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Revision as of 19:20, 13 January 2008 by Piotrus (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Duchy of Pless (Template:Lang-de, Template:Lang-pl, "Duchy of Pszczyna") was a duchy of Silesia, with its capital at Pszczyna, Poland (Pless).
At first the lands of Pszczyna were treated as a part of Little Poland (Template:Lang-pl) but in 1178 King of Poland Casimir II the Just gave them to one of the Dukes of Silesia, Mieszko I Tanglefoot, who attached it to his lands, the duchies of Opole and of Racibórz. Leszek Pszczyński was forced to accept vassalization by John I of Bohemia in 1327 putting the Duchy in the Bohemian sphere of influence up until his death in 1336. For a time, the Duchy was ruled by the Přemyslid dynasty. From 1412 until 1452 Helena, sister of Jogaila, ruled the Duchy. After her stepdaughter governed from 1452 until 1462 the House of Podebrady took over, and it was part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. The Thurzó family acquired the Duchy and sold it in 1548 to the Promnitz family, who ruled the Duchy with the approval of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor until 1765.
In the War of the Austrian Succession most of Silesia was conquered by Prussia; however the Duchy retained its separate rulers. The Dukes of Anhalt-Cöthen-Pless inherited in 1765, being descended from the earlier dukes in the female line; the last of them died in 1847, and was succeeded by Count Hans Heinrich X of Hochberg, his son-in-law. The Hochbergs were among the wealthiest families of Germany, and lived in great state; they maintained a herd of wisent, given to them by Alexander II of Russia in 1864, but it was reduced to three survivors during the First World War. Hans Heinrich XIV succeeded in 1907; he had married Daisy, Princess of Pless, the diarist, whose memoirs are cited by Barbara Tuchman and other social historians. The lands retained a large Polish-speaking majority (86% in the Prussian Census of 1867) and were reattached to Poland in 1922, as part of the settlement after the Silesian Uprisings.
References
- Hans Heinrich X, XI, and XIV; the dynastic numbering was, like other princely families, given to all males of the House
- Margaret Lavinia Anderson, "Voter, Junker, Landrat, Priest: The Old Authorities and the New Franchise in Imperial Germany" The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 5. (Dec., 1993), pp. 1448-1474. JSTOR link.
- Theodor G. Ahrens, "The Present Status of the European Bison or Wisent" Journal of Mammalogy, Vol. 2, No. 2. (May, 1921), pp. 58-62.JSTOR link.
- Daisy, Princess of Pless, by Herself. New York (1929) Ed. and Introd. by Maj. Desmond Chapman-Huston.
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