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The Duchy of Pless or the Duchy of Pszczyna (Template:Lang-de, Template:Lang-pl), was a duchy of Silesia, with its capital at Pszczyna (Pless), now in Poland.
At first the lands of Pszczyna were treated as a part of Little Poland (Template:Lang-pl) but in 1178 King of Poland Casimir II the Just gave them to one of the Dukes of Silesia, Mieszko I Tanglefoot, who attached it to his lands, the duchies of Opole and of Racibórz. Leszek Pszczyński was forced to accept vassalization by John I of Bohemia in 1327 putting the Duchy in the Bohemian sphere of influence up until his death in 1336. For a time, the Duchy was ruled by the Přemyslid dynasty. From 1412 until 1452 Helena, sister of Jogaila, ruled the Duchy. After her stepdaughter governed from 1452 until 1462 the House of Podebrady took over, and it was part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. The Thurzó family acquired the Duchy and sold it in 1548 to the Promnitz family, who ruled the Duchy with the approval of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor until 1765.
In the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) most of Silesia was conquered by Prussia. In 1903, the Centre Party's delegation from Silesia was largely replaced, although by very thin majorities, by the Polish National Democrats.
The lands retained a large Polish-speaking majority (86% in the Prussian Census of 1867) and were reattached to Poland in 1922, as part of the settlement after the Silesian Uprisings.
References
- Template:En icon Julian Janczak, Zarys dziejów kartografii śląskiej do końca XVIII wieku (An outline for the History of Cartography till the End of the 18th century), Opole: 1976. Also, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw: Institute of History of Science, Education and Technology, 1993, ISBN 83-86062-00-2. The book mentions a hand made map of the Duchy of Pszczyna (1636) by Andrew Hindenberg. Accessed 2008-13-01.
^ Note: "Because of the damage caused by World War II - and above all by the scorched-earth policy practised by the withdrawing German armed forces in 1945 - parts of archive buildings and archival materials in Poland were completely destroyed." Tadeusz Walichnowski, Territorial Provenance of Archival Documents in International Relations (Przynaleznosc terytorialna archiwaliow Panstwa Polskiego w stosunkach miedzynarodowych), Polish Scientific Publishers, Warsaw, 1977. Polish State Archives. - Nagel's Encyclopedia Guide, Poland by Nagel Publishers, 1989, 399 pages, ISBN 2826308181. The book mentions "Hochbergs, a German family known as the Princes of Pszczyna." Accessed 2008-13-01
- Anderson, p.1464-68.
- Margaret Lavinia Anderson, "Voter, Junker, Landrat, Priest: The Old Authorities and the New Franchise in Imperial Germany" The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 5. (Dec., 1993), pp. 1448-1474. JSTOR link.