Oldal 414 [414]
412
Ewa Baniowska-Kopacz
We have returned to ancient Piast territories on the Odra River. Ihe republics
borders have been set at the Odra and the Nysa. However, years of venomous
deceitful Prussian propaganda have grown deep into the minds of European
nations. More than that, not all Poles are aware how much Silesia was and is
Polish and that, marvellously, it has never ceased to be Polish, that the borders
on the Odra and Nysa Rivers are justified and necessary from economic and
strategic points of view. Ihe lie about the Germanic past of Silesia should be
discarded (...) The objective of the monthly periodical Sigsk is a manifestation
of elements of Polish heritage and Polish contemporary life in Silesia (SMI
1946, no. 1: 1).
The quotation presented above indicates that the editors of the magazine were
aware that the Regained Territories were commonly perceived as Other, ‘different’
and ‘forgotten’. In such circumstances the profile chosen for the new magazine
(“manifestation of elements of Polish heritage and Polish contemporary life in Sile¬
sia’; SMI 1946, no. 1: 1) was understandable. The magazine was intended as an
illustrated monthly and the illustrations were supposed to play an important role in
forming the perception of the Silesian Regained Territories by inhabitants of other
Polish regions and new Silesian settlers.
Illustrations provide a specific kind of evidence that can be read on several
levels. The first level is the visual content of the picture. It could be an architectural
object, a situation or event, a landscape, a person or a group of people, etc. The
conveyance of specific pictures is stronger and deeper if we look at it in the context
in which it is presented. Reoccurrence of certain motifs and the context in which
a set of illustrations was created also play an important role. Consequently, pictures
are not merely a registration of the moment. They exist in their time, but also in
their place, in this case in the magazine where they are published. Illustrations
should be approached as a text from which we can read more than just who or what
is depicted in them. The presented photos of artefacts—sculptures, architectural
details and architectural monuments—speak about the depicted objects and their
creators, but also about the history of the land where those people lived.
The magazine contains a great amount of material about the past. We can find
photos of sculptures, reliefs, or busts of historical personalities on tombs and sar¬
cophagi. Images from old manuscripts also appear. Among the presented figures,
members of the Piast family prevail. Among them are Henry Il the Pious, Henry IV
Probus, Christian of Legnica (1618-1672), and his son, Wilhelm (1660-1675),
the last male representative of the Piast line (Figs 177 and 178). We can also find
Saint Hedwig of Silesia (Fig. 179), wife of Henry I the Bearded and the patron of
the region. Any possible doubts that the reader may have had about the identities
of the people presented are dissolved by long captions and the relevant text. The
accompanying texts inform us about the time when specific people lived and about