Light of History: Upper Silesia Through the Ages

The permanent exhibition "Light of History: Upper Silesia Through the Ages," opened to the public on June 26, 2016, during the opening festival of the new Silesian Museum building, tells the story of Upper Silesia from the earliest times to the political transformation of 1989. Visitors see it in the former Katowice coal mine, which for nearly 200 years witnessed and was the scene of this turbulent history. Entering the symbolic space of the mine, they follow a path marked by history, and the titular lux ex Silesia illuminates key issues and events that determined the history of Upper Silesia. Presenting the richness of events, problems, and historical turning points of this land across 1370 square meters was practically impossible, which is why we dedicated the core part of the exhibition to the face of Upper Silesia shaped by industrialization. Its beginning is symbolized by the steam engine launched in 1788 in Tarnowskie Góry, the first in continental Europe. This event determined the character of the Silesian land, bringing a drastic breakthrough in many areas of life – socio-national, customary, and urban.

Entry to the exhibition is a tribute to the place where it was organized. It leads through the gate of the Katowice mine, reconstructed based on photographs from June 4, 1989 – the day considered the beginning of political, industrial, and economic transformations that once again changed the face of the region. The exhibition is divided into nineteen chronologically-thematic spaces. One enters the exhibition through the check-in office, followed by sections devoted to the earliest history, showcasing the Silesia of that time and its successive rulers, as well as the development of settlement, thanks to which Silesian land could become a bridge between East and West, and a place for the flourishing of cultural and intellectual life.

The next space presents the dilemmas and choices of the owners of Silesian lands, which, among other things, led to the construction of the first steam engine in this part of Europe. Further sections address the complex Silesian identity, the awakening of Polish national consciousness, and multi-ethnic coexistence at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The recall of prominent Upper Silesians and events of the Silesian Uprisings and plebiscite period, the interwar years on both sides of the border, and World War II, during which Upper Silesia was incorporated into the Third Reich, forms the next part of the exhibition. The path of post-war fates is marked by subsequent important stages, such as the Upper Silesian tragedy, the fiction of communism, social and demographic changes, the time of Solidarność, martial law, and the tragedy of the Wujek mine, and finally the decline of the People's Republic of Poland.

The exhibition concludes with the presentation of a super-fast industrial processor developed in Bytom, which here is an allegory of the dynamic changes that have always occurred and continue to occur in Upper Silesia.

The primary carriers of information are over 800 original exhibits, audiovisual materials as documents, soundscapes, and stage design. Also significant is the interactive aspect of the exhibition, contained in numerous manual displays, as well as on touch screens with additional content with bibliographic references, and eighteen images created for the exhibition using technologies such as animation and Pepper’s Ghost.

The exhibition is presented in three language versions – Polish, German, and English, and the content displayed on touch screens is additionally accompanied by recordings in the Silesian dialect. Part of the exhibition is also a zone intended for children and youth. Here you can test yourself in educational games of various difficulty levels or watch animated films about Silesian fears, witches (heksy), and imps (podciepy).

The exhibition script was selected through a competition, and its author is the Katowice-based company Adventure, which was entrusted with further project development. The substantive content is the work of a group of university historians working under the direction of Dr. hab. Lech Krzyżanowski and collaborating with historians, ethnologists, and archaeologists from the Silesian Museum. The author of the stage design project is Michał Urban, and the exhibition was directed by Łukasz Czuj. Before implementation, the script was reviewed by a group of scientists specializing in the history of Silesia.

This is the first exhibition so extensively presenting the extremely complicated history of Upper Silesia, without omitting sensitive and painful issues such as the German cultural and social heritage, dilemmas accompanying the plebiscite, compulsory service of Upper Silesians in the Wehrmacht, and many others. It also shows the specificity of the borderland as a melting pot of cultures, nationalities, and religions, favoring on the one hand the definition of one's own identity, and on the other hand the emergence of dangerous divisions. "Light of History" is also – as prof. dr hab. Robert Traba emphasized in his inaugural lecture – the only exhibition in Poland so broadly showcasing regional history.

The exhibition, which was awaited with great interest in Upper Silesia and widely commented on even before its creation, was seen by about 200,000 people in its first year. From the perspective of the time that has passed since its opening to the public, it can be said that it not only plays a huge educational role but also inspires various regional activities. It has also become one of the city's attractions and a place for those who want to understand today's Upper Silesia.

Curators: Jarosław Racięski, Krystyna Pieronkiewicz-Pieczko

Substantive supervisor: Department of History