Should Lusatia be an independent country? The forum poll

[Domen]

This poll is inspired by "Should Catalonia be an independent country? Poll" thread.

Should Lusatia - created from parts of territories of Germany (parts of Saxony & Brandenburg) and Poland - be an independent country?

Areas where Sorbs lived / live:

Proposed borders of their state - located between Germany, Poland and Czech Republic:

Sorbian anthem:


Link to video.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

No, they're fine being absorbed as it is currently.

 

[Domen]

They are currently being persecuted according to some sources:

For example according to this website:

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/europe/sorbs-fight-for-survival-and-protest

"(...) Open-cast mining for brown coal - a cheap but highly polluting source of power - has forced 30,000 people and 136 Lusatian villages to move since 1924. The energy group Vattenfall has recently submitted plans to extend its open-cast mining in five areas, which would mean bulldozing another eight villages and relocating 3,700 people. "The situation is dramatic. There's a real danger that no Sorb will be spoken anymore in the Lower Lusatia region in 20 years if this goes on," said Rene Schuster, a Sorb environmental campaigner. (...)"

And according to Robert Brytan, Sorbian activist and member of Domowina:

"(...) In Germany there are four officially recognized national minorities - Sorbs, Danish people, Frisians and Romani people. National minority rights in Germany are incorporated only in federal states, that is in lands. This is for example like if in Poland a certain national minority had been recognized and protected only in a particular voivodeship, and not in the entire country. So this is the main difference, that in Germany in federal constitution rights of national minorities are not protected. (...)"

"(...) What kinds of problems are bothering Sorbs nowadays? We have so called four points - education, financing, devastation of Sorbian villages by coal mines and discrimination. When it comes to education - education is one of the most important things for all nations, for all cultural or national societies, because through education language and culture are being shaped. Our Sorbian schools in Germany do not have the status of minority schools. So these schools are treated in the same way as normal German schools and subjected to the same standards - if for example there are not enough students in a particular class, such a Sorbian school is being shut down. For example the school in Chróścice (near Budyšin / Bautzen), where Ministry of Education did not take into consideration that this school was playing an important role for a national minority. Simply a German standard was applied and the school was liquidated due to not enough students in one year / age-group. And this is how they got rid of one of very few minority schools, which was playing a role of educational centre, national centre for a national minority, language of which is threatened with extinction. (...)"

"(...) When it comes to every-day situations, discrimination of Sorbian language, then I must say that we can often hear when walking along the streets various unpleasant comments. Most of Germans are not able to distinguish between Sorbian language and Polish or Czech languages, despite the fact that they have been living with us in the same territory already for 1000 years. These people were born here, were raised here and they still cannot distinguish these languages, they are confusing us with Poles or Czechs and we can simply hear nasty comments, for example that we are "parasites", or that we are some kind of "mafia", or even we are being called - using a very derogatory term in German language - "Polacken". (...)".

And here a destroyed Sorbian village of Wochozy (Nochten) - photos from this website below:

http://www.prolusatia.pl/index.php?...z-vancouver-z-kanady&catid=2:wszelkie-artykuy

The problem is that Sorbian minority population is artificially divided between two Lands - Saxony and Brandenburg.

If not independent, then at least they should be allowed to live in one Land - in such case they will have more influence on their own matters.

There should be a separate Land Lausitz (Lusatia) created between Saxony and Brandenburg. Perhaps it should have autonomy.

Sorbian women protesting for Sorbian rights in Berlin:

 

[madviking]

no .

 

[Kyriakos]

I vote yes. But i suppose it will happen too after the next ww. Germany always gets partitioned after one

 

[Domen]

And something more about attempts to establish such a state in the past:

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/de_sorbs.html

According to source a flag of the Sorbs was first mentioned in the second half of 19th century. At the same time the anthem (Sorb: Rjana Luzica; German: Schöne Lausitz; English: Beautiful Lusatia) had been composed. As German pressure increased at the beginning of the 20th century, the Sorbs tried to gain rights of autonomy within the German Empire. After the end of WW1 there had been made attempts to establish an own Sorbic state. On 1 November 1918 a national committee of the Sorbs was established (German: Wendischer Nationalausschuss), led by Arnošt Bart with the goal of generating autonomous structures for the Sorb people in Germany. As these attempts had been ignored consequently by German government, the position of Sorbs became more radical. Finally at the beginning of 1919 the national committee first suggested either 1) to incorporate the sorb's region into the newly established Czecho-Slovakian Republic or 2) to establish an independent Sorbo-Lusatian Republic. Therefore Bart and his companion Jan Bryl travelled to the negotiations held in Versailles. Though there were many sympathies for the Sorb people, the idea of an own independent republic was not favoured by the winners and the Sorbo-Lusatian Republic never came to existence. The powers were afraid that tensions might increase and destabilize the whole region by establishing an independent state of Sorbs.

After the German defeat in World War II, again national alternatives were considered by Sorb's representatives, such as being incorporation into the CSR as an autonomous region, foundation of their own state including membership in the UNO. PECH, however, clearly said, that the Sorb's never had been really independent and often were only puppets of Slavistic movements in Eastern Europe. And, as in 1946, the Soviet Union had refused every attempts to separate Lusatia from Germany, Lusatia also after World War II remained part of Germany.

