Zaolziańska wspólnota w trosce o tożsamość językową i kulturową

Abstract

THE COMMUNITY OF ZAOLZIE (TRANS-OLZA) ACTING TO MAINTAIN ITS LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL IDENTITY The community of Zaolzie includes Polish people who, as a result of the division of the Cieszyn Silesia into the Polish and Czechoslovak parts in 1929, became a national minority outside the borders of Poland. Living among the Czech population in a linguistically and culturally foreign country, the Polish community fought to maintain its ethnic and cultural identity. The bond uniting the community was maintained by the Cieszyn dialect, i.e. colloquial speech which I call the Zaolzie dialect. Educational and cultural activities were also of great importance, referring to the tradition of the struggle for Polishness in the period from the 19th century onwards. The knowledge spread by Polish schools in Zaolzie, the teaching of Polish history and, against its background, the history of the Cieszyn region, as well as the reading of Polish books contributed to the consolidation of the knowledge of Polish literary language and to the formation of Polish linguistic and national awareness in the Czech environment. In the second part of the article, I present selected utterances of Zaolzie cultural activists published in 1950s and 1960s in the regional monthly entitled “Zwrot”. They illustrate the linguistic problems in Zaolzie which are still relevant despite the changes in the local communication system that occurred as a result of the decreasing number of Polish schools and people with a strong Polish identity.