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Silesia
 

Silesia (; ; ; Silesian: Ślonsk / Ślónsk) is a historical region in central Europe. Most of it is now within the borders of Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Silesia is located along the upper and middle Oder (Odra) river and along the Sudetes mountain range. The largest cities of Silesia are Wrocław and Katowice.

In the Middle Ages, Silesia was a Piast Duchy, which subsequently became a possession of the Bohemian crown under the Holy Roman Empire and passed with that crown to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1526. In 1742, most of Silesia was seized by Frederick the Great of Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession. This part of Silesia constituted the Prussian provinces of Upper and Lower Silesia until 1945, when most of the German part of Silesia became part of Poland. The portion of Silesia that was retained by Austria is now within the borders of the Czech Republic.

Most of Silesia lies within modern Poland, whose part is divided within the following voivodships (provinces):

The Opole and Silesian Voivodships are called Upper Silesia. The small portion in the Czech Republic known as Czech Silesia forms, with the northern part of Moravia, the Moravian-Silesian Region of that country, while the remainder forms a small part of the Olomouc Region.

Traditionally, Silesia was bounded by the Kwisa and Bobr rivers, while the territory west of the Kwisa was Upper Lusatia (earlier Milsko). However, because part of it was included in the Prussian province of Lower Silesia, in Germany the Niederschlesischer Oberlausitzkreis and Hoyerswerda are considered parts of Silesia. Those districts, along with the Lower Silesian Voivodship, make up the geographic region of Lower Silesia.

Name of the region

One theory claims that the name Silesia is derived from the Silingi, which most likely were a Vandalic people, who supposedly lived south of the Baltic Sea along the Elbe, Oder, and Vistula rivers in the 2nd century. When the Silingi moved from the area during the Migration Period, they left remnants of their society behind.

The most evident remnants are in the names of places, which were imposed(in Slavic form) by the new inhabitants, who were in fact Slavic (Polish Śląsk, Old Polish Śląžsk Old Slavic *Sьlьąžьskъ *). These people became associated with the place, and were thenceforth known as Silesians (using a Latinized form of the name, Pol. Ślężanie), even though they had little in common with the original Silingi. Archeological finds from the 7th and 8th centuries have also uncovered former largely populated areas, protected by a dense system of fortifications from the west and south. The lack of such systems from the north or east supports the notion that Silesia was populated by early Slavic tribes from the 5th to the 13th century. But because Germanic Goths settled in the East, while Slavic Wends lived in the West of Silesia in these times, the fortifications do not support any nationalistic theory.

History

Early people

Silesia was inhabited by various people that belonged to changing archeological cultures in the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.

The first written sources about Silesia came down from the Egyptian Claudius Ptolemaeus (Magna Germania) and the Roman Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (Germania). According to Tacitus, the 1st century Silesia was inhabited by a multi-ethnic league dominated by the Lugii. The Silingi were also part of this federation, and most likely a Vandalic people that lived south of the Baltic Sea in the Elbe, Oder, and Vistula river areas. Also, other East Germanic tribes inhabited the scarcely populated region.

Middle ages

After 500 the Great Migration had induced the bulk of the original East Germanic tribes leave Silesia and wander through Southern Europe, while from the east Slavic tribes occupied the Silesian lands.

Early documents mention a couple of mostly (postulated) Slavic tribes most probably living in Silesia. The Bavarian Geographer (ca. 845) specifies the following peoples: the Slenzanie, Dzhadoshanie, Opolanie, Lupiglaa, and Golenshitse. A document of a bishopric from Prague (1086) also mentions the Zlasane, Trebovyane, Poborane, and Dedositze.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the territory later called Silesia was part ofGreat Moravia, Moravia, and then Bohemia in the neighbouring area within today's Czech Republic to the south. About 990, Silesia was annexed into Poland by Mieszko I (although some historians give this date as 999 and the rule of Boleslaus I, duke of the Polanie and later king of Poland). During Poland's fragmentation (1138–1320) into duchies ruled by different branches of the Piast dynasty, Silesia was ruled by descendants of the former royal family.

