Scholze-Šołta, Dietrich: Religion and Nationality amongst the Catholic Sorbs of Upper Lusatia
Lětopis Abstract 2011 1: Scholze-Šołta, Dietrich: Religion and Nationality amongst the Catholic Sorbs of Upper Lusatia
By the middle of the 16th Century the Reformation had spread to large areas of central Germany, including the whole of Lower Lusatia and the
north-eastern part of Upper Lusatia (around 90% of the Sorbs). The constitution specific to the nominal margraviate of Upper Lusatia (“corporate
republic”) allowed the old and new religions to co-exist. A permanent group of eight Catholic parishes remained between Bautzen, Kamenz and
Hoyerswerda, which had an almost exclusively (Upper) Sorbian population.
The Sorbian Catholics differ to this day from the Protestant, German area surrounding them as a result of a “double barrier