Silesia

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SILESIA

SILESIA. Because of their considerable regional variety, the principalities of Silesia became important locations for power politics, and Silesia played an integral role in the political, economic, and cultural systems within the lands governed by the crown of Bohemia. It is possible to understand many of the integrating and disintegrating trends in European history through the example of Silesia. Its history contains many parallels with the development of Bohemia, but it also has important differences. For a long period the interests of the Piast, Jagiellon, Přemysl (Opava), Luxembourg, Habsburg, and Hohenzollern dynasties in the region complicated Silesia's relationship with the Bohemian crown.

In the late Middle Ages the seemingly marginal Silesian territory demonstrated its economic and strategic importance and highlighted the extent of the religious and political changes taking place in the northern part of the Czech state. Many Silesians wielded extraordinary political influence in central Europe (for example, Prince Casimir II, duke of Teschen; Victor, duke of Münsterberg; Frederick II, duke of Legnica; George, duke of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Krnov; George John Brandenburg-Krnov; John II, duke of Opole; Charles, duke of Münsterberg). On the other hand, the princes of Silesia were feudal subjects of the Bohemian king, and at times their differences with the crown drew them into the camp of Bohemia's Czech adversaries. In the sixteenth century a clear turn took place in the policy of Silesian princes and estates in their relations with the kingdom of Bohemia and the margravate of Moravia, leading to various kinds of cooperation. By compromising on religious differences (there was a religious allowance between Catholic Silesia and Hussite Bohemia), Bohemia gradually escaped from its post-Hussite provincial isolation in all spheres of life. In the power struggle against Hungarian and Polish interests, Silesia in the end maintained its constitutional place among the lands of the crown of Bohemia.

The turbulent social and political history of the estates of Bohemia involved Silesia as well. The tensions between the Habsburg Catholic minority and the Protestant opposition of the estates found expression in nearly all of the Silesian principalities, and as a result the traditional hierarchical principles of Bohemian and Silesian society and the rules of political engagement were disrupted. When Ferdinand I mounted the throne of Bohemia in 1526, Silesia was undergoing a wave of religious reformation, which, unlike the Hussite movement, was fully accepted by the majority of the population. A major role in this process was played by certain princes (the Krnov Hohenzollerns and the Piasts of Legnica-Brzeg), who through the descendants of George of Podebrady (ruled 1458–1471) aspired to the throne of Bohemia. In 1537 they concluded an important family contract with the Hohenzollern elector of Brandenburg to secure inheritance and cooperation in protecting the Protestant religion. After 1523 the Breslau town council also introduced Lutheran preachers into the town's churches. Considered politically, these religious changes aligned Silesia with the Bohemian "heretics."

Of the Silesian princes, by the mid-sixteenth century only the bishop of Breslau, resident in Nysa, remained loyal to the Catholic faith, and he mainly concentrated on the struggle with the Polish churchmen in Gniezno to achieve the independence of his diocese. In competition with the Protestant princes, the bishops of Breslau lost their position of power at the turn of the seventeenth century, and it was only after the Thirty Years' War that they regained their preeminence.

After the uprising of the Bohemian estates in 1618–1620 (the Bohemian War that marks the beginning of the Thirty Years' War), and especially after the Danish units were defeated in Silesia, major social changes erupted, even at the periphery of a Bohemia that was now dominated by Habsburg absolutism, centralism, and Catholicism. The new Silesian power elites were recruited from the bureaucracy, the army, and the imperial court (such as Charles, duke of Liechtenstein; John Weikhard, duke of Auersperg; and Albrecht Wallenstein/Waldstein). For more than a century the tone of political life was set by representatives of these newly successful noble families, who patiently built up their wealth and who even more importantly had no ties to the rebellious and centrifugal noble estates of prewar Silesia-Bohemia.

From the late Middle Ages on, the cultural and religious development of Silesia was strongly influenced by German scholars and artists and by those from other neighboring countries, including Martin Luther, John Calvin, Philipp Melanchthon, Balthasar Hubmaier, and Jan Hus. A decisive role was also played by the economic and social network of an area which, along with the regional capital of Breslau, was one of the most important parts of the Czech state. A wide range of religious opinions existed side by side, along with a rich variety in the realms of art and literature based on the cultural maturity of the German, Jewish, Polish, and Czech populations. Silesia's literary and artistic production testified to the fact that its society was open to the outside world, enabling it to contribute considerably to the treasury of European civilization.

The margraves and electors of Brandenburg introduced a split in Silesia during the early modern period. The Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg wanted to rule Lower Silesia and the region of Crossen, while the Ansbach line of the same house struggled to form a family enclave in the territory of Upper Silesia, especially in the regions of Opole, Racibórz, Krnov, Bytom, and Bohumín. The creation of Hohenzollern possessions in Silesia and their stabilization alongside the properties of the Opava Přemysl family, the Saxony Wettins, the Silesian Piasts, and the descendants of King George of Podebrady became a political reality. In the first half of the sixteenth century, it could not have been foreseen that the existence of the Hohenzollern power in the Oder region would become a stepping-stone for Prussian militarist expansion in the eighteenth century under Frederick II and would eventually lead to the division of Silesia after 1740 in the Wars of the Austrian Succession.