During the five years of the Cuius regio research project, 24 authors from Germany and Poland took up research on the issue of cohesion of Silesia as a region. Their final effect is far from bright. It has been shown that this region, understood as a community of inhabitants of the Oder River, has a very dynamic character. Historic Silesia, which as a region was formed in the 14th and 15th centuries from autonomous states (Silesian principalities), was from the beginning an idea dependent on the historical conditions governing the functionality of individual countries. In the nineteenth century, this region as a community definitely divided into four new spaces. As separate units then formed: within Prussia (later Germany) – Lower Silesia, Opole Silesia and Upper Silesia, within the Bohemia – Cieszyn (Opawa) Silesia. However, “Silesia” remained as a starting point for reflection on the regional dimension of the activities of communities living on the banks of the Oder.
Silesia has been and still remains a permanent reference point for both residents and new regions, a stabilizing factor, raising the profile of social activities related to it. Silesia was and still remains a regional community extremely lively, changing, updating itself through strong and vivid local identities necessary for local communities and their individual members. Silesia was and still is necessary as a permanent reference point for constantly changing forms of dependence of entire local communities and their individual members. Ultimately, this region remains an open, multicultural and deeply divided area. Exactly as it has always been for many centuries of its existence.