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Historical landmarks and UNESCO World Heritage Sites
- The region contains many historical landmarks and UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It is also rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas.
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Silesia has a diverse culture, including architecture, costumes, cuisine, traditions, and the Silesian language (minority in Upper Silesia). The largest city of the region is Wrocław. Silesia is along the Oder River, with the Sudeten Mountains extending across the southern border.
- 40,400 km² (15,600 sq mi)
- Wrocław
- c. 8,000,000
May 3, 2024 · Silesia, historical region that is now in southwestern Poland. Silesia was originally a Polish province, which became a possession of the Bohemian crown in 1335, passed with that crown to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1526, and was taken by Prussia in 1742. In 1945, at the end of World War II, Silesia
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Etymology
- History
- Religious Strife
- Prussian, German, and Austrian Control
- After World War I
- World War II
- Demographics
- Sources and Further Reading
One source attributes the origin of the name Silesia to the Silingi, who were most likely a Vandalic (East Germanic) people presumably living south of the Baltic Sea along the Elbe, Oder, and Vistula Rivers in the second century. When the Silingi moved out during the Migration Period, they left remnants of their society behind, the most obvious bei...
Early people
Silesia was inhabited by various peoples in the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. The earliest written sources mention Magna Germania in the writings of Ptolemaeus and Germania, as recorded by the Roman historian Tacitus. Tacitus wrote that the first century Silesia was inhabited by a multi-ethnic league dominated by the Lugii, an East Germanic tribe. The Silingi were also part of this grouping, and so were most likely Vandals. Other East Germanic tribes also inhabited the scarcely populated regi...
Middle Ages
After 500 C.E. the Great Migration had induced the bulk of the original East Germanic tribes to leave Silesia, while Asian tribes had been arriving for centuries, and Slavic tribes began forming first settlements, including the Silesian lands. Early documents mention several mostly Slavic tribes most probably living in Silesia. The Bavarian Geographer (around 845) specifies five peoples, to which a document of the Bishopric of Prague(1086) adds four others. In the ninth and tenth centuries, t...
Silesian duchies
In the time of divisions, Piast dukes sought to reincorporate Silesia into the Polish kingdom and reunite the country, the first being Duke Henryk IV Probus of Silesia, but he died in 1290 before realizing his goal. Duke Przemysł II of Greater Poland united two of the original provinces and went on to become king in 1295, but he was murdered a year later before being able to accomplish more. In 1302, the self-appointment by King Wenceslaus II Luxembourg of Bohemia as King of Poland spurred 50...
Hussite wars
During the Hussite Wars named for the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia, Silesia was loyal to Catholicism, with an exception of Cieszyn Silesia. However, the region’s allegiance to Bohemia’s Catholic King Sigismund Luxembourg and an active role of Silesian dukes in the first two crusades against the Hussite Bohemia brought about a series of devastating Hussite invasions between 1425 and 1435. The Silesians regarded Bohemian rebels as dangerous to the Silesian German nationality; indeed, the Hus...
Reformation
The Protestant Reformationof the sixteenth century took an early hold in Silesia, with most inhabitants converting to Lutheranism. At the same time, pastors aided the renaissance of the Slavic culture and language. In 1526, Ferdinand I of the Habsburg dynasty was elected King of Bohemia, and in the same year he incorporated the Bohemian Kingdom into the dynasty. This was yet another period of heightened Germanization and weakening of the region’s ties with Poland. The religious conflicts and...
Thirty Years' War
The tensions between Catholics and Protestants boiled over at the turn of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Protestant estates took advantage of the protracted disputes between Rudolf II and his brother Matthias, securing religious freedom in 1609 for both the Czech lands and Silesia. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), sparked by the second Defenestration of Praguein 1618 in the wake of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor's attempts to restore Catholicism and stamp out Protestantism in Bohemi...
Silesia went to Austrian control with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. The Habsburgs encouraged Catholicism and succeeded in reconverting 60 percent of the population of Silesia, with massive assistance of Jesuits, who funded schools for the privileged and non-privileged classes alike. Lutheranism was tolerated in B...
The Treaty of Versailles (1919) granted the population of Upper Silesia a right to determine their future, with the exception of a 333 km² area with German majority around Hlučín that was granted to Czechoslovakia in 1920, but the Czechoslovak government did not endorse the proposed division and invaded Cieszyn Silesia in 1919, stopping on the Vist...
Under Adolf Hitler, the German Third Reich retook possession of the predominately Polish sections of Upper Silesia along with Sosnowiec (Sosnowitz), Będzin (Bendzin, Bendsburg), Chrzanów (Krenau), and Zawiercie (Warthenau) counties and parts of Olkusz (Ilkenau) and Zywiec (Saybusch) counties in September 1939, when the invasion of Poland marked the...
Silesia is inhabited mostly by Poles and Silesians, followed by German, Czech, and Moravian minorities. Poland’s 2002 census found that the Slavic Silesians are the largest ethnic minority in Poland, trailed by Germans — both reside mostly in Upper Silesia. The Czech part of Silesia is inhabited by Czechs, Moravians, and Poles. For comparison, the ...
Bireley, Robert. The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War: Kings, Courts, and Confessors. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003. ISBN 0521820170Butler, Rohan. Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939.London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1961, OCLC: 63769283Davies, Norman, and Roger Moorhouse. Microcosm, Portrait of a Central European City. London: Jonathan Cape, 2002, ISBN 0224062433OCLC 49551193Silesia became closer to the center of the Protestant Reformation, Brandenburg and Saxony, and the country produced several important Protestant intellectuals. In 1526 Silesia received the first Protestant university of Europe when Frederick II opened an evangelical academy in Liegnitz.
Written sources for Silesia in the 11th and 12th centuries are rare, and the Silesian society of that period is mostly known through the progress of archaeological research. Many of the written sources available for medieval Silesia have been published in the several volumes of the Codex diplomaticus Silesiae. Chronicles began to be written in ...
Silesia , Polish Śląsk German Schlesien, Historic region, east-central Europe. It now lies mainly in southwestern Poland, with parts in Germany and the Czech Republic. It was originally a Polish province that became a possession of the Bohemian crown, and thus part of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1335. Because of succession disputes and the ...
Silesia has a diverse culture, including architecture, costumes, cuisine, traditions, and the Silesian language. The largest city of the region is Wrocław. Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany.
