Lusatia
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Lusatia (German Lausitz, Upper Sorbian Łužica, Lower Sorbian Łužyca, Polish Łużyce, Czech Lužice) is a historical region between the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers and the Elbe river in the eastern German states of Saxony and Brandenburg, south-western Poland (Lower Silesian Voivodeship) and the northern Czech Republic.
The name derives from a Sorbian language word meaning "swamps/water-hole".
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[edit] Upper and Lower Lusatia
Upper Lusatia (Oberlausitz) is today part of the German state of Saxony; it consists of hilly countryside rising in the South to the Lausitzer Bergland (Lusatian hills) near the Czech border, and then even higher to form the Lusatian Mountains (Lužické hory/Lausitzer Gebirge) in the Czech Republic.
Upper Lusatia is characterised by fertile soil and undulating hills as well as by historic towns and cities such as Bautzen, Görlitz, Zittau, Löbau, Kamenz, Lubań, Bischofswerda, Hoyerswerda, Bad Muskau. A few big villages in the very south of Upper Lusatia contain a typical attraction of the region, the so-called Umgebindehäuser, half-timbered-houses representing a combination of Franconian and Slavic style. Among those villages are Niedercunnersdorf, Obercunnersdorf, Wehrsdorf, Jonsdorf, Sohland an der Spree, Taubenheim, Oppach, Varnsdorf or Ebersbach.
Most of the portion belonging today to the German state of Brandenburg is called Lower Lusatia (Niederlausitz) and is characterised by forests and meadows. In the course of much of the 19th and the entire 20th century, it was shaped by the lignite industry and extensive open-cast mining. Important towns include Cottbus, Lübben, Lübbenau, Spremberg, Finsterwalde, and Senftenberg.
Between Upper and Lower Lusatia is a region called Grenzwall, meaning something like "border-wall". In the Midle Ages this area had dense forests, so it represented a major obstacle to civilian and military traffic. This region has been severely damaged during the Communist era by the open-pit lignite mining industry, with many small and large villages destroyed. Some now exhausted former open-pit mines are now being converted into artificial lakes, with much hope to attract vacationers, and the area is now being referred to as Lausitzer Seenland (Lusatian Lakeland).
[edit] Lusatian capitals
Lusatia is not an administrative unit. The city of Cottbus (Chóśebuz) is the largest of the region. Historically, Luckau (Łuków) was Lower Lusatia's capital. Bautzen (Budyšin) is the historical capital of Upper Lusatia.
[edit] Sorbian-Lusatian people
Several dozens of thousands of the Sorbian Slavic minority continue to live in the region. Historically their ancestors are the Milceni and the Lusitzer and not the Sorbs, that settled in the region between Elbe and Saale. Many still speak their language (though numbers are dwindling and Lower Sorbian especially is considered endangered), and road signs are usually bilingual. Sorbians try protect their typical culture shown in traditional clothes and styles of villages houses. Coal industry in the region, needing vast areas of land, threatens to destroy some Lusatian villages.
[edit] History
According to the earliest records, the area was settled by Celtic tribes. Later, around 100 BC, the Germanic tribe of the Semnones settled in that area. Around the year 600 CE the Slavic people known as the Milceni settled permanently in the region. In about 928, Germans and Poles began invading the region. Lusatia changed hands repeatedly, belonging in turn to Samo's Empire, Greater Moravia, and Bohemia. In 1002, the Poles took control of the region, and Lusatia became part of Poland in 1018 until it was absorbed by the German principalities of Meissen and Brandenburg less than twenty years later. In 1076 Emperor Henry IV of the Holy Roman Empire awarded Lusatia as a fief to the Bohemian duke Vratislav II. Around 1200 large numbers of german settlers came to Lusatia, settling in the forested areas yet not settled by the Slavs. Upper Lusatia remained under Bohemian rule until the Thirty Years' War when it became part of Saxony. In 1815 Upper Lusatia was divided, with the eastern part around Görlitz now belonging to Prussia. Following the Lutheran Reformation, Lusatia became Protestant but especially the Sorbs stayed mainly catholic till today. In 1945 the eastern part rejoined Saxony and in 1952, when the state of Saxony was divided into three administrative areas, Upper Lusatia became part of the Dresden administrative region. 1990 the state of Saxony was reestablished.
