Ślōnzŏki, Ślůnzoki (Silesian) Ślązacy (Polish) Schläsinger, Schläsier (Lower Silesian) Schlesier (German) Slezané (Czech) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Total population | |
| Several million (of which about 0.6 million officially declared Silesiannationality in national censuses inPoland, theCzech Republic andSlovakia). | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Germany | Unknown number |
 Poland | 596,224[1] officially declared Silesian nationality. (Polish-Silesian nationality included) |
 Czech Republic | No data, 31,301 declared Silesian nationality, of which 12,451 declared it as their only nationality[2] |
 Slovakia | 117[3] |
| Languages | |
| Silesian Polish (New mixed dialects,Kraków dialect) German(incl.Silesian German dialects) Czech (Lach dialects) | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholicism Protestantism (MainlyLutheranism) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| OtherWest Slavs, otherGermans,Vilamovians | |
Silesians (Silesian:Ślōnzŏki or Ślůnzoki;Silesian German:SchläsingerorSchläsier;German:Schlesierpronounced[ˈʃleːzi̯ɐ]ⓘ;Polish:Ślązacy;Czech:Slezané) is both a linguistic as well as a geographical term[4] for the inhabitants ofSilesia, a historical region inCentral Europe divided by the current national boundaries ofPoland,Germany, andCzechia. Historically, the region ofSilesia (Lower andUpper) has been inhabited byPolish (West SlavicLechitic people),Czechs, andGermans.[5] Therefore, the term Silesian can refer to anyone of these ethnic groups. However, in 1945, great demographic changes occurred in the region as a result of thePotsdam Agreement leaving most of the region ethnicallyPolish and/or Slavic Upper Silesian. The names ofSilesia in different languages most likely share their etymology—Polish:Śląskⓘ;German:Schlesienpronounced[ˈʃleːzi̯ən]ⓘ;Czech:Slezsko[ˈslɛsko];Lower Silesian:Schläsing;Silesian:Ślōnsk[ɕlonsk];Lower Sorbian:Šlazyńska[ˈʃlazɨnʲska];Upper Sorbian:Šleska[ˈʃlɛska];Latin, Spanish and English:Silesia; French:Silésie;Dutch:Silezië;Italian:Slesia;Slovak:Sliezsko;Kashubian:Sląsk. The names all relate to the name of a river (nowŚlęza) and mountain (Mount Ślęża) in mid-southern Silesia, which served as a place of cult for pagans beforeChristianization.
Ślęża is listed as one of the numerousPre-Indo-European topographic names in the region (seeold European hydronymy).[6] According to somePolonists, the nameŚlęża[ˈɕlɛ̃ʐa] orŚlęż[ɕlɛ̃ʂ] is directly related to theOld Polish wordsślęg[ɕlɛŋk] orśląg[ɕlɔŋk], which means dampness, moisture, or humidity.[7] They disagree with the hypothesis of an origin for the nameŚląsk[ɕlɔ̃sk] from the name of theSilings tribe, an etymology preferred by some German authors.[8]
The term "Silesia" is a Latinized word of the original Polish/Lechitic name "Śląsk" inhabited by the ancient Lechitic tribes called Ślężanie. In Silesia, there are many places of the ancient Slavic Lechitic pagan cult of these ancient people, for example Góra Ślęża.[citation needed]
About 209,000 of the Upper Silesian population declared themselves as pure Silesians, 376,000 people declared themselves as having a joint Silesian and Polish nationality while only 471,000 people declared themselves to be of only Polishnationality fromSilesia in the2011 Polish national census making them the largestminority group inPoland. About 126,000 people declared themselves as members of theGerman minority (58,000 declared it jointly withPolish nationality), making it the third largest minority group in the country (93% of Germans living in Poland are in the Polish parts of Silesia). 31,301 people declared Silesian nationality in the2021 Czech census, including 18,850 of those who declared two nationalities[2] (44,446 inCzechoslovakia in 1991),[9] and 6,361 people declared joint Silesian and Moravian nationality in the 1991 Slovak national census.[10] Over 85% of the population in the Polish part of Upper Silesia declare themselves as Poles, and in the Czech part as Czechs.