In 1146, High Duke Wladislaus II the Exile acknowledged the overlordship of the Holy Roman Empire over Poland, but was driven into exile. In 1163, his two sons took possession of Silesia with imperial backing, dividing the land between them as dukes of Lower and Upper Silesia. Thus they created two main Piast lines in Silesia (Wrocławska of Wrocław) and Opolsko-Raciborska (of Opole and Racibórz). The policy of subdivision continued under their successors, with Silesia being divided into 16 principalities by the 1390s.

In 1241 after raiding Lesser Poland, the Mongols invaded Silesia and caused widespread panic and mass flight. They looted much of the region, but abandoned their siege of the castle of Wrocław, supposedly after being fended off by Blessed Cheslav's "miraculous fireball." They then annihilated the combined Polish and German forces at the Battle of Legnica, which took place at Legnickie Pole near modern Legnica. Upon the death of Ögedei Khan, the Mongols chose not to press forward further into Europe, but returned east to participate in the election of a new Grand Khan.

The ruling Silesian lords decided to rebuild their cities according to the latest administrative ideas. They founded or rebuilt some 160 cities and 1,500 towns and introduced the codified German city law (Magdeburg law and Środa Śląska law) in place of the older, customary Slavic and Polish laws. They also made up for the recent population loss by inviting new settlers, mostly Germans from the Holy Roman Empire, but also Dutchmen who were also still at this time subjects of the Holy Roman Emperor. Since about the end of the 13th century or beginning of the 14th, Silesian dukes invited many German settlers to improve their dukedoms. Germans settled mostly in cities, as did Jews and some Czechs. In the countryside, and especially in Upper Silesia, people with Polish origins still predominated. This policy of inviting Germans to colonize and cultivate the barren lands, and the assimilation of the ruling classes and the German and Slavic inhabitants, gave reason to Polish and German nationalists for ideological tensions between both nations in the 19th and first Half of the 20th century.

In the second half of the 13th century, various knightly orders also settled in Silesia — the Knights of the Red Star were the first, soon followed by the Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights.

Many Piast dukes tried to re-incorporate Silesia into the Polish kingdom and even reunite Poland itself during the time of divisions. The first significant attempts were made by the Silesian duke Henryk IV Probus, but he died in 1290 before realizing his goal. Next was the duke of Greater Poland, Przemysł II of Poland, who united two of the original provinces and was crowned in 1295. However he was murdered in 1296. According to his will Greater Poland was supposed to be inherited by Duke Henryk Głogowski (Silesian dukedom of Głogów), who also aspired to unite Poland and even claimed the title Duke of Poland. However, most nobles of Greater Poland supported another candidate from the Kuyavian (Kujawska) line of Piasts, Duke Władysław Łokietek (Wladislaus I the Short). Łokietek eventually won the struggle because of his broader support. In the meantime, King Vaclav II of Bohemia decided to extend his rule and crowned himself as Polish king in 1302. The next half century was rife with wars between Łokietek (later his son Casimir III the Great) and a coalition of Bohemians, Brandenburgers and Teutonic Knights trying to divide Poland. During this time most Silesian dukes, despite their ties with Poland, ruled small realms that were unable to unite with Poland and fell under Bohemian dominance or under Bohemian rule.

In 1335, Duke Henry VI of Wrocław and the Upper Silesian dukes recognized the overlordship of the king of Bohemia, John of Luxemburg. Finally in 1348 Polish king Kazimierz was forced to accept Bohemian dominance over most of Silesia. The last independent Piast duchies in Silesia ceased to exist in 1368. The Silesian branch of the Piast dynasty went extinct only in 1675, as Silesian lines of Piasts gradually died out between the 14th and 16th centuries: in 1335Wrocławska (of Wrocław/Breslau), in 1368 Świdnicka (of Świdnica/Schweidnitz), in 1476 Oleśnicka (Oleśnica/Oels), in 1476 Głogowska (of Głogów/Glogau), in 1504 Żagańska (of Żagań/Zagan), in 1532 Opolska (of Opole/Oppeln), 1625 Cieszyńska (of Cieszyn/Teschen) and in 1675 Brzesko-Legnicka (of Brzeg and Legnica/Brieg-Liegnitz). However in the Duchy of Cieszyn although the last male of Piast dynasty – Fryderyk Wilhelm died in 1625, rulership was taken over by his sister Elżbieta Lukrecja until her death in 1653.

