Josef Koždoň

Josef Koždoň

Josef Koždoň (until 1920 mostly Polish Józef Kożdoń ; born September 8, 1873 in Leszna Górna , † December 7, 1949 in Opava ) was an East Silesian politician and long-time mayor of Czech Teschen ( Český Těšín ).

Live and act

The head teacher of the bilingual elementary school in Skoczów (Skotschau) was unexpectedly elected to the Opava Landtag in 1909 , as a representative of the new Silesian People's Party ( Śląska Partia Ludowa ), against the preferred candidate of the Union of Silesian Catholics ( Józef Londzin ). The Silesian People's Party was a continuation of the faction of the Polish -speaking, but German-friendly population in the former Duchy of Teschen , which belonged to Austrian Silesia until 1918, that was formed during the revolution of 1848/1849 in the Austrian Empire . This movement, most popular around Skoczów imBielitz district , often emphasized the affiliation of the “Schlonsaken” (formerly also water poles or water polaks) to the “German culture area”, at the same time distancing themselves from the Polish national movement founded by Paweł Stalmach . The Schlonsaken also turned against the appropriation by the Czech national movement and especially under the slogan "Silesia the Silesians!" (Śląsk dla Ślązaków) against the Poles immigrating from Galicia, among whom Polish socialists were particularly active. Compared to earlier Polish-speaking politicians of the Schlonsak movement (such as Franz Obratschai, a member of parliament in Vienna from 1879–1885), Kożdoń was much more charismatic and skilful in the election campaign. B. More effectively, he asked for votes from the Roman Catholic population. The new quality of the movement was reinforced by the new newspaper “Ślązak” (Polish for Silesian ).

The first issue of the Ślązak newspaper

In the 1911 Reichsrat election, however, Józef Kożdoń received only 14% of the votes of the Polish-speaking population and lost to Józef Londzin in the constituency of Silesia 14 and to Jan Michejda in the constituency of Silesia 13 . The Polish historian Grzegorz Wnętrzak estimated the share of supporters of this movement to be at least 20% of the Polish-speaking population, or 10 to 12% in Eastern Silesia.

Municipalities where Józef Kożdoń won in the 1911 Imperial Council election

After the end of the Danube Monarchy, the region, now mostly referred to as the Olsa region in German-speaking countries , was claimed by both new nation states, Czechoslovakia and the Second Polish Republic . The supporters of Kożdoń got caught between the fronts, on which soon there was also military fighting. The political movement of the "Schlonsaken" under Josef Kożdoń was directed against Poland. Josef Kożdoń was arrested on November 30, 1918 and interned in the Kraków Military Prison for four weeks, as was his wife and other activists later. After his release he tried from Moravian Ostrava to lead the "Silesian People's Party" and, according to their estimates, around 100,000 Schlonsaken (including 3/4 of the Protestants) from Moravian Ostrava and with the Parisians during the Polish-Czechoslovak border war Negotiations for the autonomy of the Teschener Land, best in Austria, Germany or in Western European Czechoslovakia, least of all in underdeveloped Poland or the affiliation to a proposed Free State of Upper Silesia . Kożdoń himself imagined it to be a state modeled on Switzerland - neutral, developed and linguistically mixed. On February 9, 1919, the Silesian People's Party published an open letter in which the indivisibility of Cieszyn Silesia as an independent republic under the protection of the League of Nations was the first and most important demand. However, this was split up along the Olsa the next year, as was the city, which was the biggest disappointment for them because they absolutely did not want their homeland to be split.

From 1923 to 1938 Koždoň was mayor of the Czech Teschen. The regional influence of the Silesians was reduced in 1928 when their area was annexed to Moravia , against which the protest was made with the slogan “Silesia the Silesians!”. Due to division and assimilation policies, especially on the Polish side, only around 25,000 people identified themselves as Silesian in 1930 censuses.

The Munich Agreement took Poland to the beginning of October 1938 to annex the Czech part of the Olsagebietes. As in 1918, the Poles suppressed Shlonsak organizations. Josef Koždoň withdrew to Troppau, which was now in the Sudetenland , which was annexed to the German Empire, like the entire Olsa area as the district of Teschen a year later . Hopes for autonomy remain unfulfilled, because Reich Germans occupied the government offices, although Koždoň in his official statements described this as the completion of a natural process of unification of the Schlonsaken with the German culture . In the policy of Germanization, the occupiers took advantage of the old Schlonsak movement, including in the German People's List , where the Silesian information in the third category (DVL III, a total of 223,000 in the districts of Teschen and Bielitz ), de facto as a German nationality were included.

Josef Koždoň resigned himself and stayed in Opava even after the end of the war when the division was restored, where he died in 1949 and was buried. A symbolic honorary grave was erected on the cemetery in Czech Teschen. Koždoň also became an icon of the separatist and autonomist movements reborn in the 1990s, most popular in Polish Upper Silesia. His tomb was visited every year by activists from the Movement for the Autonomy of Silesia from Katowice .

Memorial stone in Česky Těšín

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ethnographic map of the Austrian monarchy by Carl Freiherr von Czoernig 1855
2. ^ Krzysztof Nowak, Idzi Panic: Śląsk Cieszyński od Wiosny Ludów do I Wojny Światowej (1848–1918) [Teschner Schlesien from the spring of nations to the First World War (1848–1918)] . Starostwo Powiatowe w Cieszynie, Cieszyn 2013, ISBN 978-83-935147-3-1 , p. 131 (Polish).
3. ↑ Grzegorz Wnętrzak: Stosunki polityczne i narodowościowe na pograniczu Śląska Cieszyńskiego i Galicji zachodniej w latach 1897-1920 [Political and national relations in the border area of ​​Teschner Silesia and Western Galicia in the years 1897-1920] . Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, Toruń 2014, ISBN 978-83-7780-882-5 , p. 369 (Polish).
4. ↑ Kai Struve, Philipp Ther (ed.): The borders of the nations. Identity change in Upper Silesia in modern times (Conferences on East Central Europe Research, Volume 15), Herder Institute, Marburg, ISBN 3-87969-298-X [1]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was created automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ G. Wnętrzak, 2014. p. 330.
6. ↑ G. Wnętrzak, 2014, p. 402.
7. ^ Krzysztof Nowak: Śląsk Cieszyński w latach 1918-1945 [Cieszyn Silesia from 1918 to 1945] . Starostwo Powiatowe w Cieszynie, Cieszyn 2015, ISBN 978-83-935147-5-5 , p. 453 (Polish).

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} After the revolution in 1849, there was an administrative reform (see Bielitz District , District Cieszyn , district Frýdek , district Freistadt ) and the term Duchy lost its importance, but was still used. In the German-language newspaper Silesia, the area was most often named as Eastern Silesia , rising from Poles as Śląsk Cieszyński , literally Teschner Schlesien, by Czechs as Těšínsko.
2. ↑ This national movement only became active in the 1880s thanks to the immigrant Czech intelligentsia , especially in the mountainous area between Moravian Ostrau and Karviná.
3. ↑ In 1910 54,200 of 434 thousand, or 12.7%, mainly in the districts of Friedek (20,000 or 20.5%) and Freistadt (15,500 or 13%); Śląsk Cieszyński od Wiosny Ludów ..., 2013, p. 16 ..

Web links

• prosilesia.net: The Schlonsakenführer Josef Koždoň died 55 years ago
• oberschlesien-aktuell.de : Schlonsake Josef Kozdon is facing a renaissance of his ideas for a Silesian region in Cieszyn Silesia (PDF; 91 kB)