During theGerman occupation of Poland,Nazi authorities conducted a census inEast Upper Silesia in 1940. At the time, 157,057 people declared Silesian nationality (Slonzaken Volk), and the Silesian language was declared by 288,445 people. However, the Silesian nationality could only be declared in theCieszyn part of the region. Approximately 400–500,000 respondents from the other areas of East Upper Silesia who declared "Upper Silesian nationality" (Oberschlesier) were assigned to the German nationality category.[11] AfterWorld War II in Poland, the 1945 census showed a sizable group of people in Upper Silesia who declared Silesian nationality. According to police reports, 22% of people inZabrze considered themselves to be Silesians, and that number was around 50% inStrzelce County.[12]
Archaeological findings of the 20th century in Silesia confirm the existence of an early settlement inhabited byCeltic tribes.[13]
Until the 2nd century some parts of Silesia were populated by CelticBoii, predecessors of the states ofBohemia andBavaria and subsequently until the 5th century, by theGermanicSilingi, a tribe of theVandals, which moved south and west to invadeAndalusia. Silesia remained depopulated until the second phase of themigration period.[citation needed]
TheSlavs, predominantlyWhite Croats entered the depopulated territory of Silesia in the first half of the 6th century. The Slavic territories were mostly abandoned, because the Celtic and Germanic tribes that lived there before had moved west.[14] Chronologically, the first group of Slavs were those that dwelt by theDnieper River, the second was the Sukov-Dzidzice type Slavs, and the last were groups ofAvaro-Slavic peoples from theDanube river areas.[15] In the early 9th century, the settlement stabilized. Local West Slavs began to erect a series of defensive systems, such as theSilesian Przesieka and theSilesia Walls to guard them from invaders. The north-eastern border withWestern Polans was not reinforced, due to their common culture and language.[16]
The 9th-centuryBavarian Geographer records the tribal names of theOpolanie,Dadosesani,Golenzizi, Lupiglaa, and theŚlężanie. The 1086Prague Document, which is believed to document the 10th-century settlements,[16] also mentions theBobrzanie and Trzebowianie tribes. Later sources classified those tribes asSilesian tribes, which were also jointly classified as part ofPolish tribes.[17][18][19][20] The reason for this classification was the "fundamentally common culture and language" of Silesian,Polan,Masovian,Vistulan, andPomeranian tribes that "were considerably more closely related to one another than were the Germanic tribes."[21]
According toPerspectives on Ethnicity, written byanthropologist V. I. Kozlov and edited by R. Holloman, the Silesian tribes, together with other Polish tribes, formed what is nowPolish ethnicity andculture. This process is called ethnic consolidation, in which several ethnic communities of the same origin and cognate languages merge into one.[18]
The Silesians lived on the territory that became part of theGreat Moravia in 875. Later, in 990, thefirst Polish state was created by DukeMieszko I, and then expanded by kingBoleslaw I at the beginning of the 11th century. He established theBishopric of Wrocław inLower Silesia in the year 1000.[citation needed]
In theMiddle Ages, Slavic tribal confederacies, and then Slavic states, dominated. Silesia was part ofGreat Moravia, thenKingdom of Bohemia and finally thePiast monarchy ofPoland. The tribal differences started to disappear after the consolidation ofPoland in the 10th and 11th centuries. The main factors of this process were the establishment of a single monarchy that ruled over all Polish tribes, as well as creation of a separateecclesiastical organization within the boundaries of the newly established Polish state.[22] The names of the smaller tribes disappeared from historical records, as well as the names of some prominent tribes. However, in some places, the names of the most important tribes transformed into names representing the whole region, such as Mazovians forMazovia, and Silesians forSilesia. As a result of thefragmentation of Poland, some of those regions were again divided into smaller entities, such as the division of Silesia intoLower Silesia andUpper Silesia). However, the tribal era was already over, and these divisions reflected only political subdivisions of the Polish realm.[23] Within Poland, from 1177 onward, Silesia was divided into many smaller duchies. In 1178, parts of theDuchy of Kraków around Bytom,Oświęcim,Chrzanów andSiewierz were transferred to theSilesian Piasts, although their population was of Vistulan and not of Silesian descent.[24] Parts of those territories were bought by thePolish 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 theDiocese of Kraków.[24] Between 1327 and 1348, the duchies of Silesia came under the suzerainty of theCrown of Bohemia, which was then passed to theHabsburg monarchy ofAustria in 1526.
