The Owl Mountains ( Polish : Góry Sowie ; Czech : Soví hory ; German : Eulengebirge ) are a mountain range of the Central Sudetes in southwestern Poland . It includes a protected area called Owl Mountains Landscape Park .
127-456: The Owl Mountains cover an area of about 200 km (77 sq mi) and stretch over 26 km (16 mi) between the historic Lower Silesian region and Kłodzko Land . Apart from the main ridge, the subdivisions of Garb Dzikowca and Wzgórza Wyrębińskie can be distinguished. The range is bounded by the valley of the Bystrzyca river in the northwest, forming a natural border with
254-499: A / (spelled a ), / ɔ / (spelled o ) and / u / (spelled u and ó as separate letters). The nasal vowels are / ɛ w̃ / (spelled ę ) and / ɔ w̃ / (spelled ą ). Unlike Czech or Slovak, Polish does not retain phonemic vowel length — the letter ó , which formerly represented lengthened /ɔː/ in older forms of the language, is now vestigial and instead corresponds to /u/. The Polish consonant system shows more complexity: its characteristic features include
381-479: A camp for kidnapped Polish children up to 5 years of age, who were deemed " racially worthless " in Wąsosz , where many died. Kamieniec Ząbkowicki was the place of Aktion T4 murders of mentally ill children by involuntary euthanasia . The Project Riese construction project, which cost the lives of many forced laborers of various nationalities, was conducted by Germany in the region. The Polish resistance movement
508-771: A dialect of Polish. Many Silesians consider themselves a separate ethnicity and have been advocating for the recognition of Silesian as a regional language in Poland . The law recognizing it as such was passed by the Sejm and Senate in April 2024, but has been vetoed by President Andrzej Duda in late May of 2024. According to the last official census in Poland in 2011, over half a million people declared Silesian as their native language. Many sociolinguists (e.g. Tomasz Kamusella , Agnieszka Pianka, Alfred F. Majewicz, Tomasz Wicherkiewicz ) assume that extralinguistic criteria decide whether
635-669: A few culturally and linguistically related tribes from the basins of the Vistula and Oder before eventually accepting baptism in 966. With Western Christianity , Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet , which made it possible to write down Polish, which until then had existed only as a spoken language . The closest relatives of Polish are the Elbe and Baltic Sea Lechitic dialects ( Polabian and Pomeranian varieties). All of them, except Kashubian , are extinct. The precursor to modern Polish
762-520: A large number of branches in all of these areas) offers services available in Polish at all of their cash machines in addition to English and Spanish . According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England and Wales who consider Polish to be their "main" language. In Canada , there is a significant Polish Canadian population : There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to
889-543: A lect is an independent language or a dialect: speakers of the speech variety or/and political decisions, and this is dynamic (i.e. it changes over time). Also, research organizations such as SIL International and resources for the academic field of linguistics such as Ethnologue , Linguist List and others, for example the Ministry of Administration and Digitization recognized the Silesian language. In July 2007,
1016-454: A nasal consonant, rather than a nasal vowel. For example, ą in dąb ("oak") is pronounced [ɔm] , and ę in tęcza ("rainbow") is pronounced [ɛn] (the nasal assimilates to the following consonant). When followed by l or ł (for example przyjęli , przyjęły ), ę is pronounced as just e . When ę is at the end of the word it is often pronounced as just [ɛ] . Depending on
1143-1150: A network of tourist trails, including the "red trail", leading through most of Europe. Other destinations include: the Stone Tower on Wielka Sowa and the viewing tower on Kalenica, Fort Srebrna Góra , Grodno Castle in Zagórze Śląskie, the adit complexes of Project Riese near Walim and the Mining Museum in Poland. Major towns at the foot of the Owl Mountains include Bielawa , Dzierżoniów , Głuszyca , Jedlina-Zdrój , Nowa Ruda , Pieszyce , and Srebrna Góra . Lower Silesia Lower Silesia ( Polish : Dolny Śląsk [ˈdɔlnɨ ˈɕlɔ̃sk] ; Czech : Dolní Slezsko ; German : Niederschlesien [ˈniːdɐˌʃleːzi̯ən] ; Silesian : Dolny Ślōnsk ; Upper Sorbian : Delnja Šleska [ˈdɛlnʲa ˈʃlɛska] ; Lower Sorbian : Dolna Šlazyńska [ˈdɔlna ˈʃlazɨnʲska] ; Lower Silesian : Niederschläsing ; Latin : Silesia Inferior )
1270-848: A result of deforestation and cultivation. The largest forest complexes are Bory Dolnośląskie (3,150 km or 1,220 sq mi), Bory Stobrawskie in Stobrawa and Widawa areas, and smaller fragments of forests in Barycz and Oder River valleys. These forests are kind of multi-species deciduous forests, occurring in fertile grounds. The Oder River valley is reach in groups of mixed forests ( beech , oak , hornbeam , sycamore maple , and pine ). These forests, with protected status, are: Zwierzyniec , Kanigóra near Oława , Dublany, Kępa Opatowicka near Wrocław , Zabór near Przedmoście , and Lubiąż . The other forest areas are The Natural Park in Orsk,
1397-575: A result of the Local Government Reorganisation Act of 1998, these four provinces were joined into the Lower Silesian Voivodeship (effective 1 January 1999), whose capital is Wrocław. Polish language Polish ( endonym : język polski , [ˈjɛ̃zɘk ˈpɔlskʲi] , polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɘzna] or simply polski , [ˈpɔlskʲi] )
SECTION 10
#17327752816201524-402: A reversed diacritic hook called an ogonek . Polish is a synthetic and fusional language which has seven grammatical cases . It has fixed penultimate stress and an abundance of palatal consonants . Contemporary Polish developed in the 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish (10th–16th centuries) and Middle Polish (16th–18th centuries). Among the major languages, it
1651-491: A single word. This applies in particular to many combinations of preposition plus a personal pronoun, such as do niej ('to her'), na nas ('on us'), prze ze mnie ('because of me'), all stressed on the bolded syllable. The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin script but includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics . The Polish alphabet was one of three major forms of Latin-based orthography developed for Western and some South Slavic languages,
1778-497: A small Polish-speaking area in the northeastern part of the district of Namslau (Namysłów) , Groß Wartenberg (Syców) and Militsch (Milicz) and a Czech-speaking minority in the rural area around Strehlen (Strzelin) . There were also Polish communities in large cities such as Breslau (Wrocław) and Grünberg (Zielona Góra) . During World War I , the Germans operated at least 24 forced labour camps for Allied prisoners of war in
