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30-478: Upper Silesian may refer to: a person from Upper Silesia the West Slavic Silesian language a person from the former Prussian Province of Upper Silesia Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Upper Silesian . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

60-447: A city or town : The names of many Central and Eastern European cities harken back to their pasts as gords. Some of them are in countries which once were but no longer are mainly inhabited by Slavic-speaking peoples. Examples include: The words in Polish and Slovak for suburbium , podgrodzie and podhradie correspondingly, literally mean a settlement beneath a gord: the gród / hrad

90-540: A garden, and its English descendant horticulture . In Hungarian , kert , the word for a garden, literally means encircled . Because Hungarian is a Uralic rather than an Indo-European language, this is likely a loanword . Further afield, in ancient Iran , a fortified wooden settlement was called a gerd , or certa , which also means garden (as in the suffix -certa in the names of various ancient Iranian cities; e.g., Hunoracerta ). The Persian word evolved into jerd under later Arab influence. Burugerd or Borujerd

120-480: A hollow. Others, built on a natural hill or a man-made mound, were cone-shaped. Those with a natural defense on one side, such as a river or lake, were usually horseshoe-shaped. Most gords were built in densely populated areas on sites that offered particular natural advantages. As Slavic tribes united to form states, gords were also built for defensive purposes in less-populated border areas. Gords in which rulers resided or that lay on trade routes quickly expanded. Near

150-781: Is a medieval Slavonic fortified settlement, usually built on strategic sites such as hilltops, riverbanks, lake islets or peninsulas between the 6th and 12th centuries in Central and Eastern Europe . A typical gord consisted of a group of wooden houses surrounded by a wall made of earth and wood, and a palisade running along the top of the bulwark. The term ultimately descends from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root ǵʰortós 'enclosure'. The Proto-Slavic word *gordъ later differentiated into grad ( Cyrillic : град), gorod (Cyrillic: город), gród in Polish , gard in Kashubian , etc. It

180-449: Is a city in the west of Iran. The Indian suffix -garh , meaning a fort in Hindi , Urdu , Sanskrit , and other Indo-Iranian languages , appears in many Indian place names. Given that both Slavic and Indo-Iranian are sub-branches of Indo-European and that there are numerous similarities between Slavic and Sanskrit vocabulary, it is plausible that garh and gord are related. However, this

210-638: Is situated on the upper Oder River, north of the Eastern Sudetes mountain range and the Moravian Gate , which form the southern border with the historic Moravia region. Within the adjacent Silesian Beskids to the east, the Vistula River rises and turns eastwards, the Biała and Przemsza tributaries mark the eastern border with Lesser Poland . In the north, Upper Silesia borders on Greater Poland , and in

240-514: Is strongly contradicted by the phoneme /g/ in Indo-Iranian, which cannot be a reflex of the Indo-European palatovelar /*ǵ/. A typical gord was a group of wooden houses built either in rows or in circles, surrounded by one or more rings of walls made of earth and wood, a palisade , and/or moats . Some gords were ring-shaped, with a round, oval, or occasionally polygonal fence or wall surrounding

270-411: Is the root of various words in modern Slavic languages pertaining to fences and fenced-in areas (Belarusian гарадз іць, Ukrainian horod yty, Slovak o hrad iť, Czech o hrad it, Russian o grad it, Serbo-Croatian o grad iti, and Polish o grad zać, grod zić, to fence off). It also has evolved into words for a garden in certain languages. Additionally, it has furnished numerous modern Slavic words for

300-739: The Bohemian kingdom . During the re-establishment of Poland under King Casimir III the Great , all Silesia was specifically excluded as non-Polish land by the 1335 Treaty of Trentschin becoming a land of the Bohemian Crown and — indirectly — of the Holy Roman Empire. By the mid-14th century, the influx of German settlers into Upper Silesia was stopped by the Black Death pandemic. Unlike in Lower Silesia,

330-622: The Duchy of Opava was established on adjacent Moravian territory, ruled by the Přemyslid duke Nicholas I , whose descendants inherited the Duchy of Racibórz in 1336. As they ruled both duchies in personal union , Opava grew into the Upper Silesian territory. In 1327 the Upper Silesian dukes, like most of their Lower Silesian cousins, had sworn allegiance to King John of Bohemia , thereby becoming vassals of

