Russia Ukraine war, page-1113

@TonEdi - My mother was born in a village called 'Hohenau an der March' on the River March, which forms the border to what is now Slovakia - then it was Czechoslovakia - her Mum never learnt to speak German - I didn't know that grandmother. She came from a far-flung (then - now it would be 3 hours by train) village on the Polish border of what is now Slovakia, she had 10 children, three didn't survive, one died from the Spanish flu, et. etc.

My mum totally identified as Austrian, so did her brothers and sisters, despite their Slavic surname - the entire village had a predominance of Slavic names - I know because I looked up church registers going back 200 years (on-line!!) - but they had lived there for generations. The sad thing about the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire was that the Hungarians became quite dominant among the different groups of people and the Czechs, who are an intelligent and industrious people, got short-changed in the power games around the emperor.

Re your experience:
It's news to me that these villages were given a choice, because these matters were dealt with by the victors after WWII - and when the communist regime was toppled there were no new borders drawn between Czechoslovakia and the West (Austria) at least not to my knowledge, maybe the odd village got a choice?.

If you read up on the Turkish wars, they fought retreat battles along the coast of Yugoslavia - even after the decisive battle at Belgrade (1717); where they were defeated by "Prinz Eugen of Savoy"a brilliant strategist and driven out of Belgrade, which they had occupied for over 100 years.

Yes, Sobieski was a Godsend, and he made the decisive surprise attack on the Turkish encampment, because he came from the unexpected North, the Kahlenberg, or Leopoldsberg, can't remember now. I remember long walks with my mum along those hills - the Vienna Woods . . .

I am boring you with this little insight into my life, because I think it might be instructive to show people what a multi-cultured ethnic carpet Europe has always been, and this holds true for the Ukraine as well.

Anyway, I am an Aussie now!! and loving it!
Go well
Taurisk