The Silesian People’s Party (, , , ) was a political organization in Cieszyn Silesia that existed from 1909 to 1938 in Austrian Silesia, which later became international plebiscite territory and finally part of Czechoslovakia. The party included mainly Slavic people, who saw themselves as members of a Silesian nation.Rede des Landtagabg[eorgnetes] Koždon in der Budgetdebatte des schlesischen Landtages (44. Sitzung) am 8. November 1910 in: Josef Koždon, Über die Sonderstellung der schlesischen Polen, die nationalen Verhältnisse und die allpolnische Propaganda in Ostschlesien, Skotschau 1910.Kronika.(Śląskim „Ślązakom”), „Dziennik Cieszyński” nr 56, 10.03.1909.„Ślązak” a socyaliści, „Gwiazdka Cieszyńska” nr 16, 24.02.1909.„Ślązak” z 28.01. 1910.„Ślązak” z 18.12.1909Czesi, Niemcy – „ślązakowcy”, „Dziennik Cieszyński” nr 190, 21.08.1909.Ciesz się narodzie śląski!, „Dziennik Cieszyński” nr 218, 24.09.1909. The party is seen as part of the Szlonzakian movement (, , ) or Silesian Separatist Movement.
History
The Silesian People's Party was founded in summer of 1908 by the principal of an elementary school, Józef Kożdoń, in Skoczów. On 7 February 1909, the party counted about 2,000 members in 30 local groupsAndrzej Szefer, Współpraca tzw. Ślązakowców z Niemcami, "Zaranie Śląskie", Katowice – Cieszyn 1963; Josef Koždon, Aus der jüngster Geschichte der Teschener Landes – Errinerungen und Erlebnisse, "Schlesisches Jahrbuch", Breslau 1940. in the counties of Bielsko, Cieszyn and Fryštát. Local groups in Frydek county formed later. Members and electors of the SPP came from Protestant circles among the citizens of Cieszyn Silesia, so the largest organizations within the party existed in Bielsko and Cieszyn, where large Protestant communities lived. The party's largest local groups, as of 1913, existed in Skoczów (214 members) and Cieszyn (210 members).
The goals of the SPP were not new – similar sentiments had been present in Cieszyn Silesia since the Revolutions of 1848E. Buława, Od wspólnoty etnicznej do ukształtowania się wspólnot narodowych (1840–1917), [in:] Śląsk Cieszyński. Środowisko naturalne. Zarys dziejów. Zarys kultury materialnej i duchowej pod red. W. Sosny, Cieszyn 2001, s. 185, . – but this was the first time that supporters of Silesian independence were organized into a distinct political party. Silesian nationalist positions were first advocated by the Union of Austrian Silesians, which was founded in 1848 by Silesian deputies of the Austrian Parliament: Franz Hein, Hans Kudlich and Johann Demel von Elswehr. Such sentiments were also voiced informally by community institutions, like the paper Nowy Czas (New Time), edited by preacher Theodor Haase. "The Szlonzakian movement had expanded in the nineties of the 19th century, collecting Slavic people who didn’t want to vote for Poles or Czechs and chose attachment to a separate Silesian nation".Ružena Vyhnalikova w A. Grobelny (red.), K otazkam dějin Slezska, Ostrava 1956. Silesian nationalism achieved successes mainly in the judicial districts of Skoczów, Strumień and Frydek.Józef Chlebowczyk, Nad Olzą. Śląsk Cieszyński w wiekach XVIII, XIX i XX, Katowice 1971.
Activity in Austria In 1909 there were elections to the Silesian Parliament in Opava. The Silesian People's Party and German liberals had established a united election list, the Silesian Progressive Coalition, which included SPP candidates in rural electoral districts and German liberal candidates in urban electoral districts. Finally electors from the rural Bielsko-Strumień-Skoczów electoral district chose one deputy – the leader of Silesian People’s Party, Józef Kożdoń, who defeated Józef Londzin from the Union of Silesian Catholics, who was leader of the Poles in Cieszyn Silesia. In the rural Cieszyn-Fryštát-Jablunkov electoral district, Fraciszek Halfar of the Union of Silesian Catholics won with support from the SPP and Polish parties as well. The second deputy from this circle, Jan Michejda, defeated the SPP candidate, Josef Cichy, thanks to the votes of Polish Catholics and Czechs. Michejda became leader of the Protestant Polish National Party. The third SPP candidate, Edward Quasnitza, won the first round of elections in the rural Bohumín-Slezská Ostrava-Frýdek electoral district, but in the second round he was defeated by the Czech candidate Jan Poppe, mayor of Slezská Ostrava, who was supported by the Poles.
In July 1910, the non-political cultural base of Silesian People's Party was formed: the Union of Silesians (, , ), founded by Kożdoń, Cichy, and Paul Wania, originally under the name Silesian People's Union "Our Homeland" (, ). From 1909 to 1923 the official paper of the Silesian People's Party was the weekly Ślązak (Silesian).
In 1911 there were local elections in Austria. The SPP won in 39 municipalities of the counties of Bielsko and Cieszyn: Jaworze and Jasienica in the judicial district of Bielsko; Bładnice Dolne, Cisownica, Goleszów, Godziszów, Górki Wielkie, Harbutowice, Hermanice, Kozakowice Górne, Kozakowice Dolne, Łączka, Międzyświeć, Nierodzim, Simoradz, Wieszczęta, Wilamowice and Ustroń (here with a coalition of Szlonzakians and Germans) in the judicial district of Skoczów; Bąków, Drogomyśl, Pruchna, Zaborze and Rudzica (here with a coalition of Szlonzakians and Poles) in the judicial district of Strumień; Bażanowice, Dzięgielów, Gumna, Konská, Leszna Górna, Komorní Lhotka, Nebory, Puńców, Svibice, Zamarski, Horní Žukov and Šumbark (here with a coalition of Szlonzakians and Poles) in the judicial district of Cieszyn; Lyžbice, Mosty u Jablunkova and Oldřichovice in the judicial district of Jablunkov.Piątkowski Kazimierz, Stosunki narodowościowe w Księstwie Cieszyńskim, Cieszyn 1918.
