Sorbs
Sorbs are an indigenous West Slavic ethnic group predominantly inhabiting the parts of Lusatia located in the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg. Sorbs traditionally speak the Sorbian languages, which are closely related to Polish and Czech, Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian are officially recognized minority languages in Germany.
In the Early Middle Ages, the Sorbs formed their own principality, which later shortly became part of the early West Slavic Samo's Empire and Great Moravia, as were ultimately conquered by the East Francia and Holy Roman Empire. From the High Middle Ages, they were ruled at various times by the closely related Poles and Czechs, as well as the more distant Germans and Hungarians. Due to a gradual and increasing assimilation between the 17th and 20th centuries, virtually all Sorbs also spoke German by the early 20th century. In the newly created German nation state of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, policies were implemented in an effort to Germanize the Sorbs. These policies reached their climax under the Nazi regime, who denied the existence of the Sorbs as a distinct Slavic people by referring to them as "Sorbian-speaking Germans". The community is divided religiously between Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism. The former Minister President of Saxony Stanislaw Tillich is of Sorbian origin.
Etymology
The ethnonym "Sorbs" derives from the medieval ethnic groups called "Sorbs". The original ethnonym, Srbi, was retained by the Sorbs and Serbs in the Balkans. By the 6th century, Slavs occupied the area west of the Oder formerly inhabited by Germanic peoples. The Sorbs are first mentioned in the 6th or 7th century. In their languages, the other Slavs call them the "Lusatian Serbs", and the Sorbs call the Serbs "the south Sorbs". The name "Lusatia" was originally applied only to Lower Lusatia. It is generally considered that their ethnonym *Sŕbъ originates from Proto-Slavic with an appellative meaning of a "family kinship" and "alliance", however others argue a derivation from Iranian-Sarmatian.History
Early Middle Ages
The name of the Sorbs can be traced to the 6th century or earlier when Vibius Sequester recorded Cervetiis living on the other part of the river Elbe which divided them from the Suevi. According to Lubor Niederle, the Serbian district was located somewhere between Magdeburg and Lusatia, and was later mentioned by the Ottonians as Ciervisti, Zerbisti and Kirvisti. The information is in accordance with the Frankish 7th-century Chronicle of Fredegar according to which the Surbi lived in the Saale-Elbe valley, having settled in the Thuringian part of Francia since the second half of the 6th century or beginning of the 7th century and were vassals of the Merovingian dynasty.The Saale-Elbe line marked the approximate limit of Slavic westward migration. Under the leadership of dux Dervan, they joined the Slavic tribal union of Samo, after Samo's decisive victory against Frankish King Dagobert I in 631. Afterwards, these Slavic tribes continuously raided Thuringia. The fate of the tribes after Samo's death and dissolution of the union in 658 is undetermined, but it is considered that they subsequently returned to Frankish vassalage.
According to a 10th-century source De Administrando Imperio, they lived "since the beginning" in the region called by them as Boiki which was a neighbor to Francia, and when two brothers succeeded their father, one of them migrated with half of the people to the Balkans during the rule of Heraclius in the first half of the 7th century. According to some scholars, the unnamed 7th-century Serbian ruler who led the White Serbs to the Balkans was most likely a son, brother or other relative of Dervan.
Sorbian tribes, Sorbi/Surbi, are noted in the mid-9th-century work of the Bavarian Geographer. Having settled by the Elbe, Saale, Spree, and Neisse in the 6th and early 7th century, Sorbian tribes divided into two main groups, which have taken their names from the characteristics of the area where they had settled. The two groups were separated from each other by a wide and uninhabited forest range, one around Upper Spree and the rest between the Elbe and Saale. Some scholars consider that the contemporary Sorbs are descendants of the two largest Sorbian tribes, the Milceni and , and these tribes' respective dialects have developed into separate languages. However, others emphasize differences between these two dialects and that their respective territories correspond to two different Slavic archeological cultures of Leipzig group and Tornow group ceramics, both a derivation of Prague culture.
File:Raddusch 07-2017 img01.jpg|thumb|The reconstructed Lusatian gord of Raduš, near Vetschau, in Lower Lusatia
The Annales Regni Francorum state that in 806, Sorbian Duke Miliduch fought against the Franks and was killed. In 840, Sorbian Duke Czimislav was killed. From the 9th century the Sorbian March was organized by East Francia and from the 10th century the Holy Roman Empire established the Saxon Eastern March and the March of Lusatia. In 932, the German king Henry I conquered Lusatia and Milsko. Gero, Margrave of the Saxon Eastern March, reconquered Lusatia the following year and, in 939, murdered 30 Sorbian princes during a feast. As a result, there were many Sorbian uprisings against German rule. A reconstructed castle, at Raddusch in Lower Lusatia, is the sole physical remnant from this early period.
