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Article: Not so pure? Poland. (a movement among Poland's ethnic Silesians for greater autonomy in their region along the Czech Republic border)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- November 29, 1997
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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AS HEAD of the Movement for Silesian Autonomy, Rudolf Kolodziejczyk says he does not feel Polish. Nor does he feel akin to Poland's German minority. But he does feel Silesian. And his people, he says, are definitely oppressed.
Mr Kolodziejczyk wants the historical region of Upper Silesia (at present divided into four voivodships, as the country's 49 provinces are known) to control everything except the police, the army, the courts and foreign policy. Such views were backed, in this autumn's election to the Senate, by more than 100,000 people, amounting to some 8% of the vote in the area: not enough to win a seat but enough to make quite a few people in Warsaw sit up. ...