From that time Silesia became part of the Holy Roman Empire, but not in the same way as Bohemia, which was itself an autonomous part of it. Silesia remained part of the lands of the Bohemian crown until 1740, under kings from Czech, Polish and German dynasties. Under Emperor (and king of Bohemia) Charles IV, Silesia and especially Wrocław or Breslau gained greatly in importance — many great buildings and large Gothic churches were built - while the land and its inhabitants were influenced by German settlers, and their language and culture ever more.

Between 1425 and 1435, devastation was caused by the Hussite Wars in Bohemia. The Hussites turned against the German population, and some regions, especially Upper Silesia, became partly Slavic-speaking again. Despite the widespread nature of the conflagration, Silesia remained largely Catholic, excluding Cieszyn Silesia where Lutheran ideas became dominant.

Silesia continued to have strong economic ties with the neighbouring territories, such as Poland - especially through the Jewish merchants in the cities - during the Renaissance period and beyond.

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century took an early hold in Silesia, and most of the inhabitants became Lutheran. Many Reformation pastors contributed to developing and re-emphasizing Slavic culture and language in Silesia.

In 1526, King Ferdinand I made the formerly elected crown of Bohemia an inherited possession of the Habsburg dynasty. In 1537 the Piast duke Frederick II of Brzeg (Brieg) concluded a treaty with Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, whereby the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg would inherit the duchy upon the extinction of the Piasts, but the treaty was rejected by Ferdinand.

Since the beginning of the 17th century religious conflicts and wars between the supporters of Reformation and Counter-reformation, many Czech and (Germanic as well as Slavic) Silesian protestants were seeking refuge in the then-tolerant Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Many thousands of them settled in the province of Greater Poland, under the protection of powerful protestant magnates (e.g. Rafał Leszczyński). A very strong group of Czech Brethren settled in Leszno (e.g. Comenius). Protestant Silesians often circumvented restrictive laws by building their churches on the Polish side of border.

Thirty Years' War

The second "Defenestration of Prague" in 1618 sparked the Thirty Years' War, caused by King Ferdinand II's attempts to restore Catholicism and stamp out Protestantism.

Czech Protestants were supported by their German counterparts and by Hungarian nobles. Bethlen Gabor's forces laid siege to Vienna and threatened to extend Transylvanian rule (and thus the Ottoman Empire) to Bohemia and Silesia. Polish nobles (at least verbally) supported the Czechs because the struggle of Czech and Hungarian nobles was viewed as a struggle of 'free' nobility against absolutist monarchs and thus resonated with the Polish szlachta's ideal of Golden Liberty. The nobles would not help to fight the Protestants, and the Sejm (Polish parliament) even forbade King Sigismund III Vasa to send Polish assistance to his allies, the Catholic Habsburgs. The devoutly Catholic Zygmunt sympathized with the Habsburgs, and while there was a matter of a defensive treaty, he had to decline Emperor Matthias's request (to be allowed to hire Commonwealth troops) because the Commonwealth was tired of wars with Sweden and wars with Muscovy and its relations with the Ottoman Empire were worsening.

Finally, Zygmunt III decided to help the Habsburgs by only sending a private mercenary group called the Lisowczycy (part of the reason had to do with the fact that they had become unemployed after the wars with Muscovy and were busy plundering Lithuania like a plague) in late 1619, hoping to get back some parts of Silesia in exchange. Although the Lisowczycy's support would prove decisive during the Battle of White Mountain, Polish Wazas never received anything except a vague set of promises and several brides to keep them favourably inclined to the Habsburg dynasty.

