Přehled o publikaci

The book consists of two parts. The first is an introduction explaining the encyclopedia's objectives, and an essay that provides a concise synthesis of the history of Silesian castles until the 16th century. Written from an art historical perspective, it focuses on what archaeologists and historians generally find little interest in: their ideological message. In this sense, it is a pioneering approach, aiming to present Silesian castles in a broader, European context, and for the late Middle Ages, also in the context of their connections with the castles of Bohemia and Moravia, a point that has generally eluded researchers focused on Polish associations. The entry section contains over 600 items, with more objects included, as a single entry often encompasses several castles. This encyclopedia differs from all similar studies of Silesia (with the exception of K. A. Müller's work from nearly 200 years ago) in its coverage of the entire region, including its Czech part, while omitting non-Silesian areas such as the Kłodzko Land and the eastern parts of both Lusatia regions. As such, it should (finally!) introduce some order into this matter. The entries provide dozens of corrections, for example, in the area of incorrectly linking settlements with villages solely based on current administrative and cadastral classifications, rather than historical realities, a typical archaeological shortcoming; it also clarifies the location of many objects, and introduces several unknown or unidentified objects into scholarly circulation (sometimes as hypotheses requiring archaeological verification, which the author, as a non-archaeologist, could not undertake for personal reasons). The work also does not spare any assessment of the contemporary use of many castles, calling things by their names, for example as a zone of shame and cultural barbarism, particularly pronounced in the present-day Polish part of Silesia.