Where do the Forest Germans Live? Determining the Boundaries of a Forgotten Settlement Region in Southern Poland
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11045928 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marcin Wojciech Solarz (0000-0002-9973-2599, University of Warsaw, corresponding author), Weronika Wnuk-Ciastek (0009-0005-5761-4382, University of Warsaw), Martyna A Zarzycka (0009-0007-4122-5950, University of Warsaw) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 115-140 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Nationalities Papers (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0090-5992 • E-ISSN: 1465-3923 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/nps.2025.12 |
| OpenAlex | W4410871772 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
As Poland began to expand towards the east in the 1340s, a large-scale settlement initiative commenced on the former Polish-Ruthenian borderland in the Carpathians. This initiative, along with integration of German and Polish colonists, resulted over time in the emergence of a Polish cultural group known as Forest Germans (in Polish Głuchoniemcy). In 1871-1989 Polish-German conflict led to the relevant ethnonym and choronym being removed from both Polish academic and popular discourse. As a result, no systematic geographical research into the location and borders of their settlement region was carried out. All we have are its dispersed, imprecise geographical descriptions from the period between the second half of the 17th century and the first half of the 20th century. Despite the erasure of this term from discourses and obstruction of the process of self-determination by the local population as Forest Germans at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries primarily for political reasons, the existence of a community which can potentially be identified today as Forest Germans at the former Polish-Ruthenian border is a fact. This article outlines the problems, challenges as well as the very process of delimiting Forest Germany, along with a general outline of its boundaries
Archaeology · Geography · Settlement (finance · History · Polish-Jewish Holocaust Memory Studies · Rural development and sustainability · Urbanization and City Planning
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |