A few weeks ago I posted Silesians, linking to an article on the history and current situation of that minority and their dialect; I have just gotten an e-mail from Tomasz Kamusella, the author of the article, linking to his paper on “The Szlonzoks and their Language: Between Germany, Poland and Szlonzokian Nationalism” (pdf, accessible from this page) and his “small book on the political underpinnings of the triple classification of the Slavic languages” (pdf, accessible from here). There’s a lot of interesting material there, and I was particularly struck by the fact that he had a hard time getting his dissertation accepted because it “presented an incorrect picture of the Upper Silesian past”: being a Pole, he “should have emphasized ‘the continual and primordial Polishness of Upper Silesia.'” Oh, how I hate that kind of proudly ignorant nationalism! At any rate, he writes:
I am finishing my Habilitationsschrift (a kind of 2nd PhD dissertation, like dokotorskaia in Russia) on language politics and nationalisms in Central Europe during the 19th and 20th cc. It focuses on Czech, Magyar, Polish, and Slovak nationalisms and languages. And I need help most with this work, namely some specialist to read through the chapters to see if I did not commit some glaring errors, plus help with streamling my non-native English usage. To let you or some other person who might see if she/he could help, what my work is about I could send you one or two chapters… I will be correcting the manuscript at least until mid-2006 before proposing it to some publishers.
If anyone’s interested in helping further what sounds like a worthy project, write Tomasz at tomek672 @ poczta.onet.pl — I’m sure he’ll put you in the acknowledgments!
Speak Your Mind