Lusatian Serbs are the smallest ethnic group of the currently existing, which includes the Slavic group of peoples. And at the same time, he is a direct descendant of one of the most ancient peoples of Europe - the Polabian Slavs, along with the Serbs, Croats and other Slavs who inhabit the Balkans today. But the common origin of the Serbs and their Lusatian counterparts can only be determined with the help of DNA analysis. Why are these fraternal peoples so different today? And why are the Lusatian Serbs, whose photos do not indicate a strong separation from the German environment, so concerned about their national identity? This will be discussed in this article.
Polabian Slavs - the oldest Slavic ethnic group
Polabsky Slavs had their own state, which was founded by a union of tribes: Lutiches, Bodrichs and Serbs. Tribal unions are a typical way of organizing power among the pagan Slavs, directly related to the religious cults they celebrate. For objective reasons, such an organization of power could not resist the more progressive Christian states formed on the territory of Europe. The baptized European nobility did not want to have a militant pagan neighbor. An ancient historian wrote about the militant nature of the SlavsTacitus, who described these peoples precisely on the example of the Polabian Union of Tribes.
Charlemagne was the first to encroach on the Slavic lands of Polabya. But the locals managed to repulse the attack of the great commander of the early Middle Ages and hold out until the 9th century, when the state of the union of tribes collapsed under the onslaught of the army of one of the leaders of the Holy Roman Empire - Henry I, who, for religious reasons, did not want to have not only pagans in the neighborhood, but also an ethnic group that was part of the Slavic union of tribes, since it rejected Christianity in its person. Starting with Henry I, all subsequent German rulers set as their goal the total Germanization of the Polabian Slavs. And we must give them their due, they did it well, because the Lutichi and Bodrichi were Germanized under Henry I, and only the Serbs retained their authenticity.
Early feudal state Polabian Serbia
In the 7th century, the century-old state quest of the Polabian Slavs, one of the tribes that make up the union, culminated in the creation of the state of Polabian Serbia, which is located in the southern expanses of East Germany. During this period, part of the Serbs moved to the Balkans in order to help the ruler of Byzantium, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in the war against the Avar Khaganate, which at that time posed a real threat not only to Byzantium, but to the whole of Europe. The Serbs, together with the Czechs, raided the Avar fortifications and under the command of the Frankish king Charles. Subsequently, the resettled Serbian people founded the state in the Balkans, known today asSerbia.
In the 10th century, the militant Saxon king Henry the Fowler put an end to the existence of Polabian Serbia, seizing its lands and annexing them to the Saxon state. As a result, this nation, the Serbs, is divided.
State of Obodrite Bodrich
In the 11th century, thanks to a successful uprising, the Germans were expelled from the Polabian lands, and the Serbian state was restored, called the Principality of Obodrites-Bodriches. This state was also inhabited by Lusatian Serbs, whose country was an early feudal power with a confident vertical of princely power. Under the rule of Prince Holstak, the Principality managed to unite all the Polabian lands, including modern Mecklenburg, Schleswick-Holstein and the city of Ljubica, Lübeck in German.
Golshtak for the Polabsky Serbs was like Prince Vladimir for the Russians. He was well aware that the claims of the German states to the Polabian lands have a religious background, and therefore his state is destined to exist until the next crusade, unless the Serbs, whose religion is traditional pagan cults, accept Christianity. Golshtak turned to the Czechs who had already been baptized at that time and agreed on the baptism of the Polabsky lands. The prince zealously planted Catholicism among his subjects and was very successful in this. It should be noted that the Polabian Serbs did not have much resistance to Christianization, as, for example, in Norway or Ireland. This is due to the fact that the main religious center of the Polabian paganism is the temple of the supreme god Svetovid, located on the islands inB altic Sea, - was destroyed long before the formation of the Principality of Obodrites-Bodriches by the Danes. Therefore, everything that connected the Serbs with their pagan past were rituals and traditions repeated from generation to generation, without realizing their essence and nature.
Formation of the ethnic group of Lusatian Serbs
Having their own state, Lusatian Serbs (where most of their compatriots live) called each other Serbs or Sorbs. The Germans called them Wends. In the 13th century, despite Christianization, the state of the Obodrite-Bodrichi was defeated by the Franco-German crusaders, and the Polabian lands were divided into margraviates, which were settled by German peasants, knights and clergy. This behavior of the German crusaders is explained by the fact that the capture of Jerusalem, as the goal of the crusades, was important only for the Pope and his inner circle. The leaders of the crusaders themselves, who were not of Italian origin, wished, under the sign of the cross, to expand their possessions. And the knights themselves simply wanted to steal a fortune from other, less militarily strong states.
After the liquidation of the Principality of the Obodrite-Bodrichians, the Lusatian Serbs finally settled in Lusatia, which gave the name to this ethnic group. The Lusatian Serbs, from an ethnographic point of view, include Serbs who remained in central Europe after the Balkan resettlement, living in lands located in present-day northern Bavaria and southern Saxony.
In 1076, under a peace treaty with Bohemia, Henry IV granted her territory,inhabited by Lusatian Serbs, where also Saxon knights live with their peasants. The stay of the Lusatians under Czech rule predetermined the further vector of their development along a different path than that of the Balkan Serbs. The Czechs, like the Lusatians, are a Slavic people who, in fact, did not claim the Lusatian lands, but received them as a gift for peace with the German states. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Lusatians accepted the accession to the Czech Republic as a blessing, and therefore an active cultural exchange began between the two peoples. The Czechs baptized Lusatians in Catholicism, the Lusatians adopted from the Czechs many elements of the national costume and traditional cuisine, in particular meatball soup with boiled eggs. The influence of the Czechs also touched the language. Therefore, the current Lusatian language belongs to the West Slavic group. At the same time, the original language of the Polabian Serbs, Slavo-Serbian, belongs to the current South Slavic language group.
