History of Silesia

History Of Silesia

Silesia has historically been an ethnically diverse region. Germanic tribes were first recorded within Silesia in the 1st century. Slavs arrived in this territory around the 6th century. The first known states in Silesia were those of Greater Moravia and Bohemia. In the 10th century, Mieszko I incorporated Silesia into the Polish state. In this state it remained until the Fragmentation of Poland. Afterwards it was divided between Piast dukes, descendants of Władysław II the Exile, High Duke of Poland.

In the Middle Ages, Silesia was divided among many independent duchies ruled by various Silesian dukes of the Piast dynasty. During this time, cultural and ethnic German influence increased due to immigrants from the German-speaking components of the Holy Roman Empire. Between the years 1289–1292 Bohemian king Wenceslaus II became suzerain of some Upper Silesian duchies. Silesia subsequently became a possession of the Crown of Bohemia under the Holy Roman Empire in the 14th century, and passed with that Crown to the Habsburg Monarchy in 1526. The Duchy of Crossen was inherited by Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1476 and, with the renunciation by King Ferdinand I and estates of Bohemia in 1538, it became an integral part of Brandenburg.

In 1742, most of Silesia was seized by King Frederick the Great of Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession and subsequently made the Prussian Province of Silesia.

After World War I, Lower Silesia remained with Germany while Upper Silesia, after a series of insurrections by the Polish inhabitants was split. The part which became part of the Second Polish Republic was administered as the Silesian Voivodeship. The Prussian Province of Silesia within Germany was divided into the Provinces of Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia. Austrian Silesia (officially: Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia; almost identical with modern-day Czech Silesia), the small portion of Silesia retained by Austria after the Silesian Wars, became part of the new Czechoslovakia.

In 1945, following World War II, both of the provinces of Silesia were occupied by the Soviet Union. According to the Potsdam agreement most of this territory was afterwards transferred to Poland. As a result a vast majority of the native ethnic German population was expelled by force and replaced by Polish settlers who had themselves been expelled from eastern Poland.