, not the scientific one) are often referred to as predators or collaborators. And Fins were smarter than that.
When it comes to Poland regaining independence in 1918, the role of "us" is often blatantly overestimated in the Polish historical mythology. First of all, there wasn't really an us. There was a land-owning class and there were peasants, with often conflicting interests. The land-owning class would do just fine without an independent state (well, it became a concern for them after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, for obvious reasons), and the peasants were bothered not so much about independence but who would give them right to land, and who would not. Their varying role in the 1920 war gives us a good idea about this. Second, while the role of the very blurred us is overestimated, what gets neglected is the role of foreign powers, who were drawing the maps of the post-war Europe. And here, I'm afraid, they couldn't care less about how many hazardous insurrections the Poles pulled off in the 19th century. All that mattered was that the Western Europe needed a cordon sanitaire between them and the Soviet Russia that'd protect the interests of the capitalistic model from a foreign intervention (this was way before the Bolsheviks settled on building socialism in their own country). Plus, the Anglo-Saxons needed a political arm in Central Europe, which would serve as an instrument in their policy of keeping Germany and Russia conflicted or at a distance, in the spirit of their perennial divide and conquer strategy towards continental Europe. And even the Polish representatives, whose signatures can be found under the Treaty of Versailles, were indeed the realists (national democrats), not the romantic insurrectionists.
I don't know too much about Kurds and their political situation, so I won't be making opinionated statements.
For instance, the polonaise attributed to Kosciuszko might have been composed by someone else. Wikipedia reports the composition as fact, but https://polishmusic.usc.edu/research/dances/polonaise/ suggests otherwise.
Mawson Peak has a claim as Australia's highest mountain.
Wikipedia claims that there are three Australian mountains higher than Mount Kosciuszko, but two of them are on land that only a few countries recognise as Australian.
Lafayette Square across from the White House has a statue of Jackson in the middle. (A duplicate of the one in Jackson Square in New Orleans.) The corners have statues of European-born heroes of the revolution. From SE around to NE, they are of Lafayette, Rochambeau, Von Steuben, and Kosciusko.
There is a statue of Pulaski not far away, about Pennsylvania and 12th NW.
I'm curious why the hell is his name anglicised. It should be Tadeusz Kościuszko. In reverse it would be like writing Albert Einstein as Albert Ajsztain in Polish, because that's how it's pronounced. No one ever does this.
It was anglicized so that most of their readers can actually pronounce it. In the article they provide the original name. We do this all the time in Poland: Ludwik XIV instead of Luis XIV, Jerzy Waszyngton instead of George Washington, and gazillion other historical figures. Nowadays maybe a bit less popular but definitely a thing. So “no one ever does this” is not really true, is it?
You're absolutely correct, I was trying to think of some examples of this happening in Polish before writing my comment, but I couldn't think of any, but you're obviously correct. There's a few famous foreign characters which are usually Polish-icized(?), Szekspir is another as someone else commented.
It's not "a bit less popular", but pretty much abandoned (apart from by some diehard conservatives such as Korwin-Mikke). Noone translates first names anymore, nor do we use phonetical spelling for the last names.
It's not by coincidence that "Jerzy Waszyngton" or "Izak Niuton", "Szekspir" etc. are hardly 20th century figures.
Have you ever seen "Ryszard Nikson" or "Stefan Hołking" in print? :) Like, once in your life? Exactly... So much for the "a bit less popular nowadays"...
In the exact same way that people say "Yuri Gagarin" instead of Ю́рий Гага́рин.
I work with several Polish people who intentionally anglicise their names due to the phonetics being awkward / not existing in English (E.g. Tomasz Vs Thomas).The same with German and Chinese people - it's either for convenience or a best approximation.
It's absolutely not the same way, because Юрий is in different writing system. There's widely accepted tradition that names originally written with Latin letters are preserved as is in other languages using Latin letters (with exception of diacritical parts). Which makes a lot of sense, actually, because you at least know that's the same person/place whether it's in Hungarian, or French. And you can't enforce proper pronunciation anyway.
Maybe not in Polish (nor in Slovak) but in same languages this is indeed the usual way to import foreign words and also names. I seem to remember Bulgarian or Serbian film posters with Жан Рено (Jean Reno), because that's how it's pronounced. Also I think several East-Asian languages do this.
It's not the same thing. When you need to import a name which is originally written in one writing system to another (here: Latin-based to Cyrillic) you have no other choice, but to re-write it.
Kościuszko had been venerated as a saint during communism in Poland (first Polish Division formed in Sovitet Union was named after him, my school was named after him and many others). But today is omitted from history and forgotten.
The problem with Kosciuszko (and some other Polish officers of the era like Jakub Jasiński) is that they were deadly serious with abolishing slavery in America and serfdom in Poland (basically the same institution), giving full citizenship rights to all human beeings and liquidating privileged landowning class (szlachta - nobility).
This did not sit well with people who hijacked narrative of Polish history - descendants of landowning class bancrupted by Industrial Revolution in second half of XIX century. They romanticesed good old days of szlachta and have always perceived Kosciuszko as troblesome figure and rabble rouser.
This is absolutely false. I'm a student in Poland so I'm fresh on this and - politics aside - he is a very big figure in Polish history books, and everybody knows about him.
(The Kościuszko Insurrection is one of the more important dates, that each student is supposed to remember)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_elections_in_Poland
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-president-how-and...