The influence of the Habsburgs and a new wave of Germanization
Relations between the Czech Republic and Germany changed radically after the Habsburg dynasty came to power, which contributed to the settlement of the Czech territories inhabited by Lusatian Serbs (where Germans also live), by the German nobility. The Germans willingly moved to new lands, because they were given wide preferences there.
This policy of the Czech Republic again revived the Germanization of the Lusatians, who found it increasingly difficult to maintain their identity. In order to take a more advantageous place in society, the Polabian Serbs had to leave their community and completely merge withthe main German population.
Puddle in German lands
In the 17th century, Lusatia was ceded to Saxony. The monarchs of this state were ardent adherents of absolutism, comparing themselves with the great monarchs and autocrats of Europe. Even after the completion of the English and French bourgeois revolutions, the German states, and Saxony in particular, remained true to the classical traditions of royalism.
The situation did not change even after the formation of the German Empire in 1871. The German lands were united under the auspices of the common origin and authenticity of the great German nation in all German lands. Of course, the Slavic group of peoples did not fit into this concept, which by its very existence reminded that the Germans were not an authentic nation in their eastern lands.
Puddle in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic
After the reunification of Germany, the culture of the Lusatian Serbs was in decline. In Luzhica, it was forbidden to teach in their native language, use their own writing in official documents, on city signs and in public places. Lusatian folk holidays were considered working days. Polabian Serbs were subjected to labor discrimination. The average Lusatian could get a job only if he spoke German with a Saxon or Bavarian accent. Most of the local Serbs, whose native language was Lusatian, spoke German with an accent that was unusual for the average German to hear. Therefore, a Luzhanian could be denied employment only because of unsatisfactoryemployer of speech.
The defeat in the First World War and the proclamation of the Weimar Republic based on democratic principles, oddly enough, did not improve the situation in which the Lusatian Serbs were. Photos of the people who inhabited Lusatia at that time clearly demonstrate the consequences of centuries-old Germanization. Public figures of the Lusatian Serbs repeatedly petitioned the League of Nations to grant their people the status of a national minority within the German state, but such petitions were not satisfied. Apparently, the international community did not want to further infringe on the national identity of the Germans, which was already humiliated by the imposed reparations, the payment of which fell on the shoulders of ordinary citizens. However, it was still not possible to avoid another explosion of chauvinistic sentiments in Germany, and the non-recognition of the Lusatians as a national minority at that time, perhaps, even played into the hands of this ethnic group.
Lusatian under Nazi rule
Lusatian Serbs are the only Slavic people who managed to avoid ethnic cleansing during the existence of the Third Reich. Apparently, this was facilitated by the obsession of the German Nazis with the theory of great ancient civilizations and the occult role of the German nation in the modern world. The Nazis considered the German people a direct descendant of the great Aryans - the people who inhabited the German lands in antiquity. Digging into the depths of German history, Nazi scientists could not hide or bypass the existence of a tribal union. Polabian Slavs, so the propaganda machine of Goebels recognized the peoples who lived in the Middle Ages east of the Elbe as Germans. This number also includes territories that have been inhabited for centuries by the Lusatian Serbs, where Czechs also live, who, according to the Nazis, were not subject to Germanization, unlike the authentic inhabitants of the Czech lands.
According to Hitler, Lusatians were Germans who spoke Vendian, that is, the Lusatian language. For this reason, the Polabian Slavs, who did not openly oppose the power of the National Socialists, enjoyed equal rights with the Germans. Moreover, the Lusatian Serbs, the photo confirms this, could even put on their national clothes. But these indulgences were still regarded as vestiges. Therefore, by and large, during the existence of the Reich, the Lusatians lost the right to national self-identification under fear of being assigned to resistance movements, and did not raise their children in the national spirit.
Lusatian Serbs after World War II
After the Red Army entered the Lusatia, the Soviet leadership recognized the fraternal Slavic people in the Lusatian Serbs and in every possible way contributed to their national self-determination. At the same time, despite numerous petitions, the Polabian Serbs were not granted autonomy within the GDR, but were defined as a people that is a national minority living in East Germany. In his writings, Lev Gumilyov called the Lusatian Serbs a relic Slavic people.
Lusatian Serbs today
After mergingGermany in 1989, the issue of creating a separate Lusatian-Serbian land within the FRG again became relevant. An active position in support of the Central European Slavs was expressed by the President of the USSR Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev. But the government of the new Germany did not want to provide the Lusatian Serbs with such a wide autonomy, apparently fearing its further falling under the Soviet military-political vector. Nevertheless, the Polabian Slavs gained the right to teach their children in their native language, to use Sorbian as the official language in their lands, to publicly celebrate their national holidays, and to express their national identity in other ways.
But modern Lusatian Serbs, whose religion is no longer the same, self-identify themselves in different ways. A long stay under Czech influence during the Hussite wars left its mark on the history of this ethnic group. Today, the territory of the Lusatian Serbs is divided into Lower and Upper Lusatia. The Serbs in each of these territories have their own peculiarities of language and traditions, and most importantly, Upper Lusatia is predominantly Catholic, while Lower is completely Protestant.
At the same time, the population of both territories identifies each other as Polabian Slavs - an outstanding ethnic group that is part of the Slavic group of peoples. And every Lusatian says that his nationality is Serb.