Beginning in the 13th century, sparesly settled Slavic Silesia began to besettled by Germans from various German regions. Silesia was by then attached theBohemia, which itself was part of theHoly Roman Empire of the German Nation. Over a few generations, ethnic structure of the province was completely changed and various German dialects of the new settlers became widely used throughout Lower Silesia and some Upper Silesian cities. However, after the era of German colonization, the Polish language was still predominant in Upper Silesia and parts of Lower and Middle Silesia north of theOdra river. There, Germans usually dominated large cities, and Poles mostly lived in rural areas. This required the German authorities to issue official documents in Polish, or in German and Polish. The Polish-speaking territories of Lower and Middle Silesia, commonly called thePolish side until the end of the 19th century, were mostly Germanized in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for some areas along the northeastern frontier.[25][26]
In 1742, most of Silesia was seized in theWar of the Austrian Succession by KingFrederick the Great ofPrussia, who named himself a 'Piast prince' (he was actually a remote descendant) in his first declaration. The remainder of Silesia, known asCieszyn Silesia, remained in the Austrian Empire. The Prussian part of Silesia constituted theProvince of Silesia until 1918. Later, the province was split into the Prussian provinces ofUpper andLower Silesia. Owing to the development of education, a rebirth of Polish culture took place in the second half of the 1800s in Silesia, which was connected with the emergence of a Polish national movement of a clearly Catholic character. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the fact that Silesians were part of the Polish nation was not questioned.[27] The language and culture of the self-declared Polish Silesians were put under the pressure of the PrussianKulturkampf policies, which attempted to Germanize them in culture and language. The process of Germanisation was never completely successful. The cultural distance of Upper Silesians from the German population resulted in the development of Polish national awareness at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in the pro-Polish movements at the end ofWorld War I.[28]
German and later by Moravian neighbors called the Slavic Upper SilesiansWasserpolen. This name has been known since at least the 17th century and seems to refer to the Polish population in a German-Polish border region. On the other hand, Germans in Upper Silesia were calledRajchy (those from the Reich). As the result of the division of Silesia between Prussia and Austria, the termsPrusocy (the Prussians) andCesarocy (the Imperial) also appeared. Prusocy referred to the inhabitants of Prussian Silesia, Cesarocy to those ofAustrian Silesia. The latter referred both to the inhabitants of Cieszyn Silesia and, in part, to the western, Austrian partition of Poland, i.e. the western part of the Krakow region. Older people still know on these terms, which reflect a border that ceased to exist after World War I. The name Prusocy was later replaced by Hanysy, and is often used by Upper Silesians to refer to themselves, although the term sounds offensive to the ears of Polish newcomers (przybyszy) who arrived after 1945.[29]
After the conflicts termedSilesian Uprisings, which also involved intervention of the Polish government, the eastern minor, but richer, part of Upper Silesia became part of the newly restoredPoland; most of the land that had been ruled by the Habsburgs following the1742 war went toCzechoslovakia, while Lower Silesia and most ofUpper Silesia remained in Germany. The ethnic situation of the region became more complex as the division of Upper Silesia into Polish and German parts led to ethnic polarization. The people that lived in the western part of Upper Silesia were subject to a strong GermanOstsiedlung, where those living in the eastern part of Silesia started to identify with the Polish culture and statehood.[27]
World War II and its aftermath amplified this polarization. Three groups took shape within the Silesian population. The Polish-speaking group was the largest, while the German-speaking group, which primarily lived in central Silesia, was noticeably smaller. A third group supported separatism and an independent Silesian nation-state. The separatists were of marginal importance, finding little support among native Silesians.[30]
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The reasons for these transitions were boundary shifts and population changes that came after World War II. As a result, the vast majority of the former German Silesia, evenLower Silesia, which did not have sizeable Polish-speaking population, was incorporated into Poland, with smaller regions remaining under the control of theGerman Democratic Republic (which later became a part of unified Germany).Czechoslovakia obtained most of Cieszyn Silesia. Millions of Silesians, mostly ofGerman ethnicity, were subsequentlyforcibly expelled, but after being sifted out from the ethnic Germans by a process of "national verification", the Silesians classified as "autochthons" by the Polish communist authorities were allowed to remain, and they were intenselypolonized.[31]
Between 1955 and 1959, under the supervision of theRed Cross, some of the remaining Silesians were able to emigrate to West and East Germany toreunite with their families there.[32] But some had to wait for years. Until 1989, nearly 600,000 Silesians emigrated to Germany.
