The Silesian Autonomy Movement (, , ), abbreviated as RAŚ, is a movement that seeks the creation of an autonomous Silesia including a separate Silesian Treasury, a Silesian Parliament, as well as a Silesian constitution and an elected president. The party envisions an autonomous Silesia either within Poland, or as part of the Europe of 100 Flags, where the competences and sovereignty of modern states will be transferred to the regions. RAŚ considers Silesians a separate nation and promotes Silesian nationalism. The party supports regionalist and separatist movements in Europe, and has also been described as separatist itself.
In 2002, RAŚ became a member of the European Free Alliance. In 2007, RAŚ activists reestablished football club 1. FC Katowice. Also, since 2007 RAŚ has organized annual "Autonomy Marches" in Poland.
Nationally, the party is considered left-wing, and it is affiliated with Civic Coalition. In 2019, the RAŚ signed an agreement with the Civic Coalition for elections to the Sejm and Senate, in which both parties ran on a joint list in Upper Silesia. The two parties continued to cooperate afterwards, and the secretary of RAŚ, Jacek Tomaszewski, is also a member of the Civic Coalition.
History Silesia had been well known for its regional sense of identity and both separatist as well as autonomists ambitions. In 1869, Polish linguist Lucjan Malinowski wrote: "Silesian people shun from the Polish population". In Silesia at the end of the 19th century, the term Pole was offensive, and associated with groups of 'vagabonds' to the inhabitants of towns. Stereotypically, Poles were associated with migrant workers from Galicia, employed for manual labour in Silesian mines and factories - they had a bad reputation and were associated with brawls, drunkenness and theft, which alienated the local Silesian population.P. Dobrowolski, Ugrupowania i kierunki separatystyczne na Górnym Śląsku i w Cieszyńskim w latach 1918–1939, Warszawa 1972, p. 32–33 Silesians believed that they were a nation on their own and distanced themselves from Poland, often arguing that Silesian people have more in common with Germany than Poland. Szerzej Dobrowolski observed: "Our people are more similar to the German people with whom they neighbour to the west than to the Polish people in Galicia [...]. This mixed Silesian nationality is the necessary result of the historical development which our people have undergone; centuries ago they were separated from Poland, came under much better German rule, and, preserving their original language, acquired through contact with high German civilisation those qualities which make them superior to the people still under Polish rule".
In the Polish literature on the subject, such an attitude of the Silesian people was explained by "a lack of normal bonds with the Polish nation", which resulted, according to some authors, in "a stronger attachment to the region, regional pride". Despite the intensive activities of the Polish national movement at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Silesia, and Polonisation in the interwar period, there was still a large group of Silesians who thought of themselves as a separate nation. Wojciech Korfanty believed that this was over 30% of the population of the Silesian Voivodeship. While Silesians did not manage to create a state, they formed a clearly defined cultural and linguistic community.J. Gorzelik, Ruch śląski – między nacjonalizmem i regionalizmem, [in:] Nadciągają Ślązacy, red L. Nijakowski, Warszawa 2004, p. 19
One of the first political organisations of separatist Silesians was the social-democratic Silesian People's Party (SPL), founded in 1909 by Józef Kożdoń, whose political goal was to promote regional culture and defend against Polish nationalism. After the First World War, states began to make claims to Silesian lands on the international arena. Silesian politicians did not look passively at the development of events, and in 1919, on the initiative of Edward Latacz and brothers Tomasz and Jan Regink, the Union of Upper Silesians was established in Bytom, which postulated the creation of an independent state in Upper Silesia with two official languages, Polish and German. After establishing contacts with Kożdoń's supporters, they wanted to include the lands of Cieszyn Silesia, Opava Silesia and the Sudetenland. The new state was to have a system similar to Switzerland. The project of the Silesian separatists was supported by industrialists and landowners including the Prince von Pless Alexander Hochberg, whose intention was to create a free Silesian state (Freistaat Schlesien). Independence and territorial integrity were to be guaranteed by the world powers, in particular the United States.
An unfavourable international situation, opposition from France and the actions of Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia led to the collapse of separatist Silesian project and the division of Silesia. Before this happened, however, a battle for the support of the Silesian population was fought by Poland and Germany. Each side promised Silesia wide autonomy within their own state. The Sejm of the Republic of Poland passed the Constitutional Act containing the Organic Statute of the Silesian Voivodeship on 15 July 1920. In turn, the Reichstag Act of 27 November 1920 on Upper Silesia provided that within two months from the date of the German takeover of the plebiscite area, a referendum would be held in the entire Upper Silesian province on the creation of an Upper Silesian state within the Reich. To this end, many Silesians partook in the Silesian uprising not for the incorporation of Silesia into Poland, but for autonomy, with most Silesians believing that autonomy within Poland would be the lesser evil.