High and Late Middle Ages
In 1002, the Sorbs came under the rule of their Slavic relatives, the Poles, when Bolesław I of Poland took over Lusatia. Following the subsequent German–Polish War of 1003–1018, the Peace of Bautzen confirmed Lusatia as part of Poland; but, it returned to German rule in 1031. In the 1070s, southern Lusatia, passed into the hands of the Sorbs' other Slavic relatives, the Czechs, within their Duchy of Bohemia. There was a dense network of dynastic and diplomatic relations between German and Slavic feudal lords, e.g. Wiprecht of Groitzsch rose to power through close links with the Bohemian king and marriage to the king's daughter.The Kingdom of Bohemia eventually became a politically influential member of the Holy Roman Empire, but was in a constant power-struggle with neighbouring Poland. In the following centuries, at various times, parts of Lusatia passed to Piast-ruled fragmented Poland. In the German-ruled parts, Sorbs were ousted from guilds, the Sorbian language was banned and German colonisation and Germanisation policies were enacted.
From the 11th to the 15th century, agriculture in Lusatia developed and colonization by Frankish, Flemish and Saxon settlers intensified. This can still be seen today from the names of local villages which geographically form a patchwork of typical German and typical Slavic origin, indicating the language originally spoken by its inhabitants, although some of the present German names may be of later origin from the time of planned name changes to erase Slavic origin, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1327 the first prohibitions on using Sorbian before courts and in administrative affairs in the cities of Altenburg, Zwickau and Leipzig appeared. Speaking Sorbian in family and business contexts was, however, not banned, as it did not involve the functioning of the administration. Also the village communities and the village administration usually kept operating in Sorbian.
Early modern period
From 1376 to 1469 and from 1490 to 1635 Lusatia was part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown under the rule of the houses of Luxembourg, Jagiellon and Habsburg and other kings, whereas from 1469 to 1490 it was ruled by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. Under Bohemian rule, Sorbs were allowed to return to cities, offices and crafts, Germanisation significantly reduced and the Sorbian language could be used in public. From the beginning of the 16th century the whole Sorbian-inhabited area, with the exception of Bohemian-ruled Lusatia, underwent Germanization.During the Thirty Years' War, in 1635, Lusatia became a fiefdom of Saxon electors, but it retained a considerable autonomy and largely its own legal system. The Thirty Years' War and the plague of the 17th century caused terrible devastation in Lusatia. This led to further German colonization and Germanization.
In 1667 the Prince of Brandenburg, Frederick Wilhelm, ordered the immediate destruction of all Sorbian printed materials and banned saying masses in this language. At the same time, the Evangelical Church supported printing Sorbian religious literature, as a means of fighting the Counterreformation. With the formation of the Polish-Saxon union in 1697, Polish-Sorbian contacts resumed, and Poles influenced the Sorbs' national and cultural activities. With the Age of Enlightenment, the Sorbian national revival began and resistance to Germanization emerged. In 1706 the Sorbian Seminary, the main centre for the education of Sorbian Catholic priests, was founded in Prague. Sorbian preaching societies were founded by Evangelical students in Leipzig and Wittenberg in 1716 and 1749, respectively.
Late modern period
The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, divided Lusatia between Prussia and Saxony. More and more bans on the use of Sorbian languages appeared from then until 1835 in Prussia and Saxony; emigration of the Sorbs, mainly to the town of Serbin in Texas and to Australia, increased. In 1848, 5,000 Sorbs signed a petition to the Saxon Government, in which they demanded equality for the Sorbian language with the German one in churches, courts, schools and Government departments. From 1871, the whole of Lusatia became a part of united Germany and was divided between two parts; Prussia, and Saxony.In 1871, the industrialization of the region and German immigration began; official Germanization intensified. Persecution of the Sorbs under German rule became increasingly harsh throughout the 19th century. Slavs were labeled inferior to Germanic peoples, and in 1875, the use of Sorbian was banned in German schools. As a result, almost the entire Sorbian population was bilingual by the end of the 19th century.
File:Braugasse 1 HY.JPG|thumb|The place where Domowina was founded in Hoyerswerda in 1912
During World War I, one of the most venerated Serbian generals was Pavle Jurišić Šturm, a Sorb from Görlitz, Province of Silesia.