Silesia

In the second half of the millennium II B.C. (ends of the Bronze Age), Silesia belonged to Lusacean culture. About 500 B.C. came the spices and later the Celts in the south and southwest. From the 1st century to the C., the Silingos and other Germanic peoples, suffice and vandal, were established in Silesia (from this period there are already written reports of ancient authors dealing with the area). In 406 these first settlers moved to conquer the Roman Empire, being the region repopulated in the VI-VII centuries by Slavic peoples such as the Lusacios and Sorabos or White Serbs, in the West, and the White Croats in the East. By the end of the seventh century, the majority of the white Croats and much of the white Serbs marched towards the Balkan peninsula, establishing themselves in the current Croatia and Serbia, and Silesia being repopulated by Poles and Czechs.

The first known states in Silesia were those of Gran Moravia and Bohemia. Acquired in 990 by Polish Prince Miecislao I to the Bohemians (checos), Silesia was incorporated into Civitas Schinesghe, the first recognized name of a Polish state (he remained part of Poland until the Fragmentation of Poland (1138-1320)). During the 10th to the 12th centuries Silesia was the scene of numerous Polish-Bohemian wars.

In 1138, the Polish prince Boleslao III the Bocatorcida divided the country among his four sons: Silesia became dependent on his eldest son, Vladislao II the Destroyer, who would soon have to be saved by the exile when he was attacked by his younger brothers. Upon returning from exile, his sons Boleslao el Alto and Miecislao el Piernas Torcidas, divided the region, the first of the many divisions that has remained to date. Silesia was continually divided among many ducats ruled by several Dukes of the Piast dynasty. During the rule of those princes, Silesia, though divided, remained the most developed region in Poland. The princes founded numerous cities and mines and increased German cultural and ethnic influence due to immigrants from the German-speaking parts of the Holy Roman German Empire, as the region's economy developed and cities were founded under German municipal law.

In 1241, in the battle of Liegnitz, the army of Prince Henry II — who died in the battle — managed to stop the Mongolian invasion.

Between the years 1289-1292, the king of Bohemia Wenceslao II became the ruler of some ducats of the High Silesia. Later, Silesia became the possession of the Crown of Bohemia under the Holy Roman German Empire in the 14th century,

With the growth of the regional hegemony of the unified Bohemian kingdom, in the 14th century the early Syrians were feuded by the kings of the south, although still under the power of the princes of the Piast dynasty. The reunification of the Polish kingdom did not change the political situation, nor did the short reign of the Polish-Lithuanian dynasty in Prague. (The last Piast died in 1675.)

In 1335, in the contract of Trenčín, Polish king Casimiro III resigned “for ever” to Silesia in favor of the king of Bohemia. In 1355, the German Roman emperor Charles IV (who was king of Bohemia since 1347) incorporated Silesia into the Holy Roman Germanic Empire.

In 1526, the Bohemian kingdom, together with all Silesia, passed into the hands of the Monarchy of the Habsburgs. The Duke of Crossen was inherited by the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1476 and, with the resignation of King Ferdinand I of Habsburg to the properties of Bohemia in 1538, became an integral part of Brandenburg.

With the arrival of the Protestant Reform (from 1521) conflicts began between the Protestant majority of the population and the Catholic dynasty.

After the Austrian War of Succession, in 1742 most Silesia remained under the control of the kingdom of Prussia of Frederick II the Great, and later became the Prussian province of Silesia. With intense colonization and industrialization, a time of great prosperity began. The creation of the German Empire in 1871 included Silesia within the German Unification driven by Otto von Bismarck.

After the First World War, the Lower Silesia, which had a vast German majority, remained with Germany, while the Upper Silesia, after a plebiscite and three insurrections of the Polish inhabitants, was divided. Part joined the reborn Second Polish Republic and was administered as Voivodato de Silesia. The Prussian province of Silesia within Germany was divided into the provinces of Alta Silesia and Baja Silesia. The Austrian Silesia (officially: High and Lower Silesia Duchy; almost identical to the present Czech Silesia), the small portion of Silesia retained by Austria after the wars of Silesia, became part of the new Czechoslovakia. In 1920 a border military conflict broke out between Poland and Czechoslovakia, which ended with the division of the southern part of Silesia.

During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded the Polish parts of Upper Silesia. The Jews were subjected to genocide in the Holocaust, while German plans for the Poles involved ethnic cleansing and biological extermination. In 1945 both provinces were occupied by the Soviet Union. According to the requirements of the Potsdam Agreement, most of the territory was subsequently transferred to the People ' s Republic of Poland. Most of the German population, who had not been evacuated or fled, was expelled by the Polish administration recently arrived, while Poles expelled from the border areas of eastern Poland settled in the region. After the German defeat in the Second World War, the Silesia part still belonging to Germany was ceded to Poland in exchange for the Polish eastern lands annexed by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (URSS) in 1944, when they expelled the Germans and unilaterally declared that their border with Poland was established in the 1919 Curzon Line. The entire German population (more than 4 million people) was banished and instead the region was colonized with Poles, partly Poles from the Vilna and Leópolis regions. The Czech side of Silesia annexed by Nazi Germany in the framework of the integration of the Sudetes was also emptied by its German population. A 20% of the Polish population currently lives in Silesia, but there are hardly any families whose ancestors are natural in the region.

Since 2004, the whole of Silesia has been part of the European Union.