Confirmatory documents issued by the rulers for the Bohemian and Silesian cities until 1419.

The author has attempted to provide a holistic view of the practice of confirming the documents for the royal and princely towns in the area of Bohemia and Silesia (the area of Moravia has already been explored in this respect) by the ruler. Confirmatory documents formed an integral part of the production of the writing offices of the rulers of both examined territories, i.e., the Czech kings and the princes of Silesia. Whilst in the case of Bohemia the issuer is unambiguous (the King of Bohemia), the issuers from the region of Silesia could have included the Silesian princes (including the Bishop of Wrocław), the Czech king and the royal starosts (governors) in the principalities directly subject to the Czech ruler as issuers. Generally, confirmatory documents are deemed to have been diplomatic acts which confirmed the existence of a legal reality. These included not only documents (alternatively confirmatory documents issued in the form of a mandate), whereby the rulers confirmed the prevailing legal acts of their predecessors, but also those which confirmed acts of their subjects. A selection of merely one group of recipients was deliberate, notwithstanding the resultant, apparently incomplete image. Such an approach has its advantages, inasmuch as it allows the examination of the resources in a more compact form, and what is more, throughout two territories to some extent shaped by various traditions. The author focuses largely on several issues related to confirmatory documents, notably on the differentiation between confirmatory and dispositive documents. Both types are to some extent convergent, and sometimes the dispositive formula is present in some confirmatory documents. Furthermore, dispositive documents are sometimes deemed to be one of the degrees of confirmation. Nevertheless, in most cases notable is a variance in the usage of both types of documents. First, the author presents a quantitative review of the number of documents issued for particular towns. Was there a direct principle saying that the more important and richer the town, the more confirmative documents are found? How can we measure the ‘validity’ and ’wealth’ of each of the analysed towns? Which towns can boast of confirmations issued by the majority of successive rulers and which have to be satisfied with merely a few acts? This question needs to be explored also from a different point of view: we need to determine the role of confirmatory documents in the policy of the rulers towards the towns as well as how it was reflected in the different phases of the duke’s (king’s) reign. The motives behind issuing individual acts of confirmation and the question what forced the towns to make efforts to have their privileges confirmed are essential elements of the author’s inquiry. The reasons might have been both external, namely the position of the town’s ruler, and internal – problems inherent in the functioning of a given centre.

Autorka punktem wyjścia swojej refleksji uczyniła cytaty z powieści Evy Tvardy i Horsta Bienka, które egzemplifikują trudne doświadczenia Ślązaków wynikające z politycznych decyzji wobec Śląska, które podejmowane były przez władze polskie, niemieckie i czechosłowackie. Przywołane z literatury cytaty konstruują kontekst, który pozwala zobiektywizować zasadnicze dla artykułu pytania: „Czyj jest Śląsk” i jak polityczna walka o Śląsk, którą w swojej historii toczyły Polska, Niemcy i Czechosłowacja, rekonstruuje tożsamość etniczną Ślązaków? Autorka korzysta z myśli Ivana Čolovicia, z której wyprowadza koncepcję pogranicza jako ziemi podatnej na amputację, a także koncepcję tożsamości posttraumatycznej jako tożsamości bolesnej. Na podstawie literacko opisanych doświadczeń śląskości Horsta Bienka autorka podejmuje próbę rekonstrukcji fenomenu śląskości, jako tego, co w efekcie konstruuje śląską tożsamość etniczną. Bezpośrednim przedmiotem analizy i interpretacji są teksty Horsta Bienka, „Brzozy i wielkie piece. Dzieciństwo na Górnym Śląsku” oraz „Podróż w krainę dzieciństwa”.

Neither a Pole nor a German – a Silesian – about recognizing one’s own ethnicity

The inspiration for the article is Zbigniew Rokita’s book “Kajś. A Tale of Upper Silesia”. It allowed the author to reflect on the issue of ethnic recognition of a human being as the basis for constructing an ethnic identity. The theoretical context consists of two theses: the first one (following Hannah Arendt) says that human beings always come to this world as new, as strangers, and to make their humanity more real, they need to act and speak; the second thesis (following Martin Heidegger) refers to the “truth of being” and proves that human habitation in the world is complicated. Attempts to understand the relationship between ethnic recognition and identity allowed the author to formulate the thesis that ethnicity is nothing else but knowledge about one’s family, community and the land inhabited by generations. The recognition of ethnicity itself can have three stages: 1) anecdotal identity; 2) attractive identity; 3) patched identity.