Silesians (; Silesian German: Schläsinger or Schläsier; ; ; ) is both a linguistic as well as a geographical term for the inhabitants of Silesia, a historical region in Central Europe divided by the current national boundaries of Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Historically, the region of Silesia (Lower and Upper) has been inhabited by Polish (West Slavic Lechitic people), Czechs, and Germans. 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 the Potsdam Agreement leaving most of the region ethnically Polish and/or Slavic Upper Silesian. The names of Silesia in different languages most likely share their etymology—; ; ; ; ; ; ; Latin, Spanish and English: Silesia; ; ; ; ; . The names all relate to the name of a river (now Ślęza) and mountain (Mount Ślęża) in mid-southern Silesia, which served as a place of cult for pagans before Christianization.
Ślęża is listed as one of the numerous Pre-Indo-European topographic names in the region (see old European hydronymy).Zbigniew Babik, "Najstarsza warstwa nazewnicza na ziemiach polskich w granicach średniowiecznej Słowiańszczyzny", Uniwersitas, Kraków, 2001. According to some Polonists, the name Ślęża or Ślęż is directly related to the Old Polish words ślęg or śląg , which means dampness, moisture, or humidity.Rudolf Fischer. Onomastica slavogermanica. Uniwersytet Wrocławski. 2007. t. XXVI. 2007. str. 83 They disagree with the hypothesis of an origin for the name Śląsk from the name of the Silings tribe, an etymology preferred by some German authors.The name in Silesian dialect:'Ślōnzŏki, Ślůnzoki (Silesian) in Polish language , Old Polish Ślężnie, colloquial Polish Ślązaki, Ślązoki Slezané (Czech)
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.
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 Polish nationality from Silesia in the 2011 Polish national census making them the largest minority group in Poland. About 126,000 people declared themselves as members of the German minority (58,000 declared it jointly with Polish 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 the 2021 Czech census, including 18,850 of those who declared two nationalities (44,446 in Czechoslovakia in 1991), and 6,361 people declared joint Silesian and Moravian nationality in the 1991 Slovak national census. Over 85% of the population in the Polish part of Upper Silesia declare themselves as Poles, and in the Czech part as Czechs.
During the German occupation of Poland, Nazi authorities conducted a census in East 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 the Cieszyn 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."Górny Śląsk: szczególny przypadek kulturowy" (en: "Upper Silesia: special case of cultural") - Mirosława Błaszczak-Wacławik, Wojciech Błasiak, Tomasz Nawrocki, University of Warsaw 1990, p. 63 After World 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 in Zabrze considered themselves to be Silesians, and that number was around 50% in Strzelce County."Polityka antyniemiecka na Górnym Śląsku w latach 1945-1950" - Bernard Linek, Opole 2000,
History Archaeological findings of the 20th century in Silesia confirm the existence of an early settlement inhabited by Celtic tribes.
Until the 2nd century some parts of Silesia were populated by Celtic Boii, predecessors of the states of Bohemia and Bavaria and subsequently until the 5th century, by the Germanic Silingi, a tribe of the Vandals, which moved south and west to invade Andalusia. Silesia remained depopulated until the second phase of the migration period.
The Slavs, predominantly White 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.R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, p. 34–37, Chronologically, the first group of Slavs were those that dwelt by the Dnieper River, the second was the Sukov-Dzidzice type Slavs, and the last were groups of Avaro-Slavic peoples from the Danube river areas.R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, p. 37–38, In the early 9th century, the settlement stabilized. Local West Slavs began to erect a series of defensive systems, such as the Silesian Przesieka and the Silesia Walls to guard them from invaders. The north-eastern border with Western Polans was not reinforced, due to their common culture and language.R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, p. 40,
The 9th-century Bavarian Geographer records the tribal names of the Opolanie, Dadosesani, Golenzizi, Lupiglaa, and the Ślężanie. The 1086 Prague Document, which is believed to document the 10th-century settlements, also mentions the Bobrzanie and Trzebowianie tribes. Later sources classified those tribes as Silesian tribes, which were also jointly classified as part of Polish tribes.Raymond Breton, National Survival in Dependent Societies: Social Change in Canada and Poland, McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP, 1990, p. 106, Google Books; Charles William Previte-Orton, The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1962, V. II, p. 744, Google BooksV.I. Kozlov [in:] Regina E. Holloman, Serghei A. Arutiunov (ed.) Perspectives on Ethnicity, Walter de Gruyter 1978, p. 391, , 9783110807707 Google BooksRaymond Breton, W. Kwaśniewicz, National Survival in Dependent Societies: Social Change in Canada and Poland, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1990, p. 106, Google BooksS. Arnold, M. Żychowski, Outline history of Poland. From the beginning of the state to the present time, Warsaw 1962, p. 7-11 Google Books The reason for this classification was the "fundamentally common culture and language" of Silesian, Polan, Masovian, Vistulan, and Pomeranian tribes that "were considerably more closely related to one another than were the Germanic tribes."John Blacking, Anna Czekanowska, Polish Folk Music: Slavonic Heritage – Polish Tradition – Contemporary Trends, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 3, Google Books same conclusions in Mark Salter, Jonathan Bousfield, Poland, Rough Guides, 2002, p. 675, Google Books
According to Perspectives on Ethnicity, written by anthropologist V. I. Kozlov and edited by R. Holloman, the Silesian tribes, together with other Polish tribes, formed what is now Polish ethnicity and culture. This process is called ethnic consolidation, in which several ethnic communities of the same origin and cognate languages merge into one.
Middle Ages The Silesians lived on the territory that became part of the Great Moravia in 875. Later, in 990, the first Polish state was created by Duke Mieszko I, and then expanded by king Boleslaw I at the beginning of the 11th century. He established the Bishopric of Wrocław in Lower Silesia in the year 1000.
In the Middle Ages, Slavic tribal confederacies, and then Slavic states, dominated. Silesia was part of Great Moravia, then Kingdom of Bohemia and finally the Piast monarchy of Poland. The tribal differences started to disappear after the consolidation of Poland 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 separate ecclesiastical organization within the boundaries of the newly established Polish state.S. Rosik [in:] W. Wrzesiński (red.) Historia Dolnego Śląska, Wrocław 2006, p. 49, 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 for Mazovia, and Silesians for Silesia. As a result of the fragmentation of Poland, some of those regions were again divided into smaller entities, such as the division of Silesia into Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia). However, the tribal era was already over, and these divisions reflected only political subdivisions of the Polish realm.S. Rosik [in:] W. Wrzesiński (red.) Historia Dolnego Śląska, Wrocław 2006, p. 53-54, Within Poland, from 1177 onward, Silesia 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, although their population was of Vistulan and not of Silesian descent.R. Żerelik(in:) M. Czpliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, p. 21-22, 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. Between 1327 and 1348, the duchies of Silesia came under the suzerainty of the Crown of Bohemia, which was then passed to the Habsburg monarchy of Austria in 1526.
Beginning in the 13th century, sparesly settled Slavic Silesia began to be settled by Germans from various German regions. Silesia was by then attached the Bohemia, which itself was part of the Holy 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 the Odra 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 the Polish 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.M. Czapliński [in:] M. Czapliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, s. 290,
Modern history