After a part of Upper Silesia was annexed to Poland, separatist activity waned. The newly created Silesian Voivodeship became an arena of struggle between German and Polish influences, with no room for a third force. Silesians were forced to take one side or the other, because, as the then Silesian Voivode Michał Grażyński stated: "we Poles like clear-cut situations and value defined characters. That is why we respect honest Czechs and Germans, but we cannot tolerate any intermediate types". However, the policy of Polonisation was not appreciated by some Upper Silesians, which was reflected in the results of the municipal elections of 19 November 1926, also known as the second Silesian plebiscite. At that time, the majority of seats were won by German groupings, e.g. in Katowice - 56.7%, in Świętochłowice - 54.3%, and in Królewska Huta (Chorzów) - as much as 70.3%. Upper Silesians voted for German minority groupings (the German minority accounted for approximately 7% of the population of the Silesian Voivodeship).
The revival of Silesian regionalism did not take place until after 1989, with the collapse of the communist regime in Poland. According to some Silesians, the political breakthrough did not bring the expected changes. In 1990, the Silesian Autonomy Movement was founded, with the main aim of forcing the central authorities to change their attitude to Silesia. The association called for the restoration of the pre-war autonomy of Upper Silesia. It proposed, following the model of Western European regionalism, the introduction of strong autonomous provinces in Poland, which would be financially independent of the central government and would decide their own affairs independently. In 1993, RAŚ became a member of the League of Regions, an organisation postulating the division of Poland into 12 autonomous regions (its members also include the Upper Silesian Association, the Podhale Association and the Kashubian-Pomeranian Association).
The Silesian Autonomy Movement was founded on 13 January 1990 in Rybnik, in the Saint Jadwiga Śląska Church. There were 15 founders of the Silesian Autonomy Movement, composed of Catholic priest as well as Silesian social activists associated with the Catholic Church. The first ideological declaration of the RAŚ from 1990 was named "Movement for the Full Autonomy of Silesia", and focused fully on postulates for restoring the interwar autonomy of Silesia. The Silesian Autonomy Movement became a registered political association a year later, on 19 February 1991. The party co-organized the First Congress of the League of Regions in Poznań, in October 1994. The congress was attended by most major regionalist organizations in Poland, including the Union of Wielkopolska, the Kashubian-Pomeranian Association and the Union of Podhalans. The congress also included the future prime minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, who was back then a Kashubian regionalist.
The Silesian Autonomy Movement, as an organisation claiming to represent the interests of the region and the ethnic group, initially demanded in its political programme that the organic statute of the Silesian Voivodeship from 1920 be restored. The statute was abolished in 1945 by a decision of the National National Council. The party argued that this was done in violation of the provisions of the March Constitution in force at the time. The activists of the Silesian Autonomy Movement demanded in 1995, in an open letter to the president of the Republic of Poland Lech Wałęsa, that the decision of the KRN abolishing the organic statute of the Silesian Voivodeship be annulled. Referring to the law of 15 July 1920, RAŚ wanted to establish the Silesian Treasury, which was to be funded from local taxes. Most of the tax revenue from the Silesian Voivodeship (up to 60%) was to remain in the region. Another initiative was the idea of reactivating the Silesian Sejm as a regional legislature and a popularly elected provincial governor - the regional executive. All but the last of these postulates was in fact a demand for a return to the 1920 legal status. A new idea was the direct election of a voivode, who in the pre-war Silesian Voivodeship was appointed by the president of the Republic of Poland upon the proposal of the Prime Minister.
The programme of the Silesian Autonomy Movement has evolved somewhat over the years, from supporting the idea of a return to pre-World War II autonomy to the project of a modern organic statute, whose authors modelled themselves on the autonomy solutions of Catalonia. The early years of the 21st century saw a generational change in the party's authorities. The members of the new party structures felt that the organic statute of 1920 corresponded to that reality, but that in the 21st century the situation required solutions that moved with the times. An expression of these trends was the new draft organic statute for Silesia, which was announced in 2010. According to the new draft, the autonomous unit would be called the Autonomous Region of Upper Silesia, which would form part of the territory of the Republic of Poland. Executive authority would be exercised by a prime minister together with a government, elected by a bicameral parliament. The government thus elected would be appointed by the president of the Republic of Poland. In addition to these political institutions, the region is to have its own administrative court, the Upper Silesian Administrative Court, whose president would be appointed by the President of Poland. The seat of the court would be in Opole.