During talks with Prince Władysław (future King of Poland, Władysław IV Waza), on his voyage to Silesia in mid-1619, the Emperor promised to agree to a temporary occupation of part of Silesia by Polish forces, which the Wazas hoped would later allow the incorporation of those areas into Poland. Some of the Silesian dukes – especially the remaining ones of the Piast dynasty – and the Bishop of Wrocław, Charles of Austria, wanted to move under Commonwealth protection as well, hoping to avoid participation in the Thirty Years' War which was ravaging the Holy Roman Empire. As Charles's bishopric was nominally subordinated to the Polish archbishopric of Gniezno, he asked the Polish archbishop of Gniezno for mediation in talks with Zygmunt III about protection and subordination of his bishopric. In May 1619, Prince Władysław, invited by his uncle Charles, left Warsaw and started his voyage to Silesia (to Nysa?).

In July 1619 Czech Protestants rebelled against Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor and offered the Bohemian crown to Elector Frederick V of the Palatinate. On 27 September, probably on hearing the news, Władysław and Charles left Silesia in a hurry and on 7 October arrived in Warsaw. In December 1619, young Władysław's brother (born in 1613), Prince Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Opole was chosen by Charles as auxiliary bishop of Wrocław, which was confirmed by the Polish episcopate. The Bishopric of Wrocław returned to the rule of the Archbishopric of Gniezno in 1620, having before been practically independent, but until 1632 de facto rule was held in Warsaw by King Zygmunt III and not by the bishop or archbishop. Prince Charles Ferdinand was appointed Bishop of Wrocław in 1625.

However, as the Habsburgs' situation improved, Emperor Ferdinand II did not agree to any concessions in Silesia, nor did he help in the war against the Ottoman Empire, in a large part not only provoked by Polish support for the Habsburgs, but actually supported by Habsburg secret agents in the Ottoman Empire.

Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor's proposal of marriage between Władysław and Archduchess Cecilia Renata of Austria (sister of future Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor) arrived in Warsaw sometime during the spring of 1636. The king's trusted clergyman, Father Walerian (of the Capuchin religious order) arrived in Regensburg on 26 October 1636 with consent and performed negotiations. The archduchess's dowry was agreed to be 100,000 złoty. The Emperor promised to pay the dowries of both Zygmunt III's wives: Anna and Konstancja. Additionally, Władysław's and Cecylia Renata's son was to obtain the Duchy of Opole and Raciborz in Silesia (Księstwo Opolsko-Raciborskie). However before everything was confirmed and signed, Ferdinand II died and Ferdinand III balked at giving Władysław's son the Silesian duchy. Instead, the dowry was written/protected by the Bohemian estates of Třeboň. The marriage took place in 1637.

In 1638 Władysław proposed that his mother's and Zygmunt III's second wife's dowries, which still had not been paid, would be protected by one of the Silesian duchies (preferably Opolsko-Raciborskie). In 1642 he proposed to transfer to the Habsburgs his rights to the Swedish throne in exchange for giving him Silesia in deposit. Ludovico Fantoni, sent to Vienna in the summer of 1644, proposed to exchange Władysław's income from Bohemian estates in Treben for the duchies of Opolsko-Raciborskie and Cieszyńskie (of Cieszyn).

At the beginning of 1645, tired by the continued stalling of Vienna, Władysław told the Emperor's envoy to Warsaw, Maximilian Dietrichstein, that Poland would cooperate with Sweden – it was an open threat (that he could take Silesia with Swedish help, against the Emperor), confirmed by fact that on 6 March 1645 the Swedish general Lennart Torstensson defeated the Emperor's Bavarian and Saxon forces in the Battle of Jankov and began to march on Vienna. Now the Emperor was again ready for discussion and sent Johannes Putz von Adlertum to Warsaw in April 1645, giving him wide prerogatives in transferring rights of the Duchy of Oppeln-Ratibor to Władysław's and Cecylia Renata's son, Zygmunt Kazimierz, as an hereditary fief.

Negotiations eventually ended with Habsburg success and Polish failure. The duchy was given not as an hereditary fief but as a 50-year deposit, and the owner was required to swear allegiance to the King of Bohemia (thus it could not be the Polish king), but Władysław would rule the duchy until his son was an adult. Additionally, Władysław promised to lend the Emperor 1,100,000 złoty (minus the amount of the three still unpaid dowries).

