Sorbs

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For other uses, see Sorbs (disambiguation).
Sorbs

Sorbian national flag (Serbska chorhoj)
Total population

50,000 - 60,000
Regions with significant populations
Germany
Languages
Sorbian, German
Religions
Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Serbs, Poles, Czechs, Kashubians, Slovaks, and other Slavs, Germans (intermarriage for centuries)

The Sorbs (Upper Sorbian: Serbja, Lower Sorbian: Serby) are a Slavic minority indigenous to the region known as Lusatia in the current German states of Saxony and Brandenburg (in former GDR territory). They are or were also known as Lusatians, Wends, “Lusatian Serbs” or “Serbs of Luzice (Sorbian: Łužica).”

Region where the Sorbs live in Germany
Region where the Sorbs live in Germany

Contents

[edit] Demographic

Since ethnicity is not a legal category in Germany for German citizens, their number can only be guessed. The constitutions of both Brandenburg and Saxony explicitly declare any inquiry about ethnicity unconstitutional and illegal. But every citizen is free to view himself/herself as a Sorb and thus choose his/her ethnic identity, which must not be testified or examined by any state authority. Current estimates speak of 10,000 to 30,000 active speakers of Sorbian (almost all of them are bilingual) and about 60,000 people who subjectively consider themselves Sorbs.

National costume of Lusatian Sorbs as traditionally worn in the northern part of Lusatia
National costume of Lusatian Sorbs as traditionally worn in the northern part of Lusatia

[edit] History

Historically, the Sorbs are the last remainder of the Polabian Slavic peoples living in most of what is now eastern Germany until the high Middle Ages. Their ancestors are the Milceni and Lusatians, not the Sorbs that were a tribe between Elbe and Saale, but in the 18th century they started to call themselves Sorbs. The Sorbs arrived in the area now known as Lusatia during the 5th century A.D. In the years since then, the Sorbs have often fallen under foreign rule. While they have predominantly been under German control, they were under Polish occupation in the 11th century and under Bohemian rule from the mid 14th century until the Peace of Prague (1635). Most Slavs in the area were Germanised or driven away during the German Ostsiedlung of the 12th and 13th centuries.

At the end of the 19th century there were 150,000 Sorbian speakers in Lusatia, the majority of whom were monolingual. However, the Sorbs were quickly becoming Germanized on a mass-level, a phenomenon spurred on by industrialization. By the 1920s the majority of Sorbian speakers were bilingual.

The Sorbs were the victims of forced Germanization from 1933 to 1945, viewed by the Nazis as Sorbian-speaking Germans, rather than ethnic Slavs. With this distinction, the Nazis aimed to “re-Germanize” the Sorbs, a process which involved removing Sorbian from street signs and Germanizing Sorbian names in official documents. The Nazis also sought to eliminate the Slavic tendencies of the Sorbs by banning the Domowina in 1937 and banning the last remaining Sorbian-language newspaper, the Catholic paper Katolski Posol, in 1939. Sorbian teachers and priests were deported from the Reich, and those explicitly labeled as “Sorbian nationalists” were sent to concentration camps.

[edit] After World War II

Following the end of the war, about five million Germans remaining in Silesia and the Sudetenland (out of a prewar total of about eight million) were expelled. Many of these people moved to Lusatia, where they were confronted with a Germany with clear Slavic colorings. The confusion of this ethnic and linguistic mix increased Sorbian-German tensions in the area. Even before this influx of Bohemian Germans, as a result of industrialization and Germanization, by the 1940s Sorbs were a minority in Lusatia. Their numbers were greatest in rural areas, where Sorbian speakers made up between 35% and 40% of the population.

However, despite their minority status, in 1945 the Sorbs, driven by their experiences with Nazi oppression, sought to be recognized as an independent state and asked for Czechoslovak protection. The Lusatian Sorb National Council in Bautzen was the main force behind this movement, succeeding in convincing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague to forward memoranda to Moscow, urging Czechoslovak military occupation of Lusatia.