1905-574: A vast tunnel system was driven into the mountains near the village of Wüstewaltersdorf (present-day Walim) at the behest of the Nazi German government. Presumably meant to serve as a Führer Headquarters replacing Wolf's Lair in East Prussia, the adits are linked to another tunnel complex beneath Książ Castle ( Schloss Fürstenstein ), about 30 km (19 mi) in the northwest, built according to plans by Hermann Giesler . Parts of
2032-405: A verse by Jan Brzechwa ) is W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie [fʂt͡ʂɛbʐɛˈʂɨɲɛ ˈxʂɔw̃ʂt͡ʂ ˈbʐmi fˈtʂt͡ɕiɲɛ] ('In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed'). Unlike languages such as Czech, Polish does not have syllabic consonants – the nucleus of a syllable is always a vowel. The consonant /j/ is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel. It also cannot precede
2159-478: A vowel when it precedes another vowel (it represents /j/ , palatalization of the preceding consonant, or both depending on analysis). Also the letters u and i sometimes represent only semivowels when they follow another vowel, as in autor /ˈawtɔr/ ('author'), mostly in loanwords (so not in native nauka /naˈu.ka/ 'science, the act of learning', for example, nor in nativized Mateusz /maˈte.uʂ/ 'Matthew'). Some loanwords , particularly from
2286-463: Is honey mushroom , with edible specimen , which grows in pulp, between the bark and timber , causing the death of tree. The other damaging fungus is bracket fungus , which destroys roots and trunks from the inside. The honey mushroom devastates the tree within a few months, and the bracket fungus, within a few years, as a result of mechanic changes in wood structure. At the close of the Ice Age ,
2413-688: Is Jezioro Kunickie (95 hectares or 230 acres), Jezioro Koskowickie (50 ha or 120 acres), Jezioro Jaśkowickie (24 ha or 59 acres) and Tatarak (19.5 ha or 48 acres). In contrast to the number of lakes, there are large groups of artificial ponds founded in the Barycz basin, in the Middle Ages. Their total area amounts around 80 square kilometres (31 square miles), and the largest ponds (Stary Staw, Łosiowy Staw, Staw Niezgoda, Staw Mewi Duży, and Grabownica) come to 200–300 ha (490–740 acres). The primeval flora has been transformed significantly as
2540-711: Is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group within the Indo-European language family written in the Latin script . It is primarily spoken in Poland and serves as the official language of the country, as well as the language of the Polish diaspora around the world. In 2024, there were over 39.7 million Polish native speakers. It ranks as the sixth most-spoken among languages of the European Union . Polish
2667-533: Is a historical and geographical region mostly located in Poland with small portions in the Czech Republic and Germany . It is the western part of the region of Silesia . Its largest city is Wrocław . The first state to have a stable hold over the territory of what will be considered Lower Silesia was the short-lived Great Moravia in the 9th century. Afterwards, in the Middle Ages , Lower Silesia
SECTION 20
#17327752816202794-419: Is also spoken as a second language in eastern Germany , northern Czech Republic and Slovakia , western parts of Belarus and Ukraine as well as in southeast Lithuania and Latvia . Because of the emigration from Poland during different time periods, most notably after World War II , millions of Polish speakers can also be found in countries such as Canada , Argentina , Brazil , Israel , Australia ,
2921-472: Is formed by species deriving from various geographic regions. Particular regions are represented by: Lower subalpine forest ( Polish : Regiel Dolny ), 450–1,000 m (1,480–3,280 ft), is characterized by deciduous or mixed forest. The fragments of forests similar to natural complexes of pine - fir - beech with admixture of larch , sycamore maple and lime occur near the Szklarski waterfall, in
3048-408: Is located in the northern part, within the hills. The region of the lowlands is coated with a thick layer of glacial elements ( sand , gravel , clay ) that covers more diverse relief of the older ground. Generally flat and wide bottoms of the valleys are padded with river settlements. Slopes of the hills over 180–200 m (590–660 ft) are coated with fertile clays and therefore, to begin with,
3175-576: Is located mostly in the basin of the middle Oder River with its historic capital in Wrocław . The southern border of Lower Silesia is mapped by the mountain ridge of the Western and Central Sudetes , which since the High Middle Ages formed the border between Polish Silesia and the historic Bohemian region of the present-day Czech Republic. The Bóbr and Kwisa rivers are considered being
3302-427: Is most closely related to Slovak and Czech but differs in terms of pronunciation and general grammar. Additionally, Polish was profoundly influenced by Latin and other Romance languages like Italian and French as well as Germanic languages (most notably German ), which contributed to a large number of loanwords and similar grammatical structures. Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped
3429-447: Is possible to say ko goście zoba czy li? – here kogo retains its usual stress (first syllable) in spite of the attachment of the clitic. Reanalysis of the endings as inflections when attached to verbs causes the different colloquial stress patterns. These stress patterns are considered part of a "usable" norm of standard Polish - in contrast to the "model" ("high") norm. Some common word combinations are stressed as if they were
3556-489: Is shared between Lower Silesian Voivodeship (except for the Upper Lusatian counties of Lubań and Zgorzelec , and former Bohemian Kłodzko ), the southern part of Lubusz Voivodeship (i.e. the counties of Krosno Odrzańskie , Nowa Sól , Świebodzin , Żagań and Zielona Góra with the city of Zielona Góra , as well as western Opole Voivodeship (the counties of Brzeg , Namysłów and Nysa ). The tiny part of
3683-420: Is specific and different for each zone. From the bottoms to the top, plants form groups that are arranged in wide or narrow belts, called floral zones. Subsequently, these zones are divided into narrower belts, called vegetation belts. The zone of mountain forest is divided into two belts: subalpine and lower subalpine forest. Above, there is a forestless zone divided into the subalpine belt with dwarf pine, and
3810-595: Is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T–V distinction pronouns, honorifics , and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals. The traditional 32-letter Polish alphabet has nine additions ( ą , ć , ę , ł , ń , ó , ś , ź , ż ) to the letters of the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet , while removing three (x, q, v). Those three letters are at times included in an extended 35-letter alphabet. The traditional set comprises 23 consonants and 9 written vowels , including two nasal vowels ( ę , ą ) defined by
3937-524: Is the Old Polish language . Ultimately, Polish descends from the unattested Proto-Slavic language. The Book of Henryków (Polish: Księga henrykowska , Latin : Liber fundationis claustri Sanctae Mariae Virginis in Heinrichau ), contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language: Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai (in modern orthography: Daj, uć ja pobrusza, a ti pocziwaj ;