After the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648, the Habsburgs greatly encouraged Catholicism and succeeded in reconverting to Catholicism about 60% of the population of Silesia. By 1675, the last Silesian Piast rulers had died out.

Kingdom of Prussia

In 1740, the annexation of Silesia by King Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia was welcomed by many Silesians, not only the Protestant population, and not only by the German part of the population. Frederick based his claims on the Treaty of Brieg and began the War of the Austrian Succession which ended in 1748. At the end of this war, the Kingdom of Prussia had conquered almost all of Silesia (some parts of Silesia in the extreme southeast, like Duchy of Cieszyn and Duchy of Opava, remained possessions of Austria), and the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) only confirmed this result – Silesia became one of the most loyal provinces of Prussia. In 1815, the area around Görlitz, a former part of Saxony, was incorporated into the province after the Napoleonic Wars. By this time German had become the predominant language in Lower Silesia, while German-influenced Polish and Czech were used in most of the countryside. German was the most common language in most Silesian cities.

Silesia in Germany and Austria

As a Prussian province Silesia became part of the German Empire when Germany was unified in 1871. There was considerable industrialization in Upper Silesia, and many people moved there at that time. The overwhelming majority of the population of Lower Silesia was by then German-speaking and Lutheran, including the capital Wrocław (Vratislas), which had been known after the Later Middle Ages as Breslau. There were areas such as the District of Opole (then Regierungsbezirk Oppeln) and rural parts of Upper Silesia, however, where a larger portion or even majority of the population was Slavic-speaking and Roman Catholic. In Silesia as a whole, Poles comprised about 30% of the population, but most of them lived around Katowice in the southeast of Upper Silesia. The Kulturkampf set Catholics in opposition to the government and sparked a Polish revival in the Upper Silesian parts of the province. The first conference of Hovevei Zion groups took place in Katowice in 1884.

At the same time, the areas of Ostrava and Karvina in Austrian Silesia became increasingly industrialized. Most of the Polish-speaking people there, however, were Slavic Lutherans in contrast to the Habsburg dynasty, the German-speaking Catholic rulers of Austria-Hungary.

In the Treaty of Versailles after the defeat of Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary in World war I, it was decided that the population of Upper Silesia should hold a plebiscite in order to determine the future of the province, with the exception of a 333 km² area around Hlučín (Hultschiner Ländchen), which was granted to Czechoslovakia in 1920 despite having a German majority. The plebiscite, organised by the League of Nations, was held in 1921. In Cieszyn Silesia firstly was a deal between Rada Narodowa Księstwa Cieszyńskiego and Národním Výborem pro Slezsko about partition past lands of the Duchy of Cieszyn according to ethnic lines. However, that deal was not approved by the Czechoslovak government in Prague. On 23 January 1919, Czechoslovakia attacked the lands of Cieszyn Silesia and stopped on 30 January on the Vistula River near Skoczów. The planned plebiscite was not organised and the division of Cieszyn Silesia was decided on 28 July 1920 by the Ambassadors' Council at the Treaty of Versailles, which instituted the present-day border between Poland and the Czech Republic.

Between the wars

After the referendum, there were three Silesian Insurrections instigated by Polish nationalists, as a result of which the League of Nations decided that the province should be split again and that the most eastern Upper Silesian areas, even though a majority there had voted to remain inside Germany, should become an autonomous area within Poland organised as the Silesian Voivodship (Wojewodztwo Śląskie). One of the central political figures that drive for these changes was Wojciech Korfanty.

The Silesian Uprisings 1919-1921:

The major part of Silesia, remaining in Germany, was then reorganised into the two provinces of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia. In Silesia the synagogues in Breslau and in many other cities were destroyed during the Kristallnacht. In October 1938, Cieszyn Silesia (the disputed area west of the Olza river, also called Zaolzie - 906 km² with 258,000 inhabitants), was retaken by Poland from Czechoslovakia, in accord with the Munich Agreement that surrendered Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany.

