Many times during such events, people have asked: “What do we need this for?” Some time ago, I read an interesting comment by one of Bolesławiec’s bloggers, who writes about, among other things, the city’s history. The author stated:
At last!
At last, someone publicly noticed that we Bolesławiec residents – all of us – do not necessarily descend from the same monkey. For quite a few years now, the Mayor has become, so to speak, the spiritus movens behind promoting the false claim that the vast majority of Bolesławiec’s current residents are remigrants from Bosnia and their descendants. For years, no official or unofficial event has taken place in the City without directly or subliminally drilling into us and everyone around us the idea that Bolesławiec residents are descendants of Bosnian peasants. I do not know where the Mayor’s selective propagandistic cultural and national policy comes from.
Is this policy selective and propagandistic? I do not know... However, this claim is also false. We cannot distance ourselves from one of the groups. It is difficult to leave the “Bosnian circle” when so many remigrants settled in the surrounding villages and the city itself. In later years, their descendants further increased the urban population by moving to Bolesławiec. Moreover, it was not only Galician peasants who emigrated to Bosnia, but also the intelligentsia, which joined the local administrative apparatus. We should remember this too.
The insulting and deceitful term “Serby” was often used, including in reference to Poles from Bosnia. From remigrants’ accounts, I know that in one parish, the priest teaching religious education in the 1960s and 1970s addressed children in this offensive way. A person in such a position, and well educated, should know his parishioners rather than perpetuate myths. Unfortunately, the history of Poles from Yugoslavia is still not well known to everyone. The same stereotypes are often repeated. Indeed, mixed marriages—Polish-Bosnian, Polish-Croatian and Polish-Serbian—also came to Poland with Polish remigrants. However, they constituted only a small fraction compared with the approx. 18,000 Polish settlers. More than 90% of the remigrants settled in the present-day Bolesławiec County.
Lower Silesia, including Bolesławiec County, is not only home to remigrants from the Balkans. The entire area of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship was settled by people “from beyond the Bug”, from the so-called Eastern Borderlands. They arrived from almost the entire area of former eastern Poland—from the Vilnius Region, the Novogrudok Region, and the areas around Lutsk, Lviv and Ternopil. They were often characterized by a distinctive dialect, although it has almost disappeared. The Lower Silesia region is now the place where the purest Polish is spoken.
The history of Poles who returned from Romania and France is the least known. The former settled in Romanian Bukovina as early as the time of Casimir the Great, but the real exodus took place in the 19th century, when the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was settling new territories. In the 1920s, around 50,000 Poles lived in Romanian Bukovina, and by the 1930s there were more than 80,000. After World War II, 90% of the Polish population returned to Poland.
The least-known fact concerns the history of Polish remigrants from France. In brief, I will only mention that the Polish population arrived in Napoleon’s country during the interwar period. They were mainly unemployed Poles who saw emigration as a chance for a better life. France needed workers for its mines and industrial plants at the time. As a result, the Polish community in France numbered 420,000 in 1946, accounting for 25% of the entire immigrant population on the Seine. On the website of the Ethnographic Museum in Wrocław, one can watch an entire series of films about the population of Lower Silesia. I particularly recommend the report on remigrants from France (https://www.muzeumetnograficzne.pl/index.php?section=dolny_slask_filmy&page=dolny_slask_filmy).
The Problem with the Recovered Territories
The term “Recovered Territories” became established and entrenched during the period of the Polish People’s Republic. Nevertheless, it is still often used in reference to the western and northern lands. From time to time, however, people raise an alarm that it is not historically appropriate. After all, no one took these lands from us... Yet not entirely. But accepting the argument that this is a propagandistic term, one can use various other designations: Western Lands or Acquired Lands. It is a pity that, while rejecting one vague term, we forget about another—the Eastern Borderlands. This term is most often used for the territories lost to the USSR, lying beyond the Bug River. It is an incorrect designation. The word “borderlands” means a frontier or border area. Such eastern frontiers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were the territories furthest to the east, the southeastern lands, including Zaporizhzhia and Podolia. Later, the borderlands shifted farther west, and today the term refers to the territories of present-day Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. They shifted, of course, conceptually, in terminology, since Grodno and Lviv did not yet constitute the Commonwealth’s precise eastern frontier.