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360-588: The Germanization process was halted; still a majority of the population spoke Polish and Silesian as their native language, often together with German ( Silesian German ) as a second language. In the southernmost areas, also Lach dialects were spoken. While Latin, Czech and German language were used as official languages in towns and cities, only in the 1550s (during the Protestant Reformation ) did records with Polish names start to appear. Upper Silesia

390-539: The "Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia", colloquially called Austrian Silesia . Incorporated into the Prussian Silesia Province from 1815, Upper Silesia became an industrial area taking advantage of its plentiful coal and iron ore . Prussian Upper Silesia became a part of the German Empire in 1871. The earliest exact census figures on ethnolinguistic or national structure (Nationalverschiedenheit) of

420-854: The 1620 Battle of White Mountain , the Catholic Emperors of the Habsburg dynasty forcibly re-introduced Catholicism, led by the Jesuits . Lower Silesia and most of Upper Silesia were occupied by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1742 during the First Silesian War and annexed by the terms of the Treaty of Breslau . A small part south of the Opava River remained within the Habsburg-ruled Bohemian Crown as

450-684: The 9th century Bavarian Geographer , the West Slavic Opolanie tribe had settled on the upper Oder River since the days of the Migration Period , centered on the gord of Opole . It is possible that during the times of Prince Svatopluk I (871–894), Silesia was a part of his Great Moravian realm. Upon its dissolution after 906, the region fell under the influence of the Přemyslid rulers of Bohemia , Duke Spytihněv I (894–915) and his brother Vratislaus I (915–921), possibly

480-564: The German municipalities Puttgarden , Wagria and Putgarten , Rügen . From this same Proto-Indo-European root come the Germanic word elements * gard and * gart (as in Stuttgart ), and likely also the names of Graz , Austria and Gartz , Germany . Cognate to these are English words such as garden , yard , garth , girdle and court. Also cognate but less closely related are Latin hortus ,

510-450: The Polish prince Bolesław III Wrymouth (1107–1138) came to terms with Duke Soběslav I of Bohemia , when a peace was made confirming the border along the Sudetes . However, this arrangement fell apart when upon the death of Bolesław III and his testament the fragmentation of Poland began, which decisively enfeebled its central authority. The newly established Duchy of Silesia became

540-485: The Prussian part of Upper Silesia, come from year 1819. The last pre-WW1 general census figures available, are from 1910 (if not including the 1911 census of school children - Sprachzählung unter den Schulkindern - which revealed a higher percent of Polish-speakers among school children than the 1910 census among the general populace). Figures ( Table 1. ) show that large demographic changes took place between 1819 and 1910, with

570-680: The Upper Silesian Duchy of Racibórz as an allodium from the hands of his elder brother Duke Bolesław I the Tall of Silesia. In the struggle around the Polish throne, Mieszko additionally received the former Lesser Polish lands of Bytom , Oświęcim , Zator , Siewierz and Pszczyna from the new Polish High Duke Casimir II the Just in 1177. When in 1202 Mieszko Tanglefoot had annexed the Duchy of Opole of his deceased nephew Jarosław , he ruled over all Upper Silesia as Duke of Opole and Racibórz . In

600-769: The ancestral homeland of the Silesian Piasts , descendants of Bolesław's eldest son Władysław II the Exile , who nevertheless saw themselves barred from the succession to the Polish throne and only were able to regain their Silesian home territory with the aid of the Holy Roman Emperor . The failure of the Agnatic seniority principle of inheritance also led to the split-up of the Silesian province itself: in 1172 Władysław's second son Mieszko IV Tanglefoot claimed his rights and received

630-509: The course of the Ostsiedlung , establishing numerous cities according to German town law . The plans to re-unify Silesia shattered upon the first Mongol invasion of Poland and the death of Duke Henry II the Pious at the 1241 Battle of Legnica . Upper Silesia further fragmented upon the death of Duke Władysław Opolski in 1281 into the duchies of Bytom , Opole, Racibórz and Cieszyn . About 1269