The Sorbs received no response to their petition; Sorbian independence did not align with Soviet socialist policy. The Soviets were also unwilling to cede Lusatia due to practical territorial concerns. Unluckily for the Sorbs, politics demanded that the Czechs choose the Soviets over their Slav sympathies in this period directly following World War II. While the Czechs were drawn to the Sorb cause, relating especially to the fate of a Slav minority persecuted by German occupiers, their allegiance lay with the Soviets. When Moscow declared that they would not aid the Sorb cause, the Czechs too withdrew their support. This ended any hope the Sorbs had for an independent Lusatia. [1]

Although they failed to receive Soviet support for an independent Sorbian state, the Sorbs were able to receive some gains in the postwar period. In 1945 the Domowina was re-licensed by the Soviets, followed in 1947 by the licensing of a Sorbian printing press. In 1948 the Sorbian grammar school opened in Bautzen.

In the GDR the Sorbs were regaining identity. Erich Honecker discovered the people as a medium to praise their politics of minorities in the socialist country. Under GDR governance, Sorbic schools, publishers, theaters and many other cultural institutes were founded. An institute for Sorbic culture studies was founded in 1951 at the German Academy of Sciences Berlin as well as an institute for Sorbian studies[2] at the University of Leipzig.[3] In 1956, there were open protests against the massive industrialisation campaign in Lusatia, although these campaigns did not only affect the Sorbs or that region. On November 11, 1989, at the downfall of the socialist government, the Sorb National Assembly gathered, demanding the GDR authorities to establish a dialogue with the Sorbs and decisive changes in the state-run 'Domowina'. In 1991, 'Domowina' emerged as an independent organisation and Sorb People Foundation (Załožba za serbski lud) was established. [4]

In today's Germany, they have certain minority rights, for example: the right to send their children to Sorbian-language schools, the right to use Sorbian in dealings with the local government and the right to bilingual road signs. Since 2005, the Sorbs have their own political party, the Wendische Volkspartei.

A recent paper on molecular genetics reports a very high 63% frequency of paternally inherited R1a1 Y-chromosome marker in the Sorb population[5], linking them genetically to other Slavic nations of similar haplotype distribution.

[edit] Sorbian communities overseas

During the mid 19th century many Protestant Sorbs emigrated to Texas and Australia. The town of Serbin in Lee County, Texas was founded by these Sorbian immigrants. There they established a church of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Most of these Sorbian immigrants spread throughout central Texas and were subsequently assimilated into the German culture of the region. Ironically, the fear of assimilation into German culture and language is exactly why they left the old world. However, cultural identity remained important to some families and has led to the establishment of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society which since 1988 has hosted "Wendish Fest" in Serbin on the last Sunday in September. Wendish Fest activities include traditional Sorbian cultural pastimes such as egg painting, dancing, sausage-cooking, noodle-cooking, and beer drinking.

In Australia, communities sprang up around the South Australian town of Kapunda (such as Peters Hill), and in the Barossa Valley region, as well as small areas of south-western Victoria. Like their counterparts in Texas, they were seen by the Anglo-Celtic population as another group of German immigrants, and eventually because of their small numbers, assimilated into that larger cultural group.

[edit] Culture

The Sorbs are very well known for their Easter traditions:

[edit] Toponyms

Road sign in German and Sorbian.
Road sign in German and Sorbian.

A number of toponyms in Eastern Germany are of Slavic origin, and some well-known cities in south-eastern Germany have names derived from the Sorbs, witnessing Sorbian ancestry in these territories (eg. Leipzig), Bautzen. Place names in Lusatia ending with -au or -ow (-owe-ouwe) may be of Sorbian etymology as well (see also German placename etymology).

[edit] Examples

Many cities in German Lusatia have city signs with both German and the Sorbian names.

[edit] See also

Tradition on stamps
Tradition on stamps

[edit] Reference

  1. ^ Karel Kaplan: "The Short March: The Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia 1945-1948", 1987, ISBN 0-312-72209-5, p. 24-25. See also extract on [1].
  2. ^ University of Leipzig:Institute for Sorbian Studies
  3. ^ (German) Der Spiegel: Von Dänen lernen heißt siegen lernen
  4. ^ Andrus Mölder Łužyca/Łužica ---- Horisont 2001-5, lk 48-49
  5. ^ Behar et al., 2003, Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European Ancestries, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 73, 768-779, 2003

[edit] Literature

[edit] External links

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