Between 1945 and 1949, millions of ethnic Poles from the former (pre-1939) eastern Poland (especiallyLviv,Volhynia,Podolia,Vilnius, etc.) and central Poland moved into Silesia, particularly in Lower Silesia. Since the end ofCommunist rule in Poland, there have been calls for greater political representation for the Silesian ethnic minority. In 1997, aKatowice court of law 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.[33]
According to M.E. Sharpe, Silesians inhabiting Poland are considered to belong to a Polish ethnographic group, and they speak a dialect of Polish. United States Immigration Commission also counted Silesian as one ofthe dialects of Polish.[34] As a result of German influence,[35][36] Silesians have been influenced by German culture.[27] Many German and their descendants who inhabited both Lower and Upper Silesiahave been displaced to Germany in 1945-47.
The SlavicSilesian language[37] (often called Upper Silesian) is spoken by the SilesianEthnographic group inside PolishUpper Silesia. According to the last census in Poland (2021), some 467,145[38] people declared Silesian to be their native language; however, as many as 596,224 people declared themselves to be of Silesian nationality, not necessarily speaking Silesian, even though the Silesian 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 Polish linguists consider Silesian to be a prominent regional dialect ofPolish. However, many Silesians regard it to be a separate language belonging to theWest Slavic branch ofSlavic languages, together with Polish and otherLechitic languages. In July 2007, the Silesian language was officially recognized by theLibrary of Congress andSIL International. The language was attributed anISO code:SZL. The first official dictation contest of the Silesian language took place in August 2007.[citation needed]
Although theGerman language is still spoken in Silesia, as it has a sizable minority of speakers in theOpole Voivodship in Poland, the vast majority of native speakers were expelled during or after 1945. Therefore, the number of German speakers in the regionwas radically and significantly decreased after World War II, even though the Germans had settled there for centuries. TheSilesian German dialect is a distinct variety ofEast Central German, with some West Slavic influence likely caused by centuries of contact between Germans and Slavs in the region; the dialect is related to contemporary Saxon in some ways. The Silesian German dialect is often misleading referred to as Lower Silesian in the German language. The usage of this dialect is drastically declining because most speakers, expelled by 1946 at the latest, are now over 80 years old or have already died, and their descendants in West or East Germany had no social opportunities to acquire the dialect within a standard German environment.
In year1819, the Breslau Regency had 833,253 inhabitants, the majority of whom—755,553 (90%)—were German-speakers; with a Polish-speaking minority numbering 66,500 (8%); as well as 3,900 Czechs (1%) and 7,300 Jews (1%).[39] The Liegnitz Regency was inhabited by Germans with a small Sorbian minority.
| Ethnic group | acc. G. Hassel[39] | % | acc. S. Plater[40] | % | acc. T. Ładogórski[41] | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germans | 1,561,570 | 75.6 | 1,550,000 | 70.5 | 1,303,300 | 74.6 |
| Poles | 444,000 | 21.5 | 600,000 | 27.3 | 401,900 | 23.0 |
| Sorbs | 24,500 | 1.2 | 30,000 | 1.4 | 900 | 0.1 |
| Czechs | 5,500 | 0.3 | 32,600 | 1.9 | ||
| Moravians | 12,000 | 0.6 | ||||
| Jews | 16,916 | 0.8 | 20,000 | 0.9 | 8,900 | 0.5 |
| Population | c. 2.1 million | 100 | c. 2.2 million | 100 | c. 1.8 million | 100 |
The earliest exact census figures onethnolinguistic ornational structure (Nationalverschiedenheit) of the Prussian part ofUpper Silesia, come from year 1819. The last pre-WW1 general census figures available, are from 1910 (if not including the 1911 census of school children—Sprachzählung unter den Schulkindern—which revealed a higher percent of Polish-speakers among school children than the 1910 census among the general populace). Figures (Table 1.) show that large demographic changes took place between 1819 and 1910, with the region's total population quadrupling, the percent of German-speakers increasing significantly, and that of Polish-speakers declining considerably. Also the total land area in which Polish language was spoken, as well as the land area in which it was spoken by the majority, declined between 1790 and 1890.[42] Polish authors before 1918 estimated the number of Poles in Prussian Upper Silesia as slightly higher than according to official German censuses.[35]
| Table 1. Numbers of Polish, German and other inhabitants (Regierungsbezirk Oppeln)[43][44][45] | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 1819 | 1828 | 1831 | 1834 | 1837 | 1840 | 1843 | 1846 | 1852 | 1855 | 1858 | 1861 | 1867 | 1890 | 1900 | 1905 | 1910 |
| Polish | 377,100 (67.2%) | 418,837 (61.1%) | 443,084 (62.0%) | 468,691 (62.6%) | 495,362 (62.1%) | 525,395 (58.6%) | 540,402 (58.1%) | 568,582 (58.1%) | 584,293 (58.6%) | 590,248 (58.7%) | 612,849 (57.3%) | 665,865 (59.1%) | 742,153 (59.8%) | 918,728(58.2%) | 1,048,230(56.1%) | 1,158,805(57.0%) | Census, monolingual Polish:1,169,340(53.0%)[46] or up to1,560,000 together with bilinguals[35] |
| German | 162,600 (29.0%) | 255,483 (37.3%) | 257,852 (36.1%) | 266,399 (35.6%) | 290,168 (36.3%) | 330,099 (36.8%) | 348,094 (37.4%) | 364,175 (37.2%) | 363,990 (36.5%) | 366,562 (36.5%) | 406,950 (38.1%) | 409,218 (36.3%) | 457,545 (36.8%) | 566,523(35.9%) | 684,397(36.6%) | 757,200(37.2%) | 884,045(40.0%) |
| Other | 21,503 (3.8%) | 10,904 (1.6%) | 13,254 (1.9%) | 13,120 (1.8%) | 12,679 (1.6%) | 41,570 (4.6%) | 42,292 (4.5%) | 45,736 (4.7%) | 49,445 (4.9%) | 48,270 (4.8%) | 49,037 (4.6%) | 51,187 (4.6%) | 41,611 (3.4%) | 92,480 (5.9%) | 135,519 (7.3%) | 117,651 (5.8%) | Total population: 2,207,981 |
In the 1921 plebiscite, 40.6% of eligible voters (people over 20 years old – a minimum age that favoured the German-speaking population, whosemedian age was greater than that of Polish-speakers of Upper Silesia, according to censuses of 1900–1910[47]) decided to secede fromGermany and become Polish citizens.[48] In total, over seven hundred towns and villages voted in favour of Poland, especially in the counties ofPszczyna,[49]Rybnik,[50]Tarnowskie Góry,[51]Toszek-Gliwice,[52]Strzelce Opolskie,[53]Bytom,[54]Katowice,[55]Lubliniec,[56]Zabrze,[57]Racibórz,[58]Olesno,[59]Koźle[60] andOpole.[61]
Da die Silingen offensichtlich ihren Namen im mittelalterlichen pagus silensis und dem mons slenz – möglicherweise mit dem Zobten gleichzusetzen [...] – hinterließen und damit einer ganzen Landschaft – Schlesien – den Namen gaben [...]The name in Silesian dialect:'Ślōnzŏki,Ślůnzoki (Silesian) in Polish languageŚlązacy (Polish), Old Polish Ślężnie, colloquial Polish Ślązaki, Ślązoki
Nationalverschiedenheit 1819
Nationalverschiedenheit 1819: Polen - 377,100; Deutsche - 162,600; Mährer - 12,000; Juden - 8,000; Tschechen - 1,600; Gesamtbevölkerung: 561,203
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