Volume 43: Silesia

The monograph devoted to Silesia comprises an ethnographic and folkloristic outline of Upper Silesia, the Opole Silesia, Lower Silesia and the Cieszyn Silesia. The monograph includes materials published for the first time from Kolberg’s manuscripts, as well as those Seweryn Udziela prepared from Kolberg’s records and published in ‘Materiały Antropologiczno-Archeologiczne i Etnograficzne’ [Materials for anthropology, archeology and ethnography] in 1906. The volume contains data on the country and the people, the economic situation, architecture, information about the customs of the annual cycle and wedding rite, 60 songs and melodies without texts (including 39 melodies and 21 texts without melodies), and from the area of intellectual culture – contributions to beliefs, an extensive section of folk tales and information about the language and a small dialect glossary. The materials from Kolberg’s own collection include 13 tales recorded on the basis of a direct speech of Silesian agricultural laborers in Mazovia, names of parts of a cart, a drawing of a dress of a Silesian peasant, and some songs. Most of the material constitutes an excerpt from ethnographic journals and publications, mainly from the years 1840-1870, since Kolberg did not conduct any systematic field research in Silesia, and he acquired his ethnographic and folkloristic knowledge about the region outside Silesia from temporary contacts with Silesians while penetrating the bordering territories, or in an indirect way. These are excerpts from almost all works of contemporary researchers that dealt with Silesia, that is, from the works of L. Gołębiowski, J. S. Bandtkie, W. Bartoszewicz, J. M. Fritz, J. Roger, R. Fiedler, J. Grajnert, U Białecki, J. Lompa. Although the book presents a fragmentary picture of the folk culture of Silesia, it brings an interesting source material for its history and the history of the research of the region.