Owl Mountains - Misplaced Pages Continue
4064-529: Is the most widely-used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County , by 26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results, as Vilnius was part of Poland from 1922 until 1939. Polish is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. In Ukraine, it is most common in the western parts of Lviv and Volyn Oblasts , while in West Belarus it is used by the significant Polish minority, especially in
4191-430: The kropka (superior dot) over the letter ż , and the ogonek ("little tail") under the letters ą, ę . The letters q, v, x are used only in foreign words and names. Polish orthography is largely phonemic —there is a consistent correspondence between letters (or digraphs and trigraphs ) and phonemes (for exceptions see below). The letters of the alphabet and their normal phonemic values are listed in
4318-401: The ś in święty ("holy") all represent the sound / ɕ / . The exceptions to the above rule are certain loanwords from Latin, Italian, French, Russian or English—where s before i is pronounced as s , e.g. sinus , sinologia , do re mi fa sol la si do , Saint-Simon i saint-simoniści , Sierioża , Siergiej , Singapur , singiel . In other loanwords
4445-596: The Brest and Grodno regions and in areas along the Lithuanian border. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries. In the United States , Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. According to the 2000 United States Census , 667,414 Americans of age five years and over reported Polish as
4572-673: The Bronze Age (1700–1500 BC), the evolution of different cultures developed to the existence of Unetice culture that affected the existence of Trzciniec culture . In the next periods since c. 750 BC , it encompasses all of Europe. In the La Tène culture period, Lower Silesia was inhabited by the Celts , who had their main place of cult on the Mount Ślęża . Their stony statues situated on and around this hill were later worshipped by
4699-695: The Brzeg Castle , as the last male member of the Piast dynasty , which founded the Polish state in the 10th century. He was buried in Legnica . Two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the region in the 18th century and Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland often traveled that route. Most of Lower Silesia, except for the southern part of the Duchy of Nysa, became part of
4826-724: The Diocese of Wrocław , which, together with the Bishoprics of Kraków and Kołobrzeg , was placed under the Archbishopric of Gniezno in Greater Poland , founded by Emperor Otto III at the Congress of Gniezno in the same year. The ecclesial suzerainty of Gniezno over Wrocław lasted until 1821. After a temporary shift to Bohemia in the first half of the 11th century, Lower Silesia continued to be an integral part of
4953-699: The January Uprising of 1863–1864 in the Russian Partition of Poland. Local Poles took part in Polish national mourning after the Russian massacre of Polish protesters in Warsaw in February 1861, and also organized several patriotic Polish church services throughout 1861. Secret Polish correspondence, weapons, gunpowder and insurgents were transported through the region. In June 1863 Wrocław
5080-596: The Kaczawskie Mountains ( Skopiec , 724 m or 2,375 ft) with Ostrzyca , 501 m or 1,644 ft - they surround the Jelenia Góra valley , 420–450 m or 1,380–1,480 ft; Ślęża Massif ( Mount Ślęża 718 m or 2,356 ft), massive of Orlické hory , Králický Sněžník south of Kłodzko , Rychlebské hory and Jeseníky (English: Ashes mountains ; Praděd , 1,492 m or 4,895 ft). The adjacent Silesian Lowland includes
5207-909: The Kingdom of Prussia after the First Silesian War by the 1742 Treaty of Breslau . In 1813, several battles of the War of the Sixth Coalition were fought in the region, including the Battle of the Katzbach . In 1815, it became part of the Prussian Silesia Province , which was divided into the three Lower Silesian administrative regions ( Regierungsbezirke ) of Liegnitz , Breslau and Reichenbach [ de ] , and Upper Silesian Oppeln (including
Owl Mountains - Misplaced Pages Continue
5334-784: The Kingdom of Prussia in the Treaty of Berlin , except for the southern part of the Duchy of Neisse . Within the Prussian kingdom, the region became part of the Province of Silesia . In 1871, the Prussian-controlled portion of Lower Silesia was integrated into the German Empire . After World War I , Lower Silesia was divided, as small parts were reintegrated with Poland and Czechoslovakia, which both regained independence. In
5461-470: The Kingdom of Saxony after the Napoleonic Wars , as well as some small areas transferred from Crossen ( Rothenburg an der Oder , Polnisch Nettkow , Drehnow ); the exclave of Schwiebus in the north, as well as few other small exclaves in the west, were transferred to Brandenburg Province . The formerly Bohemian County of Kladsko , which had been annexed along with Silesia in 1742, was attached to
5588-657: The Late Middle Ages the region fell under the overlordship of the Bohemian Crown , but large parts remained under the rule of local Polish dukes of the Piast, Jagiellonian and Sobieski dynasties, some up to the 17th and 18th century. Briefly under the suzerainty of the Kingdom of Hungary , it fell to the Austrian Habsburg monarchy in 1526. In 1742, Austria ceded nearly all of Lower Silesia to
5715-673: The Migration Period , a number of new peoples arrived in Silesia from Sarmatia , Asia Minor , and the Asian steppes from the beginning of the sixth century. The Bavarian Geographer ( c. 845 ) referred to the West Slavic Ślężanie (the other possible source of the region's Śląsk and later Silesia name), centered on Niemcza , and Dziadoszanie tribes, while a 1086 document issued by Bishop Jaromir of Prague listed
5842-467: The Paleozoic era, they became the lands for people to settle and cultivate intensively. The later form of the economy caused almost complete deforestation of the slopes. Not only fertile grounds, but also the mild climate is conductive to the development of agriculture and market gardening. The annual average temperature of the Wrocław area is 9.5 °C (49.1 °F ). The average temperature of
5969-603: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth 's influence gave Polish the status of lingua franca in Central and Eastern Europe . The process of standardization began in the 14th century and solidified in the 16th century during the Middle Polish era. Standard Polish was based on various dialectal features, with the Greater Poland dialect group serving as the base. After World War II , Standard Polish became
6096-643: The Potsdam Agreement , in which the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland, Lower Silesia went to the Republic of Poland . These border shifts were agreed on pending a final peace conference with Germany which eventually never took place. Germany retained the small portion of the former Prussian Province of Lower Silesia to the west of the Oder-Neisse line . The remaining German population
