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Separateness and National Identity

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Separateness and National Identity Separateness and National Identity – the Case of Upper Silesia in Interwar Poland By Marcin Jarząbek Submitted to Central European University History Department In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Supervisor: Professor Maciej Janowski Second Reader: Professor Balázs Trencsényi CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2009 Copyright in the text of this thesis rests with the Author. Copies by any process, either in full or part may be made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European Library. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page must form a part of any such copies made. Further copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the written permission of the Author. CEU eTD Collection Abstract My dissertation examines the problem of the Upper Silesian identity in Interwar Period. From a historical perspective it applies elements of selected theories of nationalism and identity. As primary sources I use newspapers, archival materials, books and brochures. In the thesis I distinguish separateness from political separatism and I focus my interest on some manifestations of the former phenomenon. I confront problem of the Upper Silesian specificity with its legal and social preconditions of political autonomy, minority rights, modernization, and role of the Catholic Church. I reconstruct also some Polish Interwar discourses about the Silesianness. On the basis of the investigation of the Union of Defence of Upper Silesians I maintain that Silesian separateness became perceived and started to define itself in the opposition to the existing national states’ frames as a project against Polish and German nationalisms, only when it turned out that important elements of Upper Silesian identity have been rejected or depreciated by them. CEU eTD Collection Acknowledgements I would like to offer my warm thanks to Professor Maciej Janowski for the time and interest which he has devoted to my project, his patience, real care and his numerous bibliographical suggestions. I also especially appreciate his hospitality and warmth. I am very grateful to Professor Balázs Trencsényi for his friendliness, words of encouragement and always inspiring theoretical and historical remarks. I am deeply indebted to Andrea Kirchknopf from the Academic Writing Centre, to Dobrochna, Ljubica, and particularly to my friends Asia and Michaá for their help in emergency. Their comments and corrections significantly improved quality of the language of my thesis as well as its structure. CEU eTD Collection Table of content: List of tables:............................................................................................................................................... i INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. II CHAPTER I: THEORIES OF NATIONALISM FACING WITH UPPER SILESIAN IDENTITY ...................................... 1 1. Identity and national identity................................................................................................................... 1 2. Peripheries of Europe and peripheries of the theory................................................................................ 3 3. Upper Silesian identity or/and nationalism.............................................................................................. 8 4. Why separateness not separatism...........................................................................................................10 CHAPTER II: UPPER SILESIA BEFORE 1922: SEPARATENESS OF IDENTITY AND SEPARATISM THAT FAILED .13 1. Prehistory of separateness.....................................................................................................................13 2. Separateness in between two nationalisms (before 1914)........................................................................15 3. Silesia and Slovakia – asymmetrical comparison....................................................................................22 4. Upper Silesian “war of dwarfs” (1918-21).............................................................................................25 5. Separatism and nationalism...................................................................................................................29 CHAPTER III: FRAMING UPPER SILESIAN “SEPARATENESS” WITHIN THE POLISH STATE..............................34 1. Division.................................................................................................................................................34 2. Legal framework: political autonomy.....................................................................................................37 3. Silesia without autonomy .......................................................................................................................44 4. Legal framework in use: minority rights.................................................................................................47 5. Janus-headed Polishness .......................................................................................................................52 6. Inside the antagonism............................................................................................................................56 7. Separateness reflected: Upper Silesian corner........................................................................................62 CHAPTER IV: TO DEFEND UPPER SILESIANS’ SEPARATENESS ......................................................................67 1. Roots of the Union of Defence of Upper Silesians...................................................................................67 2. Polish nationalism of the Upper Silesians...............................................................................................72 3. Nationalistic genesis of the Silesian „separatism”..................................................................................75 4. Silesian identity and/or Polish identity ...................................................................................................79 CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................................85 BIBLIOGRAPHY:.......................................................................................................................................87 CEU eTD Collection List of tables: Table 1. Cultural valence and national identification: Page 7 Table 2. Results of the plebiscite of 20 March 1921: Page 28 CEU eTD Collection i Introduction “The Silesian people were sorely disappointed. […] Hence, there were only the lords that have changed [in Silesia after 1922]: those from Berlin left, but these from Warszawa- Kraków came here.”1 This bitter sentence was the opinion of an Upper Silesian, who just a few years after a part of his homeland was attached to Poland in 1922, found Silesia’s position in Poland unjust and problematic and Silesians themselves left not-understood by strangers. That attitude in the historical scholarship about Silesia used to be labelled as separatism: Separatism was understood there usually as complaint about exploitation and a disregard from the centre(s), consequently connected with the demand of a respect for regional differences and aimed at the unifying politics of the nation state. This is the attitude we can find in the modern history of many European borderland provinces with a strong regional identity: Bavaria in Germany, Brittany in France etc. There was almost always some group dissatisfied with and significantly ill-disposed towards the state their region happened to belong to. However, those particular sentences, which were quoted above, have not been shouted during some political meeting or electoral rally of any Silesian separatist or revisionist organisation supported by some hostile German money in the interwar or present-day Poland. The opinion was noted by CEU eTD Collection 1 „Tutaj na ĝOąsku zmienili siĊ tylko panowie – odeszli ci z Berlina, ale za to przyszli ci z Warszawy- Krakowa.”.Arka BoĪek, PamiĊtniki (Memoirs), Katowice: ĝOąsk, 1957, pp. 81-82.. All the translations from Polish or German into English if the name of a translator is not mentioned are done by me. The text in original is quoted in the footnote. In case of quotation from the sources I leave always that version of spelling which was used in the source ii the Silesian Pole, Arka BoĪek (1899-1954), who was an important member of the Polish Military Organisation (POW) and later Union of the Poles in Germany; who participated in the Polish Silesian Uprisings and during the Second World War became one of the twenty MPs of the National Council of the Polish Republic (Rada Narodowa Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej) – the Polish substitute for s parliament on exile in London. Finally, for five years after 1945 BroĪek occupied a position of a fig leaf as the only one non-communist Silesian Voivodeship vice- governor in the communist Poland, assuming that he has to work for Poland even in spite of its non-democratic government. Nobody therefore could accuse him of any kind of disloyalty to the Polish state or any negative feelings towards it. However even he revealed his disappointment with the situation of the Upper Silesians in Poland. What were his motivations to do it? The question becomes more striking when
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