Can the term “Recovered Territories” therefore not be used definitively? Personally, I would argue about that. After all, Wrocław, Legnica, Głogów, Bolesławiec, Nowogrodziec and many other Silesian centres were Polish cities. Only after the fragmentation of Poland did Silesia—more precisely, its individual duchies—gradually become dependent on the Kingdom of Bohemia, and thus we lost them for many centuries. So why should the term “Recovered Territories” be incorrect? They once formed part of our country, and we recovered them only “thanks to” losing the Eastern Borderlands. The term “Seized Lands” can also sometimes be encountered, but it is not correct. The western lands became a bargaining chip between the leaders of the Big Three and the price Germany paid for starting another war.
The Silesian Character of Lower Silesia
At first glance, this sounds puzzling. However, we need to realize one rather important fact. We currently perceive Lower Silesia solely as part of Silesia, although in reality many of us associate it with Upper Silesia. We do not connect Silesianness, a Silesian nationality with our Lower Silesia. Silesia has had many national affiliations. It belonged to Bohemia, Poland, Bohemia again, Austria and Prussia. Silesia became a Prussian province with its capital in Wrocław (Breslau). In 1919, the Province of Lower Silesia (Provinz Niederschlesien) was separated, with Breslau remaining its capital. All of Silesia owes its name primarily to Mount Ślęża and the Ślęza River. Hence the name of the tribe: Ślężanie, and later Ślązacy. When German names of Lower Silesian towns are given, Silesian-German nomenclature is often omitted. Thus Wrocław is known as Breslau, but its name in the Silesian dialect is Brassel. Likewise, Bolesławiec is Bunzlau, but in the Silesian dialect of German, Bunzel; and Kłodzko is Glatz in German, Glooz in the dialect.
Bolesławiec has had many names throughout its history. Boleslavia is the Latin name; on the death certificate of Bolesław Kubik, the name Bolesław appears (Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Republic of Poland for District No. 36 in Bolesław). In the Middle Ages, the name Bolesłauech was used—in accordance with Silesian spelling rules [Zob. K. Dudek, Bolesławiec słowem i obrazem malowany, Gdynia 2012, s. 15].
There are more Silesian dialects of German. These include, among others, the mountain dialect and Upper Lusatian.
Lower Silesia, as a voivodeship, also has its own symbols. One of them is the flag, which has not been without its problems. During the Prussian province period, it consisted of two parallel stripes: white on top and gold (yellow) on the bottom. Under Austrian rule, the flag differed only in the upper stripe, which was black instead of white. Today, the official flag of Lower Silesia is a black Piast eagle of Silesia on a gold background, in a 5:8 proportion.
The identity of Lower Silesia is highly complex. It is no longer a monolith, as German society was before 1945. Although after German unification in 1871, Lower Silesia was supposed to become less regional and more patriotic and German, Upper Silesia resisted such processes.
The cultural melting pot that emerged in Lower Silesia after World War II is a very interesting phenomenon. We can draw on many traditions—not only typically Polish ones, but also Balkan, Borderland, French and Romanian traditions. This diversity is undoubtedly an asset of Lower Silesia. We must not forget German culture, nor the somewhat forgotten Silesian-German culture. Preserving the customs of Polish settlers who arrived in an unfamiliar land is extremely important. In this way, we unite culturally and remember the territories we lost—the Eastern Borderlands. We recall the daily lives, work and leisure of Poles in Bosnia, France and Romanian Bukovina.
Referring to the comment quoted at the beginning, it is difficult today to leave the “Bosnian circle”. Just as the culture of the Borderland inhabitants has, so too have Balkan traditions, cuisine and music become permanently woven into Bolesławiec’s landscape. The identity of Lower Silesia is based precisely on this multiculturalism; we are a “region of regions”. We should draw as much as possible from this diversity rather than distancing ourselves from one another. In this way, we will never become a community with its own regional identity.
Paweł Skiersinis
The author is a blogger and a history enthusiast, particularly interested in the history of Lower Silesia and Poland. Why Lower Silesia? As he puts it: “Why not? The most fascinating history is the history around us, concerning us and our ancestors.”
He adds: “I try to present history from a different perspective, in an interesting way rather than in a typically bookish style full of dry dates and facts. My articles concern facts that cannot be found in textbooks and well-known publications. The history of Lower Silesia is undoubtedly interesting and fascinating, so it is sometimes worth devoting even a short while to it.”