6223-516: The Reichenbach region in 1818, becoming part of the central Breslau region upon Reichenbach 's dissolution in 1820. The Polish secret resistance movement was active in the region in the 19th century. On 5 May 1848, a convention of Polish activists from the Prussian and Austrian partitions of Poland was held in Wrocław. Wrocław was the seat of a Polish uprising committee before and during
6350-1179: The Silesian Lowlands and the Silesian-Lusatian Lowlands . These two lowlands are separated with each other by Dolina Kaczawy , and from the Sudetes by a steep morphological edge located along the Sudeten Marginal Fault, extended from Bolesławiec (the Northwest) to Złoty Stok (the Southeast). The southern part of the Lowland includes The Sudeten Foreland , consisting of quite low Wzgórze Strzegomskie , 232 m or 761 ft, Grupa Ślęży ( Mount Ślęża , 718 m or 2,356 ft), and Wzgórza Niemczańsko-Strzelińskie ( Gromnik Mountain , 392 m or 1,286 ft). Lower hills occur also in areas of Obniżenie Sudeckie, Świdnik , and Kotlina Dzierżoniowska . The eastern part of Silesian Lowland consists of
6477-418: The Slavic tribes that came here around the sixth century AD. Magna Germania (second century) records that between the Celtic and the Slavic period, Lower Silesia was inhabited by a number of Germanic tribes . Among them, are the Vandals , the Lugii , and the Silingi , who might have given the Silesia region its name, though it is unclear and thus disputed. With the Germanic tribes leaving westward during
SECTION 50
#17327752816206604-594: The Stone Mountains ( Góry Kamienne ), and the border with the Czech Republic . Seen from the Silesian Lowlands in the northeast, the Owl Mountains form a comparatively steep edge of the Central Sudetes, though the range is very diversified in terms of height. The highest peaks are Wielka Sowa ("Great Owl", at 1,014 m (3,327 ft) in altitude) and Kalenica (964 m (3,163 ft)) with their observation towers . Other peaks reach heights from about 600 m (2,000 ft) to 980 m (3,220 ft) metres above sea level. The Precambrian gneiss rocks of
6731-406: The United Kingdom and the United States . Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. At the time, it was a collection of dialect groups with some mutual features, but much regional variation was present. Mieszko I , ruler of the Polans tribe from the Greater Poland region, united
6858-459: The Zlasane , Trebovane , Poborane , and Dedositze . At the same time, Upper Silesia was inhabited by the Opolanie , Lupiglaa , and Golenshitse tribes. In the late 9th century, the territory was subject to the Great Moravian realm of Prince Svatopluk I and from about 906 came under the rule of the Přemyslid duke Spytihnev I of Bohemia and his successors Vratislaus I , the alleged founder of Wrocław ( Czech : Vratislav ), and Boleslaus
6985-474: The classical languages , have the stress on the antepenultimate (third-from-last) syllable. For example, fizyka ( /ˈfizɨka/ ) ('physics') is stressed on the first syllable. This may lead to a rare phenomenon of minimal pairs differing only in stress placement, for example muzyka /ˈmuzɨka/ 'music' vs. muzyka /muˈzɨka/ – genitive singular of muzyk 'musician'. When additional syllables are added to such words through inflection or suffixation ,
7112-505: The flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50) , as well as the expulsion of Ukrainians and Operation Vistula , the 1947 migration of Ukrainian minorities in the Recovered Territories in the west of the country, contributed to the country's linguistic homogeneity. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak Polish somewhat differently, although the differences between modern-day vernacular varieties and standard Polish ( język ogólnopolski ) appear relatively slight. Most of
7239-404: The standard language ; considerable colloquialisms and expressions were directly borrowed from German or Yiddish and subsequently adopted into the vernacular of Polish which is in everyday use. Historically, Polish was a lingua franca , important both diplomatically and academically in Central and part of Eastern Europe . In addition to being the official language of Poland, Polish
7366-416: The 16th century, which is also regarded as the " Golden Age of Polish literature". The orthography was modified in the 19th century and in 1936. Tomasz Kamusella notes that "Polish is the oldest, non-ecclesiastical, written Slavic language with a continuous tradition of literacy and official use, which has lasted unbroken from the 16th century to this day." Polish evolved into the main sociolect of
7493-434: The 17th and 18th century. In 1469, Lower Silesia passed to Hungary , and in 1490 it fell back to Bohemia, then ruled by the Jagiellonian dynasty . In 1476, the Duchy of Krosno (Crossen) became part of the Margraviate of Brandenburg , when the widow of the Piast ruler, Barbara von Brandenburg, daughter of Elector Albert Achilles , inherited Crossen. This made the area around Schwiebus (Świebodzin) an exclave separated from
7620-432: The 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto (91,810 speakers) and Montreal . The geographical distribution of the Polish language was greatly affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II and Polish population transfers (1944–46) . Poles settled in the " Recovered Territories " in the west and north, which had previously been mostly German -speaking. Some Poles remained in
7747-421: The Cruel . Meanwhile, the West Slavic Polans had established the first duchy under the Piast dynasty in the adjacent Greater Polish lands in the north. About 990 Silesia was conquered and incorporated into the first Polish state by the Piast duke Mieszko I , who had gained the support of Emperor Otto II against the Bohemian duke Boleslaus II . In 1000 his son and successor Bolesław I Chrobry founded
SECTION 60
#17327752816207874-413: The German part, and already in 1920 a Polish consulate in Wrocław was attacked and demolished by German nationalists. In the 1930s Poles and Jews were increasingly persecuted in the German-controlled part of the region. Many place names were Germanized in order to erase traces of Polish origin, even streets, squares, buildings and enterprises with the name Piast were forced to change their names (including
8001-527: The Henryków monastery, noted that "Hoc est in polonico" ("This is in Polish"). The earliest treatise on Polish orthography was written by Jakub Parkosz [ pl ] around 1470. The first printed book in Polish appeared in either 1508 or 1513, while the oldest Polish newspaper was established in 1661. Starting in the 1520s, large numbers of books in the Polish language were published, contributing to increased homogeneity of grammar and orthography. The writing system achieved its overall form in
8128-408: The Jagniątkowski complex, and Chojnik Mountain. Particular species of trees have different climatic requirements. The lowest parts are covered with oak and ash, up to 500 m (1,600 ft). On the level of 500–600 m (2,000 ft) occurs pine; in the higher parts, up to 800 m (2,600 ft), there occurs European larch ; and above 800 m, fir and beech. Despite transformation of