 

[Evie]

What do the locals (majority thereof) want?

That's really the chief factor here.

 

[Domen]

I can't speak for them of course. But it seems, that they don't want independence anymore nowadays. But they want autonomy and I'm sure that they would be happy to have a separate Land Lausitz (Lusatia), rather than being divided by political borders of Lands Saxony and Brandenburg.

This is why I voted for 2nd option in the poll.

I've read that when Germany was reunited in 1990, Sorbs asked the federal government to create the Land of Lausitz, but it refused.

I don't know why they did not agree. After all, it is a historical region and deserves to be a distinct Land:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_Germany

Nowadays, it is artificially divided between Lands of Saxony and Brandenburg:

Small territory is not a good argument against creating Land Lausitz - Saarland is even smaller but it is a distinct land.

.

 

[Borachio]

Yes, why not?

If the majority in the place want independence, don't they have an inalienable right to it?

Though it should be a sensible suggestion. I mean if there's a substantial minority who aren't Sorbian and fear for their rights, there's no excuse for their rights to be trampled on.

So, in the end, if the Sorbians don't feel oppressed by the national government of Germany, and there's no reason to suppose they are being oppressed (is there?), then why do they want, or feel the need for, independence?

 

[Domen]

and there's no reason to suppose they are being oppressed (is there?),

See above. Maybe not oppressed, but it seems that the national government doesn't care at best.

 

[Samez]

I am not sure if it would be worth all the trouble.
There are about 40.000-50.000 Sorbs in all of Germany today and I am quite sure only a minority would want their own state. Due to the demographic change and the rural depopulation esp in eastern Germany there won't be much use of a new state (even as part of Germany) now. It would have been reasonable to give them their own Bundesland after the reunification but now it'S simply too late.

 

[Domen]

There are about 40.000-50.000 Sorbs in all of Germany today

I have seen high estimates placing their number at 200,000 as well.

Nobody knows how many people identify with being Sorbs (there are people who don't speak Sorbian but are aware of their Sorbian ancestry).

I've read that nowadays "Sorbiannes" and Sorbian culture and customs are becoming trendy again.

Are there any official census data from last years?

================================

Here is a PDF book about Lusatian Sorbs and Scotland's Gaels and their identities:

https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/6353/1/Gebel-Language_and_ethnic_national_identity.pdf

Author writes about such groups like "Converted Sorbs and Part-Time Sorbs".

Author writes, that many Sorbs who no longer speak language of their ancestors, still identify with being Sorbs:

Ethnic identity has been claimed to be our most general social identity. Gaels and Sorbs have never asserted themselves on the grounds of linguistic otherness alone but with reference to concepts such as cultural heritage and historic outlook, assisted to different degrees by the 'findings' of ethnographers, historians and state legislators.

And here the number of actual speakers of Sorbian language according to this book (PDF page 87 of 350):

Please note the dramatic changes (at first huge decrease, then huge increase) of Sorbian speakers in period 1945 - 1946 - 1955:

But the peak number of Sorbian speakers was by the end of the 18th century - about 250,000:

According to Madlena Norberg, numbers rose from around 160 000 in the middle of the 15th / early 16th century to about 250 000 in the late 18th century (Norberg 1996, op cit, p. 16). Throughout that period, the attitude of German feudal rulers towards their Sorbian subjects was relatively tolerant, especially as far as the Sorbian heartland (Lusatia) was concerned - Marti 1990, op cit, p. 41.

And here about discrimination / Germanization policies against Sorbs in East Germany (PDF pages 96 - 97 of 350):

(...) Arguably the most drastic violation of the right of the Sorbs to maintain their language and culture was the elimination of traditional Sorbian settlement structures. Under GDR legislation, coal extraction in the bilingual region was allowed to devastate as many as 144 villages, which involved the resettlement of 22 276 individuals. Open cast mining in central Lusatia severed the Sorbian dialect continuum, and the influx of workers from all over eastern Germany into the area led to increased intermarriage and emigration. Those who had been uprooted tended to change their linguistic behaviour in favour of German. It is revealing that even in this respect the Domowina felt unable to stage an effective protest against the government's decisions. Isolated voices of opposition were branded nationalist, pessimist and revisionist. It was only in the mid-1980s that the Domowina felt in a position to loosen itself from the ideological grip of the SED and initiate a change of direction. It decided to move its focus back onto the Sorbian language, culture and national consciousness, and officially resumed contacts with the Protestant and Catholic churches. In 1988, the leader of the Domowina, Jurij Gros, provided the SED with a critical analysis of what their policies had actually achieved on the ground, including ignorance and hostility on the part of the German population and falling levels of Sorbian language skilis. At the same time, Sorbian intellectuals (especially Jurij Koch) succeeded in attracting public attention to the irreversible, devastating effect on the Sorbian people of open cast coal mining.

