Separatism in Poland: Set sail for “free sailing” or return to the “German home harbor”
A few days after Easter, an event occurred that could have a lasting impact on Polish politics . On April 12, a meeting of the leadership of the two parties representing the interests of the Silesian minority in Poland took place in Katowice.
The Silesian Regional Party (Śląska Partia Regionalna) and the Silesians Together (Partia Ślązoki Razem) party were brought back into cooperation by the preliminary results of the Polish population census , which were published the day before and cover the national and ethnic composition and language of home communication, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Poland's Main Statistical Office (GSU) reported on April 11 that the largest ethnic groups in Poland after Poles are Silesians and Kashubians (an ethnic group on the Baltic coast).
"Preliminary results of the 2021 census show that 37,149,500 people, or 97,7% of all residents of Poland, identified as Polish, while 1,339,600 people, or 3,5%, identified as non-Polish. 585,700 Polish citizens identified themselves as Silesians, or 43,7%. 176,900 people, or 13,2%, identified themselves as Kashubians among those who declared an identity other than Polish, " the Polish State Security Service said in a statement.
Professor Małgorzata Myśliwiec of the University of Silesia in Katowice, who specializes in the study of contemporary political systems and the problems of regional and ethnoregional parties in contemporary Europe, called these results " a success for the Silesians ." These words were the headline of a news story in the state-run Polish Press Agency (PAP), which was reprinted by numerous other Polish media outlets.
At the same time, Professor Mysliwiec believes that the decrease in the number of Silesians compared to the 2011 census (then there were 846,7 thousand) is primarily due to the fact that the last census was carried out only online, and it was impossible to choose Silesian self-identification on the first page of the form. To do this, it was necessary to perform two operations (while the Ukrainian one, for example, could be noted immediately).
Moreover, as Piotr Długosz, chairman of the Society of People of Silesian Nationality, said, in 2011 many remembered their Silesian roots after the leader of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jarosław Kaczyński, called Silesians “hidden Germans.”
“Many people declared that they were Silesians in response to these words. This time, PiS did not repeat the mistakes of previous years, passing over this issue in silence. Taking into account all these factors, I consider the census result to be very good,” Dlugosz noted.
But Jarosław Kaczyński, often called the "boss of Poland" because, as the leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, he determines the country's foreign and domestic policy, clearly considered the Silesian success a personal defeat . On April 13, the aforementioned news item disappeared from the RAP news agency website and a number of pro-government news outlets that had republished it.
“The issue of Silesian identification is a sensitive topic for PiS, which is fighting against the desire of the inhabitants of this region for autonomy,” this is how the profile portal Press.pl commented on this situation.
In reality, however, the Silesia issue has been a sensitive one for any Polish government since 1919. By that time, Silesia was predominantly populated by Germans, having been part of Austria since 1526 and then Prussia since 1748. As a Prussian province, Silesia became part of the German Empire—but naturally, there were many Poles in the areas of Silesia bordering the former Polish lands. On this basis, the authorities of Poland, re-established in 1918, demanded that the Entente cede to them a portion of the German province—Upper Silesia.
To reaffirm their rights to Upper Silesia, the Poles, with the support of the Entente powers, staged two uprisings there in 1919-1920 , which were relatively easily suppressed by German troops. It was then decided to hold a referendum in Upper Silesia, and on March 20, 1921, 59,5% of its residents voted to remain part of Germany. However, the Poles staged a third uprising and succeeded in getting the Entente and the League of Nations to partition Upper Silesia and transfer part of it to Poland.
During the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as interwar Poland is known, Upper Silesia, with its capital in Katowice, enjoyed formal autonomy, a status still remembered in the region . One of its elements was the equal rights of the Polish and German languages in official structures , with the latter including the Silesian language, which differs significantly from both Polish and German.
But when, after 1945, the rest of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia, with its capital in Wrocław, became part of communist Poland, any talk of autonomy was no longer possible. To this day, historical Silesia remains divided between four voivodeships (regions) of Poland. The authorities in Warsaw refuse to recognize Silesians as a national minority, or the Silesian language as a separate language , or to ensure its teaching in public schools, despite EU legislation requiring it . Meanwhile, according to the census, 457,9 Polish citizens regularly use Silesian, and for 53,3, it is their only everyday language.
In 2018, it seemed as if Silesians had followed the path of the Scots and Catalans: the Silesian Regional Party and the Silesians Together party united to participate in local elections in the Silesian Voivodeship and received over 100 votes (approximately 6%). This was an unprecedented success for regional parties in Poland, offering a chance to promote the "Silesian idea" in other voivodeships created in the territory of historical Silesia.
But it was precisely after this achievement that both the ruling PiS and the opposition Civic Platform began to put pressure on Silesian politicians. Silesian parties fell out both among themselves and within themselves, so until recently, Silesians had no political representation.
However, the situation is now changing. It is still difficult to predict the format of Silesian parties' participation in the Polish parliamentary elections scheduled for this fall. However, for the local elections in the spring of 2024, Silesian politicians plan to form a single list, inviting Silesian public organizations, primarily cultural and educational ones, to participate in its formation.
And if political parties cannot receive funding from abroad, then no one will stop Germany from allocating budgets for "support of the Silesian language and culture in Poland" —especially since Germany has a significant number of citizens deported from various parts of Silesia, and their descendants . They carefully preserve the documents for the lands and houses they seized and have not given up hope of reclaiming them. Naturally, this will be easier to achieve in the case of an autonomous, and especially independent, Silesia than in Poland.
It's difficult to say whether Warsaw, which itself dreams of reclaiming the "Eastern Borderlands," as Western Belarus and Western Ukraine are known in Poland, understands such threats . But while Poland cannot influence Belarus, Polish expansion toward Ukraine is in full swing. Last year, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki visited Lviv more often than he visited Polish regions, and in January 2023, Polish President Andrzej Duda forced his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to jointly honor the memory of the Polish soldiers who defended Lviv from the Ukrainians in 1918-1919.
Recently, Polish media reported that Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised Andrzej Duda to hand over western Ukraine to Poland in exchange for military and financial assistance during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. If such a transfer actually occurs—and the likelihood of this will increase if the Ukrainian Armed Forces are defeated—then territorial integrity issues could arise not only for Ukraine, where Hungary would reclaim Transcarpathia and Romania would reclaim Bukovina. Silesia, and not just Upper Silesia, could also "set sail" from Poland and even return to its former "native German harbor."
English version :: Read in English Separatism in Poland: Set sail for "free sailing" or return to the "German home port"