For more than 1,000 years the Sorbs, one of Europe's oldest minorities, have lived in Germany, surviving even Nazi terror and decades of hard-line communism. After the East German communist collapse in 1989-90, a bold new spirit emerged in the farming villages and fortress-like towns in Sorb region along the border with the Czech Republic and Poland.
But things have not gone smoothly. The more than 50,000 Sorbs are growing nervous because of their shrinking communities and what they see as a gradual erosion of their culture. Sorbs live in a web of towns and villages in the eastern states of Brandenburg and Saxony. Recently they launched a campaign to draw attention to their centuries old traditions, which include wearing colourful costumes and marrying in black. Older Sorbs are worried that fewer youngsters are fluent in their native tongue, which bears a similarity to Czech and Polish. Funding cutbacks have affected the dwindling number of Sorb-German language schools in recent years.
Worse still is the recently announced news that several Sorb villages in the Lausitz region will disappear in the next 15 years to make way for a mammoth open cast coal mine. Rene Schuster, a Sorb activist and member of the Green League Environmental Association, says: "To date 136 villages have been eliminated as a result of the lignite mining industry. We say that's enough. No more must be destroyed." Formerly Schuster rented a house in the Sorb community of Lakoma, but had to leave the area when the village was earmarked for strip mining by Swedish energy concern Vattenfall. Encircled by a group of journalists, Schuster points to a vacant spot 40 metres away.
"That's where my house used to be," he says softly. "There also used to be a farm over there. Now, apart from two remaining houses, all the buildings have disappeared." Vattenfall, for its part, argues that its operation provides much needed jobs in a region that has long been plagued by high unemployment and depopulation.
The Sorbs, also known as Wends, are admired by most Germans for being capable, artistic and friendly while maintaining their independence.
"You rarely hear of Sorbs being engaged in criminal activity," says an official in Cottbus, some 120 kilometres south-east of Berlin. Although never having their own state and from the 10th century onwards being subject to German rule, the Sorbs for centuries succeeded in retaining their separate ethnic identity through keeping their distinct Slavonic language and culture. But now, in many Sorb family households it is the German language which predominates at the breakfast table. Mirko Schmidt, is headmaster of a dual language school in Crostwitz, which has 69 pupils and is one of six bilingual schools in Lusatia, as the Sorbs call their region.
While he admits the Sorb language is not widely spoken these days, he says, "it is important to learn the language because it would be a sin to reject the legacy of our forefathers." "Here, from the outset children are taught German and Sorb. It's amazing how swiftly they pick up the two languages." In the brightly painted school, picture alphabets are spelled out in German and Sorb on classroom walls. On a table, cleverly designed dual language books are displayed.
Schmidt says that during the Nazi era Sorb newspapers and institutions were banned. But in the post-war years the communist East German government supported the Sorb minority, enabling them to establish theatres, libraries and other cultural outlets.
But they had in return demanded complete loyalty, he said. "Sorb speakers fell in number, even with official state support." Sorbs boast of their tolerance, crucial in a small region where religious affiliation is divided between Catholics and Protestants and two languages are spoken - Upper Sorb, similar to Czech, and Lower Sorb, which is like Polish. Street signs are in two languages.
-dpa
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