8255-596: The Lower Silesian districts of Neisse and Grottkau ). Reichenbach , which covered the southern part of Lower Silesia, was dissolved and its territories split between Liegnitz and Breslau in 1820; Breslau , which thereafter covered the central part of Silesia is sometimes also referred to as Middle Silesia . The western Liegnitz region was enlarged by the incorporation of the Upper Lusatian Landkreise (districts) of Lauban [ de ] ( Lubań ), Görlitz [ de ] , Rothenburg and, after 1825, Hoyerswerda [ de ] , all seized from
8382-399: The Oder River beyond Lower Silesian borders. The majority of the rivers is regulated and their basins are improved, which is conductive to the proper water economy. The characteristic feature of the landscape of the lowland is the lack of lakes. The region of Legnica is the only place where a dozen or so of small lakes survived, but the majority of them is already disappearing. The largest one
8509-449: The Owl Mountains constitute the oldest part of the Sudetes and are among the oldest in Europe. Other deposits include migmatite rocks, to a lesser extent also amphibolite , serpentinite , granulite , and pegmatite . Except for the summit clearings and the mountain passes, the Owl Mountains represent the spruce-clad type of mountains. There may be also observed a rare natural occurrence of beeches and European yew . In World War II ,
8636-433: The Piast castles in Brzeg and Wołów ). In September 1939, at the start of World War II , Germany invaded and occupied the Polish part of the region. Already in 1939, the Germans carried out the first expulsions of Poles , and some died during their deportation to the more-eastern part of German-occupied Poland. During the war, the Germans established the Gross-Rosen concentration camp with around 100 subcamps in
8763-398: The Polish state until the end of its fragmentation period when all Polish claims on this land were finally renounced in favor of the Bohemian kingdom in 1348. Various Polish defensive battles against the invading Germans took place in the region in the Middle Ages, including the victorious battles of Niemcza in 1017 and Głogów and Psie Pole in 1109. In the early 12th century, Wrocław
8890-406: The Silesian duchies were ruled by the Silesian Piast dukes under the feudal overlordship of the Bohemian kings , and thus became part of the Crown of Bohemia within the Holy Roman Empire , though in 1341–1356 Poland regained control of the towns of Byczyna , Kluczbork , Namysłów and Wołczyn . Many duchies remained Polish-ruled under the houses of Piast, Jagiellon and Sobieski , some up to
9017-671: The Silesian language was recognized by ISO , and was attributed an ISO code of szl. Some additional characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include: Polish linguistics has been characterized by a strong strive towards promoting prescriptive ideas of language intervention and usage uniformity, along with normatively-oriented notions of language "correctness" (unusual by Western standards). Polish has six oral vowels (seven oral vowels in written form), which are all monophthongs , and two nasal vowels . The oral vowels are / i / (spelled i ), / ɨ / (spelled y and also transcribed as /ɘ/ or /ɪ/), / ɛ / (spelled e ), /
9144-770: The Sudetes comprises the Jizera Mountains (highest peak: Wysoka Kopa , 1,126 metres or 3,694 feet), where the tripoint with Upper Lusatia and Bohemia is located near the Smrk summit, along with the adjacent Giant Mountains (highest: border peak of Sněžka Śnieżka – highest mountain of Czech Republic, 1,602 m or 5,256 ft); Rudawy Janowickie ( Skalnik , 945 m or 3,100 ft); Owl Mountains ( Wielka Sowa , 1,015 m or 3,330 ft); Stone Mountains ( Waligóra 936 m or 3,071 ft); Wałbrzych Mountains ( Borowa 853 m or 2,799 ft) and
9271-540: The adjacent Waldenburg Mountains ( Góry Wałbrzyskie ). In the southeast, the border is marked out by Srebrna Góra pass, separating them from the Bardzkie Mountains ( Góry Bardzkie ). In the north, the border is on Kotlina Distrabiekenstein and in the south on Obniżenie Noworudzkie and Włodzickie Hills. In the southwest, the broad Kłodzko Valley stretches to the Table Mountains ( Góry Stołowe ),
9398-509: The alpine belt without shrubs. This vegetation is glacial ; the former vegetation—from the Tertiary —was destroyed by the climate of the Ice Age . Along with glaciation from the North, some tundra plants appeared, for example downy willow ( Salix lapponum ) and cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus). The flora of Lower Silesia is strongly influenced by geological and climatic history. The vegetation
9525-449: The area. The greatest rivers are Nysa Kłodzka , which is the source of drinking water for Wrocław (the water is drawn by special channel); Stobrawa , Oława , Ślęza , Bystrzyca with its tributaries— Strzegomka and Piława ; Widawa , Średzka Woda , Kaczawa with Nysa Szalona and Czarna Woda . There is also the largest right-bank tributary of the area, Barycz . The other quite large rivers, Bóbr, Kwisa, and Lusatian Neisse, flow into
9652-554: The areas of Jodłowice, Wzgórze Joanny near Milicz, and Gola near Twardogóra. Such types of forest like those which are the mainstay for wild game or nurseries, are inaccessible because of permanent fire hazard. Territories partly accessible (marked specially) are located in areas of Góra Śląska, Oborniki Śląskie, Wołowa, in the Oder River valley, and in Wzgórza Niemczańsko-Strzelińskie. The flora of Lower Silesia
9779-835: The basic tree vegetation, the same form of undergrowth survived. There occurs: daphne mezereum , red elderberry , hazel , platanthera bifolia , sweet woodruff , Herb Paris , cranberry , wood sorrel , chickweed wintergreen , Common Cow-wheat and lily of the valley . The parts over 800 m are mainly covered with grasses, purple small-reeds, cranberries, and willow gentian . In highlighted places, on meadows, and along roads, there occurs: spotted orchid , bugleweed , yellow archangel , arnica montana , sword-leaved helleborine , rosebay willowherb , groundsel , and foxglove . Along riversides, there occurs white butterbur . Pine forests are rich in spruces, which are permanently weakened by atmospheric factors. Frayed roots are easily infected by harmful fungus and insects . The most damaging
9906-485: The cases mentioned above, the letter i if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents / j / , yet a palatalization of the previous consonant is always assumed. The reverse case, where the consonant remains unpalatalized but is followed by a palatalized consonant, is written by using j instead of i : for example, zjeść , "to eat up". The letters ą and ę , when followed by plosives and affricates, represent an oral vowel followed by