WWII

Nazi Germany re-took possession of these parts of Silesia in 1939, when the attack on Poland marked the beginning of World War II. The local population frequently welcome the Wehrmacht. In 1940 the Germans started to construct the Auschwitz concentration camp, which was later used as a death camp of the Holocaust. The Gross-Rosen concentration camp was also constructed in 1940, its subcamps in many Silesian cities.

Silesia after WWII

In 1945, all of Silesia was occupied by the Soviet Red Army. By then a large portion of the German population had fled Silesia out of fear of revenge by Soviet soldiers, but many returned after the German capitulation. Under the terms of the agreements at the Yalta Conference of 1944 and the Potsdam Agreement of 1945, German Silesia east of the rivers Oder (Odra) and Lusatian Neisse (Nysa Łużycka) was transferred to Poland. Most of the remaining Silesian Germans, who before World War II amounted to about four million, were forcibly expelled. More than 30 000 Silesian men (of both German nad Polish roots) were deported to Soviet mines, the majority of them never returned.

The industry of Silesia was rebuilt after the war and the region was repopulated by Poles, most of whom had themselves been expelled from eastern Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. Today, more than 20% of the entire population of Poland lives in Silesia, but many families do not have Silesian ancestry.

A small German speaking remnant exists in the region around Opole (Oppeln), as well as some Slavic speaking and bilingual remnants of the pre-1945 population of Upper Silesia.

Natural resources

Silesia is a resource-rich and populous region. Coal and iron are both abundant, and a substantial manufacturing industry is present. In post-communist times, however, the outdated nature of many of the facilites has led to environmental problems. The region also has a thriving agricultural sector, which produces mainly grains, potatoes, and sugar beets.

Demographics

Modern Silesia is inhabited mostly by Poles and Silesians, but also by minorities of Germans, Czechs, and Moravians. The last Polish census of 2002 showed that the Slavic Silesians are the largest ethnic minority in Poland, Germans being the second — both groups are located mostly in Silesia. The Czech part of Silesia is inhabited by Czechs, Moravians, and Poles.

Before the Second World War, Silesia was inhabited by Germans, Poles, and Czechs. In 1905, a census showed that 75% of the population was German and 25% Polish. At the end of World War II, most German-Silesians fled Silesia, were evacuated, violently expelled, or emigrated (see German exodus from Eastern Europe); most ethnic Silesians today live in the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, many of them working as miners in the Ruhr area, like their ancestors did in the Silesian mines. In order to smooth their integration into West German society after 1945, they were organized into officially recognized organisations, like the Landsmannschaft Schlesien, financed from the federal budget. One of its most notable but controversial spokesmen was the CDU politician Herbert Hupka. The prevailing public opinion in Germany is that these organisations will achieve reconciliation with the Polish Silesians, which is gradually happening by now.

Major cities in Silesia

See also

Other essential reading

  • Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, 1st Series, volume XI, Upper Silesia, Poland, and the Baltic States, January 1920-March 1921, edited by Rohan Butler, MA, J.P.T.Bury, MA, & M.E.Lambert, MA, Her Majesty's Stationary Office (HMSO), London, 1961 (amended edition 1974), ISBN 0-11-591511-7*

  • Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, 1st Series, volume XVI, Upper Silesia, March 1921 - November 1922, edited by W.N.Medlicott, MA, D.Lit., Douglas Dakin, MA, PhD, & M.E.Lambert, MA, HMSO, London, 1968.

External links

Regions of Poland | Silesia | States of the Holy Roman Empire | Divided regions

سيليزيا | Силезия | Silezia | Slezsko | Schlesien | Schlesien | Silesia | Silezio | Silésie | Silesia | Slesia | שלזיה | Silesia | Silezija | Szilézia | Silezië | シレジア | Schlesien | Śląsk | Silésia | Silezia | Силезия | Sliezsko | Šlezija | Шлеска | Sleesia | Schlesien | Silesia | Сілезія | 西里西亞

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Silesia".

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