The name of the village is of Polish origin and comes from the word góra, which means "hill".[1]
History
The village was first mentioned in a Latin document of Diocese of Wrocław called Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis from around 1305 as Item in Gorki villa vlodari.[2][3][4] It was written in an atypical form and suggests that a village was much older. The reason why it was inscribed to the document was connected to a process of extracting of a part of the village, which belonged wholly to dukes, to form a new village given to a knight. The part which remained in dukes hand was later called Górki Małe, while a knights' part Górki Wielkie. As so a village of Górki (Małe) functioned probably before 1290, when the Duchy of Cieszyn was formed (where both belonged ever since). From it was extracted a knights' villages which was then first mentioned in Liber fundationis...[5]
The village became a seat of a Catholic parish, mentioned in the register of Peter's Pence payment from 1447 among 50 parishes of Cieszyn deanery as Gorky.[6]
After the 1540s Protestant Reformation prevailed in the Duchy of Cieszyn and a local Catholic church was taken over by Lutherans. It was taken from them (as one of around fifty buildings) in the region by a special commission and given back to the Roman Catholic Church on 18 April 1654.[7]
^Damrot, Konstanty (1896). Die älteren Ortsnamen Schlesiens, ihre Entstehung und Bedeutung. Mit einem Anhange über die schlesisch-polnischen Personennamen. Beiträge zur schlesischen Geschichte und Volkskunde (in German). Verlag von Felix Kasprzyk. p. 146.
^Panic, Idzi (2010). Śląsk Cieszyński w średniowieczu (do 1528) [Cieszyn Silesia in the Middle Ages (until 1528)] (in Polish). Cieszyn: Starostwo Powiatowe w Cieszynie. pp. 297–299. ISBN978-83-926929-3-5.
^Broda, Jan (1992). "Materiały do dziejów Kościoła ewangelickiego w Księstwie Cieszyńskim i Państwie Pszczyńskim w XVI i XVII wieku". Z historii Kościoła ewangelickiego na Śląsku Cieszyńskim (in Polish). Katowice: Dom Wydawniczy i Księgarski „Didache“. pp. 259–260. ISBN83-85572-00-7.