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dc.contributor.authorKamusella, Tomasz Dominik
dc.date.accessioned2013-01-07T16:37:06Z
dc.date.available2013-01-07T16:37:06Z
dc.date.issued2012-12-21
dc.identifier41486850
dc.identifier5030a661-1a21-4e7b-9ad8-60d815af4065
dc.identifier.citationKamusella , T D 2012 , ' Poland and the Silesians : Minority rights à la carte? ' , Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe , vol. 11 , no. 2 , pp. 42-74 .en
dc.identifier.issn1617-5247
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0003-3484-8352/work/42102761
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/3317
dc.description.abstractThe Silesians are an ethnic or national group that coalesced in the nineteenth century. During the subsequent century, they survived repeated divisions of their historical region of Upper Silesia among the nation-states of Czechoslovakia (or today its western half, that is, the Czech Republic), Germany, and Poland, which entailed Czechization, Germanization, and Polonization, respectively. The ideal of ethnolinguistic homogeneity, a typical goal of Central European nationalism, was achieved in post-war Poland. After the end of communism (1989) and the country‟s accession to the European Union (2004), this ideal is still aspired to, though it appears to stand in direct conflict with the values of democracy and rule of law. The Silesians are the largest minority in today‟s Poland and Silesian speakers are the second largest speech community in this country after Polish-speakers. Despite the Silesians‟ wish to be recognized as a minority, expressed clearly in their grassroots initiatives and in the Polish censuses of 2002 and 2011, Poland neither recognizes them nor their language. This inflexible attitude may amount to a breach of the spirit (if not the letter) of the Council of Europe‟s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, both of which Poland signed and ratified. The case of the Silesians is a litmus test of the quality of Polish democracy. In order to resolve the debacle, the article proposes a genuine dialogue between representatives of Silesian organizations and the Polish administration under the guidance of observers and facilitators from the Council of Europe and appropriate international non-governmental organizations.
dc.format.extent337104
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofJournal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europeen
dc.subjectCensusen
dc.subjectEthnolinguistic nationalismen
dc.subjectLinguistic rightsen
dc.subjectMinority rights protectionen
dc.subjectMisuse of statisticsen
dc.subjectSilesiansen
dc.subjectSilesian languageen
dc.subjectPolanden
dc.subjectNon-recognitionen
dc.subjectJN Political institutions (Europe)en
dc.subjectPG Slavic, Baltic, Albanian languages and literatureen
dc.subjectSDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutionsen
dc.subject.lccJNen
dc.subject.lccPGen
dc.titlePoland and the Silesians : Minority rights à la carte?en
dc.typeJournal articleen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. School of Historyen
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.identifier.urlhttp://www.ecmi.de/fileadmin/downloads/publications/JEMIE/2012/Vol_2_Dezember_2012/4._JEMIE_Kamusella.pdfen


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