The Sorbs

The Sorbs, or Wends in both Lusatia, were among those Elbslav tribes who migrated to the area between the Oder and Elbe/Saale rivers from the 6th century onwards. Although they had been subject to German authority since the 10th century, they were able to maintain their ethnic distinctiveness until the present day.

In the early 19th century, under the influence of the Enlightenment and Romanticism as well as the national revival of other Slavic peoples, the national consciousness of the Lusatian Sorbs also awoke. In 1845/47, the first scientific-cultural (all-Sorbian) society, the "Maćica Serbska", was founded; it took care of the spiritual concerns of the Sorbian people in many ways. In the following decades, a relatively broad press spectrum developed. Scientific and fiction publications appeared. In 1912, the Sorbian associations joined together in the umbrella organisation "Domowina" in order to counter the continuing political and economic pressure as well as Germanisation.

In the interwar period, the Sorbs strove to realise the national rights enshrined in the Weimar Constitution (Article 113). There was an upswing in literature, art, music and science. In 1937, Sorbian culture and language were practically completely banished from the public sphere by a ban imposed by the Nazi leadership. Thanks to the defeat of German fascism, the Sorbian people escaped the threat of physical extermination.

In 1948, the Saxon parliament passed the "Law for the Protection of the Rights of the Sorbian Population", which made new, stable structures in cultural life possible. Now the state began to support Sorbian schools as well as Sorbian and Sorabist cultural, educational and research institutions (e.g. theatre, national ensemble, publishing house, university and academy institute). Despite material support, assimilation continued during the GDR period. Parts of the Sorbian settlement area were devastated in the interest of extensive lignite mining, and restrictive regulations in the education system damaged the national substance. Works by writers, composers and painters were able to cross national borders in some cases, and cultural traditions were preserved and developed. Sorabian studies gained international recognition.

After the GDR's accession to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, a differentiated associational life developed among the Sorbs, and the political and cultural endeavours were united in the renewed umbrella organisation "Domowina". The Free State of Saxony and the State of Brandenburg granted the Sorbs political rights in their constitutions and other laws. In the decree of the "Foundation for the Sorbian People" (1991), which they established together with the federal government, they undertook to promote the Sorbian language, culture and science for the purpose of preserving Sorbian identity.

The Sorbian language

One peculiarity of Lusatia that is particularly interesting for foreigners is that a native "foreign language" is spoken here alongside German: Sorbian. Sorbian, for which the term Wendish has also been used since time immemorial, belongs to the family of Slavic languages. It is thus close to Czech, Polish and Slovak, with which it forms the group of West Slavic languages.

Sorbian is still spoken in parts of Upper and Lower Lusatia. A completely different situation existed in historical times. In the current states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, predominantly Slavic tribes once settled and Slavic dialects were spoken. Today's Sorbian is the only Slavic idiom in Germany that has survived to the present day.

There is no written evidence in Sorbian from the Middle Ages. However, we can get an approximate picture of Old Sorbian with the help of German. In large areas of eastern Germany, the present-day German names of numerous places are of Sorbian origin. As examples, two major Saxon cities: the name Leipzig is derived from the Sorbian word lipa "linden" and Chemnitz was formed from the Old Sorbian word for "stone", which in modern Sorbian is kamjeń.

The first written texts in Sorbian have come down to us from the time after 1500. The Lutheran Reformation demanded the spread of Christianity in the mother tongue of the faithful; this favoured the translation of the Bible and other texts needed in the Protestant church. A little later, a Sorbian-language literature of Catholic provenance also developed, which served the religious care of the non-Reformed Sorbian population.

While the first texts were written in a very different language, close to the respective dialects of the translators, written Sorbian took on a bindingly standardised form at the turn of the 18th century. At the same time, another linguistic peculiarity of Sorbian emerged, which is still valid today. There was not - as with the majority of other peoples in the early bourgeois period - a uniform written language, but two written forms: a) the Upper Sorbian written language in Upper Lusatia and b) the Lower Sorbian written language in Lower Lusatia. Even later, Sorbian did not grow into a unified written language, as it was never the state language and thus there was no compelling need for a common means of communication. The Lusatian Sorbs therefore speak and write in two languages to this day.

Contemporary Sorbian is not only structured in terms of the two written language forms of expression. Considerable dialectal differences have also been preserved. The "Sorbian Language Atlas", published in print from 1965 to 1996, shows the dialectal differentiation by means of numerous maps.

Sorbian is used today by about 40-60,000 people, both orally and in writing. It adapts to the requirements of modern communication by constantly expanding its vocabulary. Sorbian is currently used not only in everyday life, but also in a number of subjects in schools, in cultural institutions and organisations, in the church and in certain state and municipal announcements. The linguistic-sociological situation causes a constant development of both written languages. Nevertheless, the social conditions of existence of Sorbian are strongly limited in comparison to German and will remain so in the future.

Source: Sorbian Institute, "On the History of the Sorbs", May 2002, Internet: www.serbski-institut.de

History board

Source: Peter Kunze, "Short history of the sorbs", 2001