10033-663: The corresponding sentence in modern Polish: Daj, niech ja pomielę, a ty odpoczywaj or Pozwól, że ja będę mełł, a ty odpocznij ; and in English: Come, let me grind, and you take a rest ), written around 1280. The book is exhibited in the Archdiocesal Museum in Wrocław, and as of 2015 has been added to UNESCO 's " Memory of the World " list. The medieval recorder of this phrase, the Cistercian monk Peter of
10160-479: The disappearance of yers . Polish can have word-initial and word-medial clusters of up to four consonants, whereas word-final clusters can have up to five consonants. Examples of such clusters can be found in words such as bezwzględny [bɛzˈvzɡlɛndnɨ] ('absolute' or 'heartless', 'ruthless'), źdźbło [ˈʑd͡ʑbwɔ] ('blade of grass'), wstrząs [ˈfstʂɔw̃s] ('shock'), and krnąbrność [ˈkrnɔmbrnɔɕt͡ɕ] ('disobedience'). A popular Polish tongue-twister (from
10287-430: The distinction between regular penultimate and exceptional antepenultimate stress. Another class of exceptions is verbs with the conditional endings -by, -bym, -byśmy , etc. These endings are not counted in determining the position of the stress; for example, zro biłbym ('I would do') is stressed on the first syllable, and zro bi libyśmy ('we would do') on the second. According to prescriptive authorities ,
10414-531: The eastern parts of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth wrote Polish in the Arabic alphabet. The Cyrillic script is used to a certain extent today by Polish speakers in Western Belarus , especially for religious texts. The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the kreska (graphically similar to the acute accent ) over the letters ć, ń, ó, ś, ź and through the letter in ł ;
10541-420: The end of words (where devoicing occurs) and in certain consonant clusters (where assimilation occurs). For details, see Voicing and devoicing in the article on Polish phonology. Most Polish words are paroxytones (that is, the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable of a polysyllabic word), although there are exceptions. Polish permits complex consonant clusters, which historically often arose from
10668-476: The entire country. Polish has traditionally been described as consisting of three to five main regional dialects: Silesian and Kashubian , spoken in Upper Silesia and Pomerania respectively, are thought of as either Polish dialects or distinct languages , depending on the criteria used. Kashubian contains a number of features not found elsewhere in Poland, e.g. nine distinct oral vowels (vs.
10795-682: The entire pre-war German population was expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement . Poles displaced from the former Polish lands incorporated into the USSR settled in Lower Silesia after the war, as well as Polish settlers from other parts of Poland. The region is known for an abundance of historic architecture of various styles, including many castles and palaces, well preserved or reconstructed old towns , numerous spa towns , and historic burial sites of Polish monarchs and consorts (in Wrocław, Legnica and Trzebnica ). Lower Silesia
10922-503: The extended complex are accessible and can be visited as part of a guided tour. Located about 75 km (47 mi) south of the regional capital Wrocław , the picturesque Owl Mountains are a popular destination for hikers and day-trippers. At the foot of the range are well-known tourist places, like: Rzeczka , Walim at the Wielka Sowa massif, Sokolec , Jugów , Sierpnica , and Zagórze Śląskie . The mountains are covered by
11049-663: The first man appeared at the Silesian Lowland . In the Mesolithic (7,000 years ago), the first nomadic people settled in Lower Silesia, living in caves and primitive chalets. They were collectors, hunters, and fishers, and used weapons and other tools made of stone and wood. In the Upper Paleolithic , the oldest human remains of the nomadic people, which were 40,000 years old, were found in a tomb in Tyniec on
11176-462: The first-ever text printed in the Polish language . In 1526 Silesia became part of the Habsburg monarchy when Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria succeeded King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia . Brandenburg contested the inheritance, citing a treaty made with Frederick II of Legnica , but Silesia largely remained under Habsburg control until 1742. In 1675 Duke George William of Legnica died at
11303-467: The following table. The following digraphs and trigraphs are used: Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds (as shown in the tables); this occurs at the end of words and in certain clusters, due to the neutralization mentioned in the Phonology section above. Occasionally also voiceless consonant letters can represent voiced sounds in clusters. The spelling rule for
11430-640: The former Duchy of Żagań on the western shore of the Neisse is today part of the Krauschwitz municipality in the Görlitz district of Saxony , the larger Upper Lusatian parts of Prussian Silesia ("Silesian Upper Lusatia") west of the Neisse comprised the town of Görlitz and the former district of Hoyerswerda , which today forms the northern part of the Saxon Görlitz and Bautzen districts as well as
11557-596: The hottest month (July) is 19 °C (66 °F), and −0.5 °C (31.1 °F) of the coldest month (January). The average amount of rainfall is 500–620 millimetres (20–24 inches ), with its maximum in July and minimum in February. The snow layer disappears after 45 days. The winds, similar to those appearing in the West side of Poland, are West and Southwest. Sudeten rivers are characterized by changeable water rates, and high pollution resulting from large industrialization of
11684-538: The interbellum, the Polish population of the region was persecuted in the German-controlled part of the region. After Germany's defeat in World War II in 1945, most of the region became once again part of Poland, while a smaller part west of the Oder-Neisse line became part of East Germany and Czech Lower Silesia (Jesenicko and Opavsko regions) remained as a part of Czechoslovakia . By 1949, almost
11811-548: The language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English , 0.25% of the US population, and 6% of the Polish-American population. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census (over 50%) were found in three states: Illinois (185,749), New York (111,740), and New Jersey (74,663). Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services (which has
11938-439: The letter y . The predominant stress pattern in Polish is penultimate stress – in a word of more than one syllable, the next-to-last syllable is stressed. Alternating preceding syllables carry secondary stress, e.g. in a four-syllable word, where the primary stress is on the third syllable, there will be secondary stress on the first. Each vowel represents one syllable, although the letter i normally does not represent
12065-431: The middle aged and young speak vernaculars close to standard Polish, while the traditional dialects are preserved among older people in rural areas. First-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty recognizing the regional and social differences. The modern standard dialect , often termed as "correct Polish", is spoken or at least understood throughout