[edit] Saxon rule
In 1635 most of Lusatia became a province of Saxony, except for a region around Cottbus possessed since 1462 by Brandenburg. After the Elector of Saxony was elected king of Poland in 1697, Lusatia became strategically important as the electors-kings sought to create a land connection between their Polish and Saxon realms.
During the Congress of Vienna in 1815, most of Lusatia was awarded to the Kingdom of Prussia, except the southern part with Löbau, Kamenz, Bautzen and Zittau, all of which remained part of Saxony. The Lusatians in Prussia demanded that their land become a distinct administrative unit (province or region/Bezirk), but it was divided between several Prussian provinces instead.
[edit] Prussian rule
The 19th and early 20th centuries, under Prussian rule, witnessed an era of cultural revival for Slavic Lusatians. The modern languages of Upper and Lower Lusatian (or Sorbian) emerged, national literature flourished, and many national organizations like Maćica Serbska and Domowina were founded.
[edit] Third Reich
This era came to an end during the Nazi regime in Germany, when all Sorbian-Lusatian organizations were abolished and forbidden, the newspapers and magazines closed, and any usage of Sorbian-Lusatian languages was prohibited. During World War II, most Lusatian activists were arrested, executed, exiled or sent as political prisoners to concentration camps where most of them died. From 1942 to 1944 the underground Lusatian National Committee was formed and was active in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. After World War II, however, Lusatia was divided between East Germany and Poland along the Neisse River. Poland's communist government expelled all Lusatians (as well as ethnic Germans) from the area east of the Neisse River during 1945 and 1946.
[edit] Autonomy movement
There have been endeavours by Sorbs to create a Lusatian Free State in the past -- particularly after World War II, when the Sorbian National Committee demanded the attachment of Lusatia to Czechoslovakia and the Expulsion of the german majority. The Domowina however opposed this idea and favoured a future inside Germany. In 1950 the Sorbs obtained language and cultural autonomy within the then East German state of Saxony. Lusatian schools and magazines were launched and the Domowina association was revived, although under increasing political control of the ruling Communist Party. The local institutions supported the revival of regional Sorbian-Lusatian arts and culture. At the same time, the large German-speaking majority of the Upper Lusatian population kept up a considerable degree of local, 'Upper Lusatian' patriotism of its own. An attempt to establish a Upper Lusatian land within the Federal Republic of Germany failed after the German reunification in 1990. The constitutions of Saxony and Brandenburg guarantee cultural autonomy to the Slavic speaking communities. In 2005 Sorbian activists founded the Sorbian People's Party (Serbska Ludowa Strona - SLS).
[edit] Demographics according to the 1900 census
Share of Sorbs:
- Cottbus (Province of Brandenburg) 55,8 %
- Hoyerswerda (Province of Silesia) 37,8 %
- Bautzen (Kingdom of Saxony) 17,7 %
- Rothenburg i. d. Oberlausitz (Province of Silesia) 17,2 %
- Kamenz (Kingdom of Saxony) 7,1 %
Total number: 93,032
The number of Slavs in Lusatia has substantially decreased since then, due to intermarriage, cultural assimilation, Nazi suppression and discrimination and the settlement of expelled Germans mainly from Lower Silesia and Northern Bohemia.
[edit] See also
- Sorbian languages
- Upper Sorbian language
- Lower Sorbian language
- Milceni
- Wends
- Sorbs
- League of six towns of Upper Lusatia
- Herrnhut Moravian Church and Zinzendorf
[edit] External links
- Sorbian Cultural Information
- Sorbian umbrella organization "Domowina"
- Sorbian internet portal
- Bautzen, an important Sorbian town
- Organization "Friends of Lusatia" in Czech Republic
- The Texas Wendish Society
- The Wendish People's Partyca:Lusàcia
cs:Lužice da:Lausitz de:Lausitz et:Lausitz es:Lusacia eo:Luzacio fr:Lusace hsb:Łužica it:Lusazia nl:Lausitz ja:ラウジッツ no:Lausitz pl:Łużyce pt:Lusácia sv:Lausitz
