Podrobný výpis o publikaci

As a result of the Second World War, most of Silesia fell to the Polish state, which gained it as compensation for the territories lost to the Soviet Union. The original German population was, with a few exceptions, displaced and replaced by Poles from the eastern regions of Poland, completely changing the national composition of Silesia's population. The war-torn landscape was often populated by people from completely different cultural backgrounds, who did not know the history of the newly acquired territory. This fact was naturally reflected in contemporary history. One of the main goals of Polish historiography after the Second World War was to justify the Polish claim to Silesia and to prove its continuous settlement by Polish ethnic groups. The basic premise of these efforts went back to the Middle Ages, when Silesia was part of the Piast state, which increased the importance of researching medieval history. Given the contemporary geopolitical situation, the basic methodological starting point was Marxism, which in the early 1950s was seen as an ideal tool for exploring the past. The complicated development of the Silesian territory, which was divided between a number of small principalities in the Middle Ages, posed an interpretative problem for post-war history. The most pronounced embarrassment of historians was in their attitude towards the Silesian princes. Although their origins were traditionally traced back to the legendary founder of the Polish state, Piast, they were usually viewed negatively in post-war historiography, as the belief was that the Silesian Piast princes had gradually become ethnic Germans. Apart from the national aspects, the negative image of the Silesian Piasts was also due to the fact that they were portrayed as "oppressors" exploiting the Silesian or Polish population, in accordance with the beliefs of the time. The present study explains the roots of this approach and shows how post-war Polish historical scholarship constructed the supposed identity of the Silesian Piasts.