12192-460: The most widely spoken variant of Polish across the country, and most dialects stopped being the form of Polish spoken in villages. Poland is one of the most linguistically homogeneous European countries; nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their first language . Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in areas which were once administered or occupied by Poland, notably in neighboring Lithuania , Belarus , and Ukraine . Polish
12319-595: The nobles in Poland–Lithuania in the 15th century. The history of Polish as a language of state governance begins in the 16th century in the Kingdom of Poland . Over the later centuries, Polish served as the official language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , Congress Poland , the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria , and as the administrative language in the Russian Empire 's Western Krai . The growth of
12446-541: The north from the Bolesławiec-Zgorzelec road. From the North, the lowlands are delimited by Wał Trzebnicki, consisting of hills that are 200 km (120 mi) long and over 150 m (490 ft) high, in comparison to neighboring lowlands, Kobyla Mountain, 284 m (932 ft). The range of hills includes Wzgórza Dalkowskie, Wzgórza Trzebnickie, Wzgórza Twardogórskie, and Wzgórza Ostrzeszowskie. Obniżenie Milicko-Głogowskie, with Kotlina Żmigrodzka and Milicka,
12573-570: The north, Upper Silesia in the east, Moravia in the south-east, Bohemia and Kłodzko Land in the south, and Lusatia in the west. The Sudetes are a geologically diverse mountain range that stretches for 280 kilometres (170 miles) from the Lusatian Highlands in the west and to the Moravian Gate in the east. They are topographically divided into Western , Central and Eastern Sudetes . The Lower Silesian section of
12700-622: The original western border with the Lusatias , however, the Silesian Duchy of Żagań reached up to the Neisse river, including two villages ( Pechern and Neudorf) on the western shore, which became Silesian in 1413. The later Silesian Province of Prussia further comprised the adjacent lands of historic Upper Lusatia ceded by the Kingdom of Saxony after the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, its westernmost point could be found as far west as
12827-673: The others being Czech orthography and Croatian orthography , the last of these being a 19th-century invention trying to make a compromise between the first two. Kashubian uses a Polish-based system, Slovak uses a Czech-based system, and Slovene follows the Croatian one; the Sorbian languages blend the Polish and the Czech ones. Historically, Poland's once diverse and multi-ethnic population utilized many forms of scripture to write Polish. For instance, Lipka Tatars and Muslims inhabiting
12954-401: The palatal sounds / ɕ / , / ʑ / , / tɕ / , / dʑ / and / ɲ / is as follows: before the vowel i the plain letters s, z, c, dz, n are used; before other vowels the combinations si, zi, ci, dzi, ni are used; when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms ś, ź, ć, dź, ń are used. For example, the s in siwy ("grey-haired"), the si in siarka ("sulfur") and
13081-520: The previously Polish-ruled territories in the east that were annexed by the USSR , resulting in the present-day Polish-speaking communities in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, although many Poles were expelled from those areas to areas within Poland's new borders. To the east of Poland, the most significant Polish minority lives in a long strip along either side of the Lithuania - Belarus border. Meanwhile,
13208-497: The region, as well as various subcamps of the Stalag VIII-B/344 POW camp. POWs of various nationalities were held in those camps, including Poles, Frenchmen , Belgians , Britons , Italians , Canadians , Americans , Greeks , Yugoslavians , Russians , Australians , New Zealanders , South Africans , Norwegians , Lithuanians , Slovaks , etc. There were also several Nazi prisons, other forced labour camps and
13335-419: The region, in which around 125,000 people of various nationalities, among them mostly Jews , Poles and citizens of the Soviet Union , were imprisoned, and around 40,000 died. Also several German prisoner-of-war camps , including Stalag VIII-A , Stalag VIII-C , Stalag VIII-E , Stalag Luft III , Oflag VIII-A, Oflag VIII-B, Oflag VIII-C, Oflag VIII-F , with numerous forced labour subcamps were located in
13462-759: The region. After the war, the bulk of Lower Silesia remained within Germany, the Bohemian part was included within Czechoslovakia , and a small part with Rychtal was reintegrated with Poland , which just regained independence. The German part was re-organized into the Province of Lower Silesia of the Free State of Prussia consisting of the Breslau and Liegnitz regions. In the interwar period , there were multiple instances of anti-Polish violence in
13589-516: The rest of Silesia. Crossen remained an important center of Polish culture. In 1475 Głogów -born Polish printer Kasper Elyan [ pl ] founded the Drukarnia Świętokrzyska [ pl ] ( Holy Cross Printing House ) in Wrocław, which published the Statuta synodalia episcoporum Wratislaviensium [ pl ] , the first incunable in Lower Silesia, which also contains
13716-493: The river Ślęża . In the Neolithic (4000–1700 BC), began the process of transformation into a settled way of life. The first rural settlements were made, as people began to farm and breed animals. Mining, pottery, and weaving are dated to this period. Serpentinite quarries came into existence, of which Silesian hatchets were made, and near Jordanów Śląski , people extracted nephrite that was transformed into diverse tools. In
13843-540: The same applies to the first and second person plural past tense endings -śmy, -ście , although this rule is often ignored in colloquial speech (so zro bi liśmy 'we did' should be prescriptively stressed on the second syllable, although in practice it is commonly stressed on the third as zrobi li śmy ). These irregular stress patterns are explained by the fact that these endings are detachable clitics rather than true verbal inflections: for example, instead of ko go zoba czy liście? ('whom did you see?') it
13970-410: The series of affricate and palatal consonants that resulted from four Proto-Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations that took place in Polish. The full set of consonants, together with their most common spellings, can be presented as follows (although other phonological analyses exist): Neutralization occurs between voiced – voiceless consonant pairs in certain environments, at
14097-506: The six of standard Polish) and (in the northern dialects) phonemic word stress, an archaic feature preserved from Common Slavic times and not found anywhere else among the West Slavic languages . However, it was described by some linguists as lacking most of the linguistic and social determinants of language-hood. Many linguistic sources categorize Silesian as a regional language separate from Polish, while some consider Silesian to be
