Luzhitsky Serbs are the smallest ethnic group of the existing ones, 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 Slavic 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 using 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 care about their national identity? This will be discussed in this article.
Slav Slavs - the oldest Slavic ethnic group
The Slavic Slavs had their own state, which founded a union of tribes: Lutichs, Bodrichs and Serbs. Unions of tribes - a typical way of organizing power among the Slavic pagans, directly related to the manageable religious cults. 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. The ancient historian Tacitus wrote about the militant disposition of the Slavs, who described these peoples precisely on the example of the Polaba Union of Tribes.
The first to encroach on the Slavic lands of Labe was still Charlemagne. 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 tribal union 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, but also ethnos, which was part of the Slavic union of tribes, because he rejected Christianity in his person. Starting with Henry I, all subsequent German rulers set the goal of total Germanization of the Slavic Slavs. And we must give them their due, it turned out well for them, because the Lutichs and Bodrichs were Germanized even under Henry I, and only the Serbs retained their authenticity.
Early feudal state of Lababa Serbia
In the 7th century, the centennial state searches of the Slavic Slavs, one of the tribes that make up the union, resulted in the creation of the state of Slavic 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 Konstantin Bagryanorodny in the war against the Avar Haganate, at that time representing a real threat not only to Byzantium, but to all 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 known today as Serbia in the Balkans.
In the 10th century, the militant Saxon king Heinrich Ptitselov put an end to the existence of Polab Serbia, capturing its lands and annexing them to the Saxon state. As a result, this nation, the Serbs, divided.
State of encouraging bodriches
In the 11th century, thanks to a successful uprising, the Germans were expelled from the Labean lands, and the Serbian state, called the Principality of encouraged bodriches, was restored. This state was also inhabited by Luga Serbs, whose country was an early feudal power with a confident vertical of princely power. During the reign of Prince Golshtak, the principality managed to unite all the lands of Polaba, including modern Mecklenburg, Schleswick-Holstein and the city of Lubitz, in German Lubeck.
Holstak for the Polab Serbs was like Prince Vladimir for the Russians. He perfectly understood that the claims of the German states to the Slav lands were religiously motivated, and therefore his power was destined to exist until the next crusade, unless the Serbs, whose religion was traditional pagan cults, did not accept Christianity. Holstak turned to the Czechs already baptized at that time and agreed on the baptism of the Polab lands. The prince zealously imposed Catholicism among his subjects and was very successful in this. It should be noted that the Labab 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 Slavic paganism - the temple of the supreme god Svetovid, located on the islands in the Baltic Sea - was destroyed long before the formation of the principality of encouraged bodricans by the Danes. Therefore, everything that connected the Serbs with their pagan past was rituals and traditions, repeated from generation to generation, without awareness of their essence and nature.
The formation of the ethnic group of the Lusatian Serbs
Having their own state, Luga Serbs (where most of their compatriots live) called each other Serbs or Sorbians. The Germans called them Wends. In the 13th century, despite Christianization, the state of encouraging bodriches was defeated by the Franco-German crusaders, and the Polaba lands were divided into Margraves, which were inhabited by knights and clergy by German peasants. 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 very leaders of the crusaders, not of Italian origin, wanted, under the guise of a sign of the cross, to expand their possessions. And the knights themselves simply wanted to plunder the fortune of other, less militarily strong states.
After the liquidation of the principality of encouraging bodriches, the Lusatian Serbs finally settled in Luzhitsa, which gave the name to this ethnic group. From the ethnographic point of view, Luga’s Serbs include Serbs who remained in central Europe after the Balkan resettlement, living on lands located in present-day northern Bavaria and southern Saxony.
In 1076, under a peace treaty with the Czech Republic, Henry IV granted her the territory inhabited by the Lusatian Serbs, where Saxon knights and their peasants also live. The stay of the puddles under Czech rule determined the further vector of their development along a different path than that of the Balkan Serbs. The Czechs, like the Luzhic people, are Slavic people who, in fact, did not claim to Luzhitsky lands, but received them as a gift for peace with the German states. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Luzhchans accepted accession to the Czech Republic as a blessing, and therefore an active cultural exchange began between the two peoples . The Czechs baptized the Luzhchans in Catholicism, the Luzhchans 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 affected the language. Therefore, the current language of Luga belongs to the West Slavic group. At the same time, the original language of the Slab Serbs, Slavic-Serbian, belongs to the current South Slavic language group.
