For 20 years, we have been discovering stories connecting 4 nations (Czechs, Poles, Austrians and Germans), ruling over the last millennium in the land called Silesia. We do it by studying movable and immovable monuments in one small Silesian village - Struga. Despite the passage of time, our subsequent research supported by scientists - art conservators, historians, archaeologists - allows us to discover the extraordinary stories recorded in them. And it is a never-ending process, despite the passage of time. With this knowledge, we try to convey the history of this region both through the prism of ordinary, brutal historical processes such as wars, and through the history of assimilation, cooperation and religious tolerance. All this is woven into changes in styles in architecture and art.

In 1945, as a result of the end of the Second World War, the borders in Central and Eastern Europe changed again. This story could tell the strange fate of a region in Europe which simply changed its nationality, if it was not for the fact that over the centuries this has happened for the umpteenth time. The Fundacja Pałacu Struga [Struga Palace Foundation] has for years been involved in education concerning the complicated history of Lower Silesia, using the example of one of the region's buildings - the Palace in Struga (Adelsbach). Initially, the Foundation focused on rescuing local monuments, both of tangible and intangible character. With time, we discovered new stories, both thanks to thorough research in state archives and stories told by people visiting us. These include tourists, visiting the historic sites, people resettled from the region after 1945, and former landowners, including the owners of the palace in Struga. After years of research we began to work on creating a clear message for our visitors that the history of Silesia is a history of many nations throughout 1000 years. It is not limited to the last 8 decades.

The task we are facing is to tell our visitors the history of changes in the region and the intertwined history of 4 nations: Czechs, Austrians, Prussians and Poles. It is an attempt to show shades of grey and not just a clear-cut use of dates relating to the times when this part of Silesia belonged to different states. We are currently working on a multilingual multimedia system which will allow us not only to guide all visitors at the same time without dividing them according to their nationality, but also to tell one story from the perspective of those four nations. Today we guide our visitors in an attempt to unravel their national ways of narrating the history. We show the intertwining of epochs. We explain that Silesia was originally Bohemia. We tell about the settlers who came here during the times of the Great Moravian Empire, about the beginnings of men settlement, about the first period of silver ore mining. About the violent Middle Ages, when the area fell into Polish hands for 400 years. About how the original inhabitants assimilated to the new conditions, how during these 400 years people from Lusatia and Saxony came to this land. Many of these families stayed here and served at the courts of the local rulers as "economic immigrants". They were looking for new lands, new opportunities to grow their families, to settle and to get rich. The palace of Struga, was originally a tower house, built by Urlich von Schoff, a knight and member of the family later known as von Schaffgottsch, but originally a Sorbian, who came here from what is present-day Saxony. Later, as a result of the extinction of this Schafgottsch line, the nearby castle of Cisy (Zeisburg) and Struga were taken over by .... a descendant of the Bohemian knight Herrmann Czetras, whose family had served at the court of the Polish Duke Bolko I and his successors. Later, when the area was once again Bohemia, this family would establish the first coal mines in Silesia and write the first mining law, which would be used by all nations for the next several hundred years. Many of our visitors think that the next period was already German, but they forget that after 1526 this region came under Austrian administration for hundreds of years. And this is another period of turbulent development of this valuable European area. It is not only the change of "nationality", which was of little interest to the local inhabitants, but above all the wonderful period of the emergence and development of the Renaissance in Silesia. That was the time of magnificent reconstruction of the tower house in Struga into a Renaissance castle. Hundreds of square meters of paintings and frescoes dating back to that period and showing, the rulers of the region over the centuries, sacral (the castle chapel) and secular art of original decorations of the residential rooms, they have all been preserved to our times. Of course it is our goal to present them all to our numerous visitors. At the end we show the transformation of the last 300 years. The Silesian wars, as a result of which this part of Silesia came under Prussian rule, the evolution of the German state and the evolution of the religious systems in this period, and above all, contradictory to the official story, the story of peaceful coexistence of Protestants and Catholics in small Silesian communities, as exemplified by the fact that our local church is shared by these two religious groups. Finally, the Second World War, which did not affect our local community at all, which is in itself unique in Silesia, and the later period of the deportation and transformation of these lands back to Poland. We are proud when our guests leave the meetings and start perceiving Silesia anew as ..... Silesia, and not just another part of Czechia, Poland, Austria or Germany. They can appreciate the history of this region, its assimilation and transformation against the background of the history of the conquering countries, cultural changes and styles in architecture, but above all the distinctiveness and local character of the Silesian culture. We are also proud when the present inhabitants, despite the lapse of 70 years since their resettlement from the territories of the present Ukraine, begin to appreciate the place where they live, and where they felt so alien and so detached from their roots that they did not even try to understand the place where they involuntarily found themselves.

                The aim of the project is to create a multimedia multilingual system which will allow us to guide multinational groups at the same time, so that each person will receive a commentary in her/his own national language, bound together by a "transnational" commentary linking the history of the region. We would like to use the grant to purchase multimedia equipment and to pay for services of professional translators of various languages.

Photos:

- Tower house of Urlich Schoff / Sorbian background / photo number 2.

- Renaissance castle/ the Czetras family – Bohemians (Czechs) who became Poles to eventually become Austrians and Prussians / photo number 1.

- Silesian rulers and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire - Albrecht II, King of the Romans (German) - son of the German Emperor Karel IV Lucembursky (great enthusiast of Bohemia and Prague), great-grandson of the greatest Polish king Kazimierz Wielki, half-brother of Vaclav IV Lucembursky - King of Bohemia (history of Silesia in one portrait) / photo number 5 und 6.

- Maximilian I - the Emperor who annexed Silesia to Austria, or the history of an empty portrait / photo number 7.

- Silesian Baroque and the period of destruction of "post-German" monuments after World War II / photo number 3 und 4.

- the monument commemorating the "former" inhabitants of Struga, before 1945 / photo number 8.

- a reconstruction of the 1807 Napoleonic battle, in which Prussians clashed with, Bavarians, Saxons, French and Poles / photo number 9, 10 und 11.

- visiting the Struga Palace / photo number 12.

Fundacja Pałac Struga 

biuro@palacstruga.pl

For 5 years, the Struga Palace Foundation has been participating in the organization of the European Heritage Days. We understand them invariably through the prism of the projects we deal with. We use the history of Silesia, a land currently located mainly in Poland, to show examples of national and religious tolerance, cultural intermingling and aspirations of the 4 nations that ruled this land. Thanks to a complex history, we can pass this knowledge on to our numerous visitors not only from the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Poland, but also weave it into the history of other European countries. Because what unites us in a much greater dimension than we might think is our common history. For example, the history of the Holy Roman Empire can be treated as a purely political project, and it can be treated as the basis for telling stories as distant from each other as the reach of this empire. Thanks to the rulers, we connect such distant lands as today's Spain and Poland. The common denominator is Maksymilian I. We show that the path we have taken to today's common Europe has its roots precisely in such multicultural regions as Silesia, where, despite the turmoil of history, the inhabitants showed great tolerance on many levels. An example may be our projects related to the European Heritage Days: Silesian cuisine over the centuries or the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Silesia and the life of a small, rural community in Struga. In the latter, we describe how, after the Protestant church was burned down, both denominations unanimously and without problems shared the second, Catholic temple. This is what the European heritage is for us - a positive basis for connecting people and showing the positives of their common history. In this case, 4 nations with a difficult political history of the last 1000 years.