Lusatia

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 (voivodship of Lower Silesia and the northern Czech Republic.

The name derives from a Sorbian language word meaning "swamps/water-hole".

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. The region is also called "Die Wunderschöne Oberlausitz" ("the fair and beautiful Oberlausitz") by its inhabitants.

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". This region has been severely damaged during the Communist era by the open-pit lignite mining industry, with many small and large villages destroyed. The 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).

Lusatian capitals

Lusatia is not an administrative unit. The city of Cottbus (Chośebuz, Chociebuż) is the largest of the region. Historically, Luckau (Łuków) was Lower Lusatia's capital. Bautzen (Budyšin) is the historical capital of Upper Lusatia.

Sorbian-Lusatian people

Several dozens of thousands of the Sorbian Slavic minority continue to live in the region. 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.

History

According to the earliest records, the area was settled by Celtic tribes. Later, around 100 BC, a Germanic tribe called the Semnones settled in that area. Around the year 600 CE the Slavic people known as the Sorbs settled permanently in the region. In about 928, Germans began reentering the region and the next 1000 years saw an increasing intermingling of Germans with the earlier Slavic inhabitants. 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, and it remained under Bohemian rule until the Thirty Years' War. Though much of the countryside remained largely Slavic, German influence gradually came to dominate, especially in the towns. Following the Lutheran Reformation, Lusatia became Protestant.

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 their land was divided between several Prussian provinces.

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.

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 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.

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 that Lusatia be attached to Czechoslovakia. In 1950 the Lusatians 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 Lusatian population kept up a considerable degree of local, 'Lusatian' patriotism of its own. An attempt to establish a 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, but a small Görlitz-based initiative continues to demand a Lusatian Free State.

Demographics according to the 1900 census

Share of Polabian Slavs:

Cottbus (Provinz Brandenburg) 55,8 %
Hoyerswerda (Provinz Schlesien) 37,8 %
Bautzen (Königreich Sachsen) 17,7 %
Rothenburg i. d. Oberlausitz (Provinz Schlesien) 17,2 %
Kamenz (Königreich Sachsen) 7,1 %

Total number: 93,032

The number of Polabian Slavs in Lusatia has substantially decreased since then, due to intermarriage, cultural assimilation and Nazi suppression and discrimination.

External links

Brandenburg | Polish historical regions | Saxony | Sorbs

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