Poland will celebrate its 100 years of independence (well, sort of if I'd be petty) this year as well, after being gone from the maps and annexed for 123 years. We have clear borders as well - marking the difference between West (and former Prussian part) and East (Russian) or marking existence of our country and culture on the lands that are not ours today - parts of Ukraine, Belarus. Borders more subtle, because they might not be visible with naked eye... but clearly shown in statistics on political views, culture, etc.
I feel the same about decaying monuments as well. Their beauty in decay is only a sign of a former glory, not a new, better quality. And I'd be happy to see more renovated buildings around myself, instead of new (usually soulless) architecture. Cheers!
I’m sure that Poland has issues in respecting part of its monuments as well. Still... I’ve been to Krakow 2 years ago and I have to say I was impressed by the level of reconstruction of the city.
I guess more or less all of the countries around the eastern border had some weird pieces of history regarding the provinces where people of the same language lived. The sad thing is that after a lot of us awaken around 1850-1900, 50 years later Stalin fucked all of us around this border. Cheers to you too man! Thank you for reading.