14224-585: The small village of Lindenau (now belonging to the German state of Brandenburg ). To the north, Lower Silesia originally stretched up to Świebodzin and Krosno Odrzańskie , which was acquired by the Margraves of Brandenburg in 1482. The Barycz river forms the border with historic Greater Poland in the northeast, the Upper Silesian lands lie to the southeast. Administratively Polish Lower Silesia
14351-670: The southern part of the Oberspreewald-Lausitz district in Brandenburg. The southern part of the former Duchy of Nysa, which fell to Austrian Silesia in 1742, namely the Jeseník District and Heřmanovice , Mnichov and Železná, as well as parts of Vrbno pod Pradědem in the Bruntál District , today belongs to the Czech Republic . Lower Silesia is bordered by Greater Poland and Lubusz Land in
14478-494: The stress normally becomes regular. For example, uniwersytet ( /uɲiˈvɛrsɨtɛt/ , 'university') has irregular stress on the third (or antepenultimate) syllable, but the genitive uniwersytetu ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛtu/ ) and derived adjective uniwersytecki ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛt͡skʲi/ ) have regular stress on the penultimate syllables. Loanwords generally become nativized to have penultimate stress. In psycholinguistic experiments, speakers of Polish have been demonstrated to be sensitive to
14605-563: The vowel i is changed to y , e.g. Syria , Sybir , synchronizacja , Syrakuzy . The following table shows the correspondence between the sounds and spelling: Digraphs and trigraphs are used: Similar principles apply to / kʲ / , / ɡʲ / , / xʲ / and /lʲ/ , except that these can only occur before vowels, so the spellings are k, g, (c)h, l before i , and ki, gi, (c)hi, li otherwise. Most Polish speakers, however, do not consider palatalization of k, g, (c)h or l as creating new sounds. Except in
14732-657: The wide Silesian Lowlands , located along banks of the Oder River . The eastern part includes also Równina Wrocławska with its surrounding lands: Równina Oleśnicka, Wysoczyzna Średzka, Równina Grodkowska and Niemodlińska. Dolina Dolnej Kaczawy (Kotlina Legnicka) separates the Silesian Lowlands from the Silesian-Lusatian Lowlands, which includes Wysoczyzna Lubińsko-Chocianowska, Dolina Szprotawy, and wide areas of Bory Dolnośląskie, located to
14859-443: The word, the phoneme / x / can be spelt h or ch , the phoneme / ʐ / can be spelt ż or rz , and / u / can be spelt u or ó . In several cases it determines the meaning, for example: może ("maybe") and morze ("sea"). In occasional words, letters that normally form a digraph are pronounced separately. For example, rz represents /rz/ , not / ʐ / , in words like zamarzać ("freeze") and in
14986-660: Was active in the region, including the Home Army and Olimp organization. In the final stages of the war it was the site of several death marches perpetrated by Nazi Germany. In view of Polish claims to the area, a memorandum prepared by the United States Department of State in May 1945 recommended that the area stay with Germany because there was "no historic or ethnic justification" for granting this land to Poland. However, according to Soviet insistence at
15113-478: Was created in the region. In the Middle Ages , gold (Polish: złoto ) and silver (Polish: srebro ) were mined in the region, which is reflected in the names of the former mining towns of Złotoryja , Złoty Stok and Srebrna Góra . The city of Bolesławiec is a major center of pottery production since the Middle Ages, which the tradition of production of Bolesławiec pottery , also referred to as Polish pottery, cultivated to this day. The Duchy of Silesia
15240-424: Was divided into as many as 17 duchies . Main duchies of Lower Silesia: In 1319, Duchy of Jawor , the southwesternmost duchy of Lower Silesia and fragmented Poland, under Duke Henry I of Jawor , expanded westward, reaching the towns of Zgorzelec , Zły Komorów (Senftenberg), Żytawa (Zittau) and Ostrowiec (Ostritz). With the 1335 Treaty of Trentschin ( Trenčín ) and the 1348 Treaty of Namysłów , most of
15367-801: Was expelled from the bulk of Lower Silesia east of the Neisse in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. Poles from Central Poland and the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union came to the region. From 1945 to 1975 Lower Silesia was administered within the Wrocław Voivodeship . As a result of the Local Government Reorganisation Act (1975), Poland's administration was reorganized into 49 voivodeships , four of them in Lower Silesia: Jelenia Góra , Legnica , Wałbrzych , and Wrocław Voivodeships (1975–1998). As
15494-559: Was first split into lower and upper parts in 1172 during the period of Poland's feudal fragmentation , when the land was divided between two sons of former High Duke Władysław II . The elder Bolesław the Tall ruled over Lower Silesia with his capital in Wrocław, and younger Mieszko Tanglefoot ruled over Upper Silesia with his capital at first in Racibórz , from 1202 in Opole . Later Silesia
15621-528: Was granted such rights in 1211 by Henry the Bearded . Medieval municipal rights modeled after Lwówek Śląski and Środa Śląska , both established by Henry the Bearded, became the basis of municipal form of government for several cities and towns in Poland, and two of five local Polish variants of medieval town rights. In the 13th century the Book of Henryków , a chronicle containing the oldest known text in Polish,
15748-512: Was named one of the three major cities of the Polish Kingdom alongside Kraków and Sandomierz in the oldest Polish chronicle, Gesta principum Polonorum . One of the largest battles of medieval Poland, the Battle of Legnica , during the first Mongol invasion of Poland was fought in the region 1241. Also a leading region of medieval Poland. The first-ever granting of town privileges in Polish history happened there, when Złotoryja
15875-408: Was officially confirmed as the seat of secret Polish insurgent authorities. The Prussian police arrested a number of members of the Polish insurgent movement. From 1871, Lower Silesia was part of the German Empire . As a result of long lasting German colonization and Germanisation , by the beginning of the 20th century Lower Silesia had a majority German-speaking population, with the exception of
16002-528: Was part of Piast-ruled Poland . It was one of the leading regions of Poland, and its capital Wrocław was one of the main cities of the Polish Kingdom. Lower Silesia emerged as a distinctive region during the fragmentation of Poland in 1172, when the Duchies of Opole and Racibórz , considered Upper Silesia since, were formed of the eastern part of the Duchy of Silesia, and the remaining, western part
16129-482: Was since considered Lower Silesia. During the Ostsiedlung , German settlers were invited to settle in the region, which until then had a Polish majority. As a result, the region became largely Germanised in the following centuries. Nonetheless, it remained a pioneering center of Polish culture, where the oldest Polish writing and first Polish print were created, and the first town rights were granted. In
#619380