Sorbs in East Germany were being discouraged from their culture by anti-Sorbian incidents and attitudes of local Germans:

Page 88 of 350 of the PDF book:

Many parents renounced their Sorbian background for fear that Sorbian-medium schooling would prevent their children from acquiring enough skills in German. Others were simply alienated from their culture and intimidated by anti-Sorbian incidents. In Lower Lusatia additional conflicts resulted from the fact that shortages of local staff had been addressed by the recruitment of enthusiastic teachers from Upper Lusatia. These were perceived as too different and criticised for insufficient proficiency in the local language. Mixed responses to Sorbian education in various parts of Lusatia were grist to the mill of those who had long been in favour of laxer legislation. In the 1960s, the natural sciences, 'polytechnical' instruction and civic studies were excluded from Sorbian-medium education and the registration of children for Sorbian classes was made dependent on spontaneous requests by parents. The latter led to the expected fall in numbers of children taking Sorbian: from 12800 in 1962 to only 3200 in 1964 (which included a fairly stable share of ca. 1500 children at Sorbian-medium schools). In response to protests, subsequent legislation72 permitted schools and Domowina representatives to explain more effectively the aims and benefits of Sorbian classes and to expand extracurricular activities such as language competitions, festivals of Sorbian culture and Sorbian holiday camps. Thanks to such measures the numbers of children learning Sorbian stabilised between five and six thousand by the mid 1970s. Another positive circumstance was the fact that Sorbian schools tended to be backed up by a network of Sorbian or bilingually staffed kindergartens and, since the early 1980s, creches.

 

[Domen]

More about hostile attitudes of Germans towards their neighbours - Sorbs:

Pages 99 - 100 of the PDF book linked above:

Pressure to defer to a party that aimed at the elimination of ethnic boundaries put Sorbian organisations into an extraordinarily difficult situation. In the late 1980s, two thirds of the Domowina's office holders were members of the SED. Predictably, there was a widespread perception even amongst the German population that willingness to co-operate separated Sorbian representatives and supporting activists from the 'true Sorbs' (echte or richtige Sorben) and 'Wends', but according to Ludwig Elle, all Sorbian associations including the Domowina have since been `absolved' of the charge that their interests might have been any other than national ones.

The half-hearted or, indeed, devious nature of the GDR's Sorbenpoiitik has been captured in the claim that the Sorbs have been 'promoted to death' (zu Tode gefördert) and the metaphor of a 'gradual burial' (langsames Zu-Grabe-Tragen). Even so, Sorbs encountered envy and resentment amongst the German population, who stigmatised them as a pampered and politically coopted community. The corpus of primary data collected for this project includes references to hostile comments and taunts in response to using Sorbian in the presence of non-speakers or to wearing the traditional dress.

 

[warpus]

I'd say give them a bit more autonomy, but 50,000 people just aren't enough for a new country. And what would you do with the non-Sorbs who live there?

 

[Perfection]

Nations are obsolete institutions that should be abolished

 

[Domen]

Warpus, where did you take your number 50,000 ???

And what would you do with the non-Sorbs who live there?

Nothing - they can stay there, enjoying Sorbian culture around them.

 

[Borachio]

Then why can't the Sorbs stay where they are, and enjoy German culture around them?

Your logic is baffling me.

 

[warpus]

From this thread. Wikipedia estimates the number of Sorbs living in Germany at 60,000

 

[Domen]

They can stay. I even voted for this (option 2). But they should have a separate Bundesland of Lausitz (Lusatia).

Currently, they are divided between Saxony and Bavaria, which means that they are just small minority groups in both lands.

In a distinct Bundesland of Lusatia, Sorbs would have more influence on their own matters and better capabilities for self-governance.

Wikipedia estimates the number of Sorbs living in Germany at 60,000

And how do you know that this estimation is credible?

I have seen other estimations putting their number at as high as 200,000.

We simply don't know. There would need to be some census or plebiscite carried out there.

Then why can't the Sorbs stay where they are

Because polluting open-cast coal mines are destroying their towns and forcing them to move to new places against their will.

Maybe if Sorbians could actually self-govern their own territory, they would be able to stop this overexploitation.

========================================

Let's add that historically March of Lusatia was a separate country and - for a long time - part of the Crown of Bohemia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Lusatia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Margraves_of_Lusatia

When being part of the Crown of Bohemia, it was also considered a separate state:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lands_of_the_Bohemian_Crown

 

[warpus]

And how do you know that this estimation is credible?

I have seen other estimations putting their number at as high as 200,000.

I don't, but it's a usually a decent neutral source. I have no idea where the 200,000 estimate is coming from, so for now I have to assume that wikipedia is the more accurate source.

Maybe if Sorbians could actually self-govern their own territory, they would be able to stop this overexploitation.

I think the problem is that that part of Germany probably has more ethnic Germans living there than Sorbs. And if not, ethnic Germans make up a very sizeable chunk of people who live there. Their needs need to be kept in mind as well.

The Sorbian number so low, and relocating people being out of the question, I'm not so sure if anything can be done at this point.

Do Sorbian politicans get elected into positions of power?