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660-633: The early 13th century the ties of the Silesian Piasts with the neighbouring Holy Roman Empire grew stronger as several dukes married scions of German nobility. Promoted by the Lower Silesian Duke Henry I the Bearded , from 1230 also regent over Upper Silesia for the minor sons of his late cousin Duke Casimir I of Opole , large parts of the Silesian lands were settled with German immigrants in

690-779: The founder and name giver of the Silesian capital Wrocław ( Czech : Vratislav ). By 990 the newly installed Piast duke Mieszko I of the Polans had conquered large parts of Silesia. From the Middle Silesia fortress of Niemcza , his son and successor Bolesław I the Brave (992–1025), having established the Diocese of Wrocław , subdued the Upper Silesian lands of the pagan Opolanie, which for several hundred years were part of Poland , though contested by Bohemian dukes like Bretislaus I , who from 1025 invaded Silesia several times. Finally, in 1137,

720-407: The gord, or below it in elevation, there formed small communities of servants, merchants, artisans, and others who served the higher-ranked inhabitants of the gord. Each such community was known as a suburbium (literally "undercity") ( Polish : podgrodzie ). Its residents could shelter within the walls of the gord in the event of danger. Eventually the suburbium acquired its own fence or wall. In

750-433: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Upper_Silesian&oldid=933227461 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Misplaced Pages pages move-protected due to dispute Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Upper Silesia Upper Silesia

780-1035: The region's total population quadrupling, the percent of German-speakers increasing significantly, and that of Polish-speakers declining considerably. Also, the total land area in which Polish language was spoken, as well as the land area in which it was spoken by the majority, declined between 1790 and 1890. Polish authors before 1918 estimated the number of Poles in Prussian Upper Silesia as slightly higher than according to official German censuses. (67.2%) (61.1%) (62.0%) (62.6%) (62.1%) (58.6%) (58.1%) (58.1%) (58.6%) (58.7%) (57.3%) (59.1%) (59.8%) or up to 1,560,000 together with bilinguals (29.0%) (37.3%) (36.1%) (35.6%) (36.3%) (36.8%) (37.4%) (37.2%) (36.5%) (36.5%) (38.1%) (36.3%) (36.8%) (3.8%) (1.6%) (1.9%) (1.8%) (1.6%) (4.6%) (4.5%) (4.7%) (4.9%) (4.8%) Gord (archaeology) A gord

810-646: The west on the Lower Silesian lands (the adjacent region around Wrocław also referred to as Middle Silesia ). It is currently split into a larger Polish and the smaller Czech Silesian part, which is located within the Czech regions of Moravia-Silesia and Olomouc . The Polish Upper Silesian territory covers most of the Opole Voivodeship , except for the Lower Silesian counties of Brzeg and Namysłów , and

840-521: The western half of the Silesian Voivodeship (except for the Lesser Polish counties of Będzin , Bielsko-Biała , Częstochowa with the city of Częstochowa , Kłobuck , Myszków , Zawiercie and Żywiec , as well as the cities of Dąbrowa Górnicza , Jaworzno and Sosnowiec ). Divided Cieszyn Silesia as well as former Austrian Silesia are historical parts of Upper Silesia. According to

870-473: Was frequently built at the top of a hill, and the podgrodzie / podhradie at its foot. (The Slavic prefix pod- , meaning "under/below" and descending from the Proto-Indo-European root pṓds , meaning foot, being equivalent to Latin sub- ). The word survives in the names of several villages ( Podgrodzie, Subcarpathian Voivodeship ) and town districts (e.g., that of Olsztyn ), as well as in the names of

900-782: Was hit by the Hussite Wars and in 1469 was conquered by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary , while the Duchies of Oświęcim and Zator fell back to the Polish Crown as a part of Lesser Poland . Upon the death of the Jagiellonian king Louis II in 1526, the Bohemian crown lands were inherited by the Austrian House of Habsburg . In the 16th century, large parts of Silesia had turned Protestant , promoted by reformers like Caspar Schwenckfeld . After

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