Przemysł i religia – wielokulturowe skutki związku. Przykład Zagłębia Dąbrowskiego

Abstract

Zagłębie Dąbrowskie or Dąbrowa Basin - a sub-region of present Silesia voivodeship - belongs to those areas in Europe where we can observe the relationship between rapid industrialization, urbanization and modernization and cultural development. The Basin and similar regions are a microcosm of the effects of the processes which take place at a crucial time for Europe's industrial revolution and for the creation of a new social-cultural and political order on the basis of the revolution. In the nineteenth century the region has been transformed from a typical agricultural area into an industrial one, located in the Prussian-Austrian-Russian borderland of states and cultures. The Basin is one of the genuinely multicultural areas where growing industry has caused the inflow of foreign capital, and thus foreign industrialists and workers. The land quickly became an ethnic and cultural mosaic of German, French, Russian, Jewish and other cultural influences, with industrialists becoming patrons and protectors of this colourful cultural mix. These processes are particularly well visible in the field of religion whose diverse forms have found their place in the region. Beside the Catholic Church, of particular significance were the Lutheran and Orthodox Churches as well as Judaism, the latter reflecting a strong presence of Jewish population in the area. Today the cultural diversity manifests itself only in the form of material evidence of the past and in weak historical memory - and constitutes a yet-to-be-discovered source of knowledge about phenomena which occur in regions with an atypical variant of multiculturalism.