Silesians
| Total population |
|---|
| Several million (of which about 0.2 million official declared Silesian nationality in national census in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Poland: ~2,000,000,[1] Czech Republic: 12 231[2] |
| Languages |
| Religion |
| Related ethnic groups |
Silesians (Silesian: Ślůnzoki; Silesian German: Schläsinger; Polish: Ślązacy; Czech: Slezané; German: Schlesier), are the inhabitants of Silesia in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. A small diaspora community also exists in Karnes County, Texas in the USA.
There has been some debate over whether or not a group of Silesians (historically Upper Silesians) constitute a distinct nation. In modern history, they have been often pressured to declare themselves to be either German or Polish or Czech and embrace the language of the current governing nation. Nevertheless, 173,153 people declared Silesian nationality in the Polish national census in 2002,[3] making them the largest minority group in Poland alongside the German minority (93% of Germans in Poland live in the Polish part of Silesia), while 10,878 people declared Silesian nationality in the Czech national census in 2001[4] (44,446 in 1991)[5] and 6,361 people declared Silesian and Moravian nationality in the Slovak national census.[6]
Contents |
[edit] History
Archeological findings of the 20th century in Silesia confirm an early settlement by celtic tribes.[7]
Before the 5th century, Silesia was probably inhabited by the Germanic Silingi. Tacitus in his description of Magna Germania mentions Suevi: Marsigni, Osi, Gothini, Burii in what later became Silesia and Burgundiones and Lygii at the Vistula.[8]
The Slavs entered Silesia in the first half of the 7th century. The territories were mostly abandoned because the celtic and germanic tribes that dwelt here before had earlier moved west.[9] Chronologically the first group of Slavs were those that earlier dwelt by the Dnieper River, the second one was the Sukov-Dzidzice type Slavs, the last were groups of Avaro-Slavic peoples from the Danube river areas.[10] In the early 9th century the settlement stabilized. Local Slavs started to erect defence systems such as Silesian Przesieka and the Silesia Walls to guard them from the peoples of the West. The north-eastern border with Slavic Polans was not defended due to their common culture and language.[11]
The 9th-century Bavarian Geographer records the tribal names of the Opolanie, Dadosesani, Golenzizi, Lupiglaa and the Ślężanie. The 1086 Prague Document, that is believed to show the 10th century settlement situation,[12] mentions also the Bobrzanie and Trzebowianie tribes. They were later classified as part of West Slavic Polish tribes - the Silesian tribes.[13]
[edit] Middle Ages
The territory they lived on became part of the Great Moravia in 875 and later, in 990, first Polish state created by duke Mieszko I and then expanded by king Boleslaw I at the beginning of the 11th century, who in the year 1000 established the Bishopric of Wrocław. In those days the eastern border of Silesian tribes settlement was situated to the west of the gród Bytom, and east from Racibórz and Cieszyn. East from this line dwelled other closely related Slavic tribe - Wiślanie.
In the Middle Ages Slavic tribal confederacies and then Slavic states dominated, Silesia was part of Moravia, then Bohemia and finally the Piast monarchy of Poland. Within Poland, from 1177 onward, it was divided into many smaller duchies. In 1178, parts of the Duchy of Kraków around Bytom, Oświęcim, Chrzanów and Siewierz were transferred to the Silesian Piasts, yet their population was of Vistulan and not of Silesian descent.[14] Parts of those territories were bought by the Polish kings in the second half of the 15th century but the Bytom area remained in the possession of the Silesian Piasts, even though it remained a part of the Diocese of Kraków.[15] Between 1327 and 1348 duchies of Silesia came under suzerainty of the Crown of Bohemia, and passed with that crown to the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria in 1526.
In 14th century Silesia was settled by Germans, becoming the majority of the population in Silesia for the next centuries. Germans began to build a lot of towns in Silesia. But also in the 12th and 13th century Germans settled in a minor number in Silesia.
[edit] Modern history
In 1742, most of Silesia was seized by King Frederick the Great of Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession, who in his first declaration to the Silesians named himself a 'Piast prince' (he was in fact a remote descendant). The remainder of Silesia or Cieszyn Silesia stayed within the Austrian Empire. The Prussian part of Silesia constituted the Province of Silesia (later the Prussian provinces of Upper and Lower Silesia) until 1918. The minority of self-declared Polish Silesians, their language and their culture were put under the pressure of the Prussian state's Kulturkampf policies, attempting to make Germans out of them in culture and language too. After the Silesian Uprisings the eastern minor, but richer part of Upper Silesia became part of newly restored Poland, the most of the part that had remained under the rule of Habsburgs following the 1742 war came to Czechoslovakia, while Lower Silesia and most of Upper Silesia remained within Germany.
Following World War II, the vast majority of the region of Silesia was incorporated into Poland, with smaller regions remaining in the German Democratic Republic (later in unified Germany), and Czechoslovakia (most of Cieszyn Silesia). Millions of Silesians (mostly of German ethnicity) were subsequently expelled, but those Silesians classified by the Polish communist authorities as described by propaganda as "autochthons", in fact also the expelled Silesians were autochthons of Silesia, or "ethnic Poles insufficiently aware of their Polishness" were allowed to remain (and intensely polonized), after being sifted out from the ethnic Germans by a process of "national verification".[16]
Under the care of the Red Cross between 1955 and 1959 some of the remaining Silesians had the possibility to emigrate to West and East Germany for a Family reunification with their families in Germany.[17] But some had to wait for years. Until 1989 nearly 600,000 Silesians emigrated to Germany.
In 1945-49 millions of ethnic Poles from former (pre1939) eastern Poland (especially Lviv, Volyhnia, Podolia, Vilnius, etc) and central Poland moved into Silesia, especially Lower Silesia. Since the end of Communist rule in Poland there have been calls for greater political representation for the Silesian ethnic minority. In 1997, a Katowice law court registered the Union of People of Silesian Nationality (ZLNS) as the political representative organization of the Silesian ethnic minority, but after two months the registration was revoked by a regional court.
[edit] Language
The Slavic Silesian language (or often Upper Silesian) is spoken by the Silesian ethnic group or nationality inside Polish Upper Silesia. According to the last census in Poland (2002), some 60,000 people declared Silesian as their native language, however as much as 173,000 people declared to be of Silesian nationality, not necessarily speaking Silesian, even though such nationality has not been recognized by Polish governments since its creation in 1945.
There is some contention over whether Silesian is a dialect or a language in its own right. Most of Polish linguists consider Silesian to be merely a prominent regional dialect of Polish. However, many Silesians regard it as a separate language belonging to the West Slavic branch of Slavic languages, together with Polish and other Lechitic languages, as well as Upper and Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. In July 2007 the Silesian language was officially recognized by the Library of Congress and SIL International. The language was attributed ISO code: SZL. The first official dictation contest of the Silesian language took place in August 2007.
Although the German Language is still spoken in Silesia, as it has a sizable minority of speakers in the Opole Voivodship in Poland, the vast majority of native speakers were expelled during or after 1945. Therefore the number of speakers of German in the region was radically and significantly decreased after centuries of settlement after the Second World War. The Silesian German dialect is a distinct variety of East Central German, with some West Slavic influence likely caused by centuries of contact between Germans and Slavs in the region and related in some ways to contemporary Saxon. The Silesian German dialect is often referred to as Lower Silesian in the German Language. The usage of this dialect appears to be decreasing, as most German Silesians prefer either Standard German or Polish.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ The Institute for European Studies, Ethnological institute of UW
- ^ http://notes2.czso.cz/cz/sldb2011/cd_sldb2011_11_12/index_html_files/PVCR062.pdf
- ^ "Ludność według deklarowanej narodowości oraz województw w 2002 r." - Central Statistical Office (Poland)
- ^ "Data za ČR, NUTS 4: CZ0000, Sčítaní lidu, domů a bytů 2001" - Czech Statistical Office
- ^ "Národnost ve sčítání lidu v českých zemích"
- ^ http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/bhr/english/special_issues/CEDIME-unwgm2001/un%20wgm%20slovakia%20appendix%20on%20minorities%203a%2015-5-01.doc
- ^ Opole county
- ^ A System of Ancient and Mediaeval Geography, Magna Germania P 216
- ^ R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, s. 34-37
- ^ R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, s. 37-38
- ^ R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, s. 40
- ^ R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, s. 40
- ^ Raymond Breton, National Survival in Dependent Societies: Social Change in Canada and Poland, McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP, 1990, p. 106, ISBN 0-88629-127-5 Google Books; Charles William Previte-Orton, The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1962, V. II, p. 744, ISBN 0-521-09976-5 Google Books
- ^ R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, s. 21-22
- ^ R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, s. 21-22
- ^ Kamusella, Tomasz (November 2005). "Doing It Our Way". Transitions Online. http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=141&NrSection=4&NrArticle=15229. Retrieved 2006-07-25.
- ^ Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung
[edit] External links
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