Habsburg influence 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 the Lusatian Serbs (where the Germans also live), the German nobility. The Germans willingly moved to new lands, because they were given wide preferences there.
This Czech policy again revived the Germanization of the puddles, which made it increasingly difficult to maintain their identity. In order to take a more advantageous place in society, the Slab Serbs had to leave their community and completely merge with the main German population.
A puddle in the German lands
In the 17th century, the Puddle moved 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 in particular Saxony, remained faithful to the classical traditions of royalism.
The situation did not change after the formation of the German Empire in 1871. The German lands were united under the auspices of a single origin and authenticity of the great German nation on 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.
A puddle in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic
After the unification of Germany, the culture of the Luga Serbs was in decline. In Luzhitsa, it was forbidden to study in one's native language, or to use one’s written language in official documents, on city signs and in public places. Luzhitsky national holidays were considered working days. Polab Serbs were subjected to labor discrimination. An average Luzhin could get a job only if he spoke purely German with a Saxon or Bavarian accent. Most of the local Serbs, whose mother tongue was Luzick, spoke German with an accent that was unusual for the average German. Therefore, the puddles could be denied employment only because of spoken language not satisfying the employer.
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 Luzhitsa in those days clearly demonstrate the consequences of centuries-old Germanization. Public figures of the Luga Serbs have repeatedly petitioned the League of Nations for granting their people the status of a national minority within the German state, but such petitions were not granted. Apparently, the international community did not want to further infringe on the national identity of the Germans, and already was humiliated by 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 Luzhdans by the national minority at that time, perhaps even played into the hands of this ethnic group.
Luzhichans under Nazi rule
Luzhitsky 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 obscurity of the German Nazis on the theory of the 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 German lands in antiquity. Digging deep into German history, Nazi scholars could not hide or ignore the existence of the union of the tribes of the Slavic Slavs, therefore the Goebels propaganda machine recognized the peoples living in the Middle Ages east of the Elbe as Germans. This number also includes territories that for centuries have been inhabited by Lusatian Serbs, where Czechs also live, who, according to the Nazis, were not subject to Germanization, in contrast to the authentic inhabitants of Czech lands.
According to Hitler, the Luzhchans were Germans who spoke Vendian, that is, the Luzhsky language. For this reason, the Slavic Slavs, who did not openly oppose the power of the National Socialists, enjoyed equal rights with the Germans. Moreover, the Luga Serbs, the photo confirms this, they could even wear their national clothes. But these concessions were still regarded as remnants. Therefore, by and large, for the time of the existence of the Reich, the Luzhichans lost the right to national self-identification under the risk of being counted as resistance movements, and did not raise their children in the national spirit.
Luzhitsky Serbs after the end of World War II
After entering the Red Army in Luzhitsa, the Soviet leadership recognized the fraternal Slavic people in the Lusatian Serbs and contributed in every way to their national self-determination. At the same time, despite numerous petitions, the Labab Serbs were not granted autonomy as part of the GDR, but were defined as a people who are a national minority living in East Germany. In his writings, Lev Gumilyov called the Lusatian Serbs a relic Slavic people.
Luzhitsky Serbs today
After the reunification of Germany in 1989, the question of creating a separate Luga-Serbian land as part of the Federal Republic of Germany again became relevant. An active position in support of the Central European Slavs was expressed by President of the USSR Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. But the government of the new Germany did not want to grant such wide autonomy to the Luga Serbs, apparently fearing that it would continue to fall under the Soviet military-political vector. Nevertheless, the Slavic Slavs received the right to educate their children in their native language, use the Luga language as an official language in their lands of residence, publicly celebrate their national holidays and express their national identity in other ways.
But modern Luga Serbs, whose religion is no longer united, identify themselves differently. 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 Luzic. The Serbs in each of these territories have their own peculiarities of language and traditions, and most importantly, the Upper Puddle is mainly Catholic, and the Lower one is completely Protestant.
At the same time, the population of both territories identifies each other as Slavic Slavs - an outstanding ethnic group that belongs to the Slavic group of peoples. And every Luzhin man says that his nationality is a Serb.