Ślązacy między polityczną podmiotowością a poczuciem uprzedmiotowienia

This article concerns identity politics in the broader, theoretical perspective. The author discusses the activities of Silesian activists who are striving to have the Polish state formally recognize their group’s separateness. Their activities are subject to the rules arising from the national system for the protection of minorities, which rests on two ideas: the principle of non-discrimination in the treatment of all citizens, and the right to preserve and protect one’s own identity (with the active aid of the state in this regard). In Poland, obtaining the right to protection requires the state’s legal recognition of a group, that is, the group must be inscribed in the Law on National and Ethnic Minorities and Regional Languages. The Silesians have been unsuccessfully attempting to obtain such recognition for over a dozen years. The author, on the basis of her own research, addresses the question of how non-inclusion in the system for protecting minorities is seen by leaders of an excluded ethnic group.