Silesia, identity, nationality, Czech-Polish border, Těšín region

The chapter deals with specific case of Central European region Silesia situated today on the both sides of Czech-Polish political border. The Czech part of Silesia (an area 4,459 km?, population 825,000) is lesser, the Polish part of Silesia is bigger (an area 37,881 km?, about 7 million inhabitants). At the both part of this historical region, that was predominantly Germanized during Austrian and German domination in the last four centuries survived old Slavonic pre-German Silesian identity, which is demonstrated during Czech and Polish censuses as ?Silesian nationality?. Silesians with so strong identity is more in Polish side than in Czech one: 400 thousands to 40 thousands. Silesian identity should be a joining factor among local people in the Silesian Czech-Polish border. But it is not. Neither in the mind of new-settlers of this area after World War II, but even not in the mind of the indigenous people on both sides of the border, the state border still has existed. The supposing advantage of a common historical past is so remote that it doesn?t play any significant role.