In 1911 there were also elections to the Austrian Parliament in Vienna. SPP candidates lost many socialist votes and were defeated by Polish and Czech candidates. Kożdoń did not even win in majority municipalities that his party had ruled in local elections. Eight municipalities around Bielsko, called a "German language island", which had voted for Kożdoń in the Silesian Parliament elections in 1909, constituted an exception within the rural Bielsko electoral district. Kożdoń won 26% of the votes in the Bielsko electoral district and 19% of the votes in the Cieszyn electoral district. Louis Schindler took 7.5% votes in the Frydek electoral district.
In the period when Cieszyn Silesia belonged to Austria-Hungary, the Silesian People's Party reached the largest popularity in the triangle between Cieszyn, Wisła and Strumień, centering on Skoczów, Jaworze, Ustroń and Goleszów.
In the plebiscite period After World War I members of Silesian People's Party hoped to get Austrian Silesia a place as a free state in the federation of Austrian states. When this effort failed, they pushed for the independence of Cieszyn Silesia and probably a union with the formerly Prussian Upper Silesia. Upper Silesia's independence was advocated by the Upper Silesian Committee (which, beginning in January 1919, was called the Union of Upper Silesians).
Kożdoń, along with Richter and Fulda – the leaders of the Delegation of German Parties of East Silesia – wrote "Petition regarding an independent Republic of East Silesia – Cieszyn". During the Paris Peace Conference, this petition was presented by a member of the town council in Bielsko – Robert Piesch – to a member of the Austrian delegation in Paris. The International Commission in Cieszyn had received "Petition regarding the rights of Cieszyn Land’s people to self-determination",Schroeder Eduard August, Denkschrift zum Selbstbestimmungsrechte des Teschner Landes (mit Beilage Die Neutralitätserklärung des Herzogtums Teschen vom 5. März 1779. Denkschrift zur völkerrechtlichen und staatsrechtlichen Stellung des Teschener Landes) Teschen 1919 whose author, Silesian economist and theoretical lawyer Eduard August Schroeder,Spyra, Janusz, Uczony spod Beskidów, "Kalendarz Cieszyński" 1991. supported the independence of Cieszyn Silesia. This option was supported by three members of the International Commission: Dubois from the United States, Tissi from Italy and Coulson from the United Kingdom, but the fourth – Grenard, the representative of France – was opposed to even including independence as an option in the planned plebiscite. The plebiscite was supposed to decide whether Cieszyn Silesia would belong to Poland or Czechoslovakia. Soon the leader of the SPP gained close contacts with leading Czechoslovak politicians: president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, prime minister Karel Kramář, foreign affairs minister Edvard Beneš and future prime minister Vlastimil Tusar. They promised Kożdoń that if Silesia lay within the borders of Czechoslovakia it would have political autonomy.
Even when the SPP officially supported Czechoslovakia, the party did not abandon the option of independence, which was still advocated by its allies, the Germans of Cieszyn Silesia. Kożdoń cooperated with the leader of the Upper Silesian independence advocates, Ewald Latacz, the chairman of the Union of Upper Silesians,Vogel Rudolf, Deutsche Presse und Propaganda des Abstimmungkampfes in Oberschlesien, Beuthen O.S. 1931. which had about half a million members.Andrea Schmidt-Rösler, Autonomie und Separatismusbestrebungen in Oberschlesien 1918–1922, „Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung” 1999, Heft 1
In this period the Szlonzakian movement had a broad base of support. The SPP had more than 10,000 members and the Union of Silesians had 52,000.Protest „Śląskiej Partyi Ludowej, „Ślązak” nr 31, 6.08.1920. At this time, the Plebiscite Committee of the Silesian People's Party was founded in Karwina, along with 139 communal plebiscite committees in the counties of Bielsko (50 committees), Cieszyn (61 committees) and Fryštát (28 committees).Andrzej Stępniak, Kwestia narodowa a społeczna na Śląsku Cieszyńskim pod koniec XIX i na początku XX wieku, Katowice 1986. In the winter of 1920 in Fryštat, František Janku and Paweł Bajtek founded the Silesian Social-Democratic Party, formed from Silesian workers, who were mainly former members of the Polish Socialist Party and the Silesian People's Party from Wisła, Ustroń and Goleszów. Karol Smyczek, Kożdoń’s personal secretary, was important in the formation of this new party's local organizations. Taken together, the members and supporters of the Szlonzakian movement numbered about 100,000 in 1920.Arnulf Hein, Vor 55 Jahren starb der Schlonsakenführer Josef Koždoň, "Unser Oberschlesien" nr 23-24 von Dezember 2004.
In July 1920, the Western allies divided Cieszyn Silesia without holding a plebiscite.
In Poland On the Polish side, where about 80% of the Szlonzakian movement's organization was located,Dobrowolski Piotr, Ugrupowania i kierunki separatystyczne na Górnym Śląsku i w Cieszyńskiem w latach 1918–1939, Warszawa – Kraków 1972. its activity was prohibited. Members of the Silesian People’s Party and Union of Silesians were subject to persecution and arrests.Arnulf Hein, Vor 55 Jahren starb der Schlonsakenführer Josef Koždoň, "Unser Oberschlesien" nr 23-24 von Dezember 2004.