The Indigenous Slavs of Germany - Meet the Sorbians
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- Опубліковано 1 кві 2021
- These interviews show personal views of speakers of Sorbian on what life is like when the own native language is endangered. Sorbian is a west-slavic language and therefore shows structural similarities to Polish, Czech and Slovak.
Less than 30.000 speakers remain, living mostly in Upper Lusatia in Saxony, with Bautzen as the center of the Upper Sorbian Dialect. A fraction of Sorbian-speakers speaks the Lower Sorbian dialect, with its center in Cottbus in Brandenburg, making Lower Sorbian one of the most endangered languages of Europe.
A Sorbian state was never established, though pan-slavic movements during the cold war proposed such a state, or perhaps an integration into the Czech Republic. Instead, Sorbian history was always tied to the history of the Germans, whether as part of the Holy-Roman Empire, the German Empire or East Germany.
A decisive decline in Sorbian speakers occurred due to the protestant reformation. While most of Saxony, subsequently most of the Sorbians, converted to Protestantism, only a small area in western Lusatia, remained catholic. Martin Luther himself hated the Sorbian culture, and the protestant church served as a space for Germanization, while the catholic church served as a space for language conservation.
The triangle of Kamjenc - Kamenz, Bautzen - Budyšin and Wittichenau - Kulow, remains the area in which most Sorbian can be found up to this day. I found churches in this area to feature monolingual Sorbian signage at times too.
The main decline however started with industrialization and the unification of Germany. 250 years ago, the language was still widely spoken, yet centralization of not only the economy, but the formation of a nation state under the ideals of a unified people, enforced Germanization even further. This shows how the construct of a national language follows political borders, not the reality of speakers.
Greetings to my cousins the Sorbs from the Serbs
Serb brothers.
Ignac and his wife delighted me, his self-awareness and determination, his Slavicness, which he inherits from so many generations of Sorbian Slavs! ... I am amazed that you managed to preserve your individuality despite so many centuries of Germanization. As a Pole, I did not expect to see it on German soil. I wish you perseverance and that your language, tradition and religion will survive!
They need to start counting the population of Texas and Australian Sorbs/Wends when they say only 60,000 identify as Sorbian.
There was no migration of Slavic (Serbs) in 6th century. If there was Slavic migration then there was also German migrations at the same time. This is German explanation for taking over Slavic (in this case Serbian land). Slavic nations were there in the same time as others, as there are documents of Roman army enlisting Rascians Serbs recruits from today Serbia and former Yugoslavia by their names. We (southern Serbs) also are taught in our schools about Slavic migrations, but where German and other west Europe nations migrated? According to their explanation they lived there before Slavic people which is lie. Everything east of Elbe river was Se(o)rbian kingdom under the king Samo and Dervan. The first guy is following policy of occupation and accepted story that Serbs in Lusatia are newcomers which is lie. In our southern Serbia state we still learn the same lies, because our first linguist and historians after liberation from Turkish occupation (and some before from west and north Serbia that were under AustroHungarian rule), all finished their studies in Vienna or under German school of thought so they spread and teach these lies to our people.
Support aus Serbien 🇷🇸😉💪🏼
Some serbian users here are wrong, because sorbians are an own cultural folk who is linguistically related to czech and slovak people, as well polish and kashubian's.
Wow 🤩 I never know that
I enjoyed hearing ignac and his wife. Similar to the wife, my grandmother came from lower lusatia (Spreewald), where she would wear the traditional costume growing up, but never spoke any sorbian. Lower lusatia in Brandenburg unfortunately, has been ethnically cleansed more aggressively than in saxony. It’s crazy to me that most people in Germany don’t even know that the sorbs exist!!
In 6th century Germans came, not Sorbs. You just said that they never established the state, even if we count the years, Serbian state were far longer existed in Germany, than Germany itself. Ridiculous
Thank you for this video!
Nice Doku, ich schau mit die gleich nochmal an!
Hi! I‘m from Bórkowy near Chóśebuz! Thank you for bringing attention to us Sorbs!
Amazing video! Thank you!
I'm sad that my own sorbian cultural heritage is lost on me, because my sorbian great-grandparents did not teach the language to their children after the persecution. My grandmother grew up in the Spreewald with the traditional clothing and some of the ritual practices and folklore, but after the family relocated and scattered, most of the already repressed culture was lost. Only splinters remain. Having been moved to the Northwest of Germany ever since I first went to school, I have always felt somewhat estranged and lost. It's a strangely lost piece of my identity; I don't know if it can ever be recovered. If I traveled East to learn about the traditions, I would feel like a tourist. I'm not sure how to compensate for that.
thank you for these interviews!
18:18
Hey guys, love from Serbia. Don't mind my countrymen with "alternative history" in the comments. They're getting so bad that even our church had to make a proclamation about their stupidity.
Excellent work! I would also research whether there are still certain differences in mentality between Germans and Sorbians.
Sorbi Serbi 🙏🏿❤️🇷🇸