mersiowsky - 10-6-2016 at 09:01 PM
Lětopis Abstract 2014 2: Lehmann, Cornelius: “Pan-Slav Agitators” or “Loyal Wends”? The Image of the Sorbs in the Imperial German Daily Press
The Lusatian Sorbs were given little attention in the Imperial German daily press compared to the Polish, French and Danish minorities. Between 1871
and 1914 they were only mentioned in passing, along with the Frisians, Cassubians or Lithuanians. Reports on the Sorbs only appeared in the local
press, in rare cases also in the national press, on the occasion of singing festivals or other folkloric events. This provided an opportunity to
express mostly Pan-Slav conspiracy theories. The Sorbian people were then portrayed as the ally of Russia and of the Poles or the Czechs.
But to assume that the image was an overwhelmingly negative one would be to give a false picture. After all, when there was national interest in the
Sorbs, then the descriptions were overwhelmingly positive and supportive. It is true that they were not free from stereotypes; the Sorbian people was
often portrayed by the German media as the “the minority loyal to the Empire,” and therefore presented as different from the Poles, French and Danes
who were living in the Reich. In this connection the Sorbs were looked at less from a religious, linguistic or territorial point of view, unlike
present-day research, but rather subdivided according to educational level. In this sense, those adherents of Pan-Slav conspiracy theories also saw
the Sorbian rural majority as fighters for the people and the Fatherland, and Sorbian intellectuals (above all the clergy and teachers) as traitors to
the Fatherland.