Map of Upper Silesia, 1746
(; ; ; ;
Silesian:
Gůrny Ślůnsk) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of
Silesia;
Lower Silesia is to the northwest. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of (chronologically)
Greater Moravia,
Bohemia,
Poland,
Holy Roman Empire,
Austria,
Prussia, and later of unified
German Reich. It is currently split between Poland (
Opole and
Silesian Voivodeships) and the
Czech Republic (
Czech Silesia, or the
Silesian-Moravian Region).
Upper Silesia is situated in the Silesian highlands, between the upper
Oder and upper
Vistula rivers. The total population of the
Upper Silesian Industry Area is 3,487,000.
Opole Silesia,
Cieszyn Silesia, and
Austrian Silesia are historical parts of Upper Silesia. The territory of Opole Silesia composes much of
Opole Voivodeship.
History
19th century coat of arms of Upper Silesia.
At the time of
Svatopluk I and King
Arnulf of Carinthia in the ninth century,
Silesia was a part of
Greater Moravia and after its destruction in the early tenth century it was conquered by
Bohemia. A number of earlier inhabitants of Silesia, the
Silingi, remained throughout and they concentrated around the
Zobten mountain and in a settlement named
Niempsch (derived from a Slavic name for Germans).
Upper Silesia was soon conquered by the newly installed dukes of the
Polans and for several hundred years was part of
Poland. This fell apart and at the renewal of Poland under
Casimir the Great, all of Silesia was specifically excluded as non-Polish land. In 1335 it came back under the rule of the
Kingdom of Bohemia. Many towns were destroyed by the
Mongols at the
Battle of Legnica but rebuilt. By the 1300s influx of settlers to Upper Silesia stopped, because of the plague. Latin, Czech and German language were used for towns and cities and only in the 1550s with the
Protestant Reformation did records with Polish names also appear. A large number of Silesians became
Protestants, when all of Upper Silesia belonged to the
Hohenzollerns of
Brandenburg-Ansbach. The
Roman Catholic Holy Roman Emperors of the
Habsburg dynasty forcibly reintroduced Catholicism, led by the
Jesuits.
Lower Silesia and most of Upper Silesia became part of the
Kingdom of Prussia in 1742 during the
First Silesian War. A small part remained within the Habsburg-ruled Bohemian Crown as the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia, colloquially called
Austrian Silesia.
In the 19th century Upper Silesia became an industrial area using its plentiful
coal and
iron ore.
In 1919 after
World War I, the eastern part, which had majority of ethnic Poles, came under Polish rule as the
Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship, while the mostly German-speaking western part remained part of the German Reich as the
Province of Upper Silesia. From 1919-1921 three
Silesian Uprisings occurred among the Polish-speaking populace of Upper Silesia; the
Battle of Annaberg occurred within the region in 1921. In the
Upper Silesia plebiscite a vote of 60 to 40 percent voted against joining to Poland, with clear lines dividing Polish and German communities. The exact border, the maintenance of cross-border railway traffic and other necessary co-operations as well as equal rights for all inhabitants in both parts of Upper Silesia were fixed by the
German-Polish Accord on East Silesia, signed in Geneva on May 15, 1922. On June 20
Germany de facto ceded the eastern parts of Upper Silesia, becoming part of the
Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship of
Poland.
After 1945 almost all of Upper Silesia the was not ceded to
Poland in 1922 was transfered to this state. A majority of the German-speaking population was expelled in accordance with the decision of the victorious Allied powers at their 1945 meeting at
Potsdam. This expulsion program also included German speaking inhabitants of Lower Silesia, eastern Pomerania, Gdańsk (Danzig), and East Prussia. These German expellees were transported to the present day Germany (including the former
East Germany), and they were replaced with Poles, many from former Polish provinces taken over by the USSR in the east. A good many German-speaking Upper Silesians ended up being relocated in Bavaria. A small part of Upper Silesia stayed as part of
Czechoslovakia as
Czech Silesia.
The expulsions of German-speakers did not totally eliminate the presence of a population that considered itself German. Upper Silesia in 1945 had a considerable number of Roman Catholic mixed bilingual inhabitants that spoke both German and Polish dialects, and their Polish linguistic skills were solid enough for them to be allowed to remain in the area. With the fall of communism and Poland joining the European Union, there were enough of these remaining in Upper Silesia to allow for the recognition of a German minority by the Polish government.
Major cities and towns
(All in Poland unless otherwise indicated; population figures are for 1995)
- Opole (130,600) - the historical capital of Upper Silesia
- Opava (62,000) - Czech Republic
- Orlová (35,900) - Czech Republic
- Krnov (25,400) - Czech Republic
Literature
- H. Förster, B. Kortus (1989) "Social-Geographical Problems of the Cracow and Upper Silesia Agglomerations", Paderborn. (Bochumer Geographische Arbeiten No. 51)
- Krzysztof Gwozdz (2000) "The Image of Upper Silesia in geography textbooks 1921-1998", in: Boleslaw Domanski (Ed.), Prace Geograficzne, No. 106, Institute of Geography of the Jagiellonian University Kraków. pp. 55-68
- Rudolf Carl Virchow. "." (1848) Am J Public Health 2006;96 2102-2105.
Excerpted from: Virchow RC. Collected Essays on Public Health and Epidemiology. Vol 1. Rather LJ, ed. Boston, Mass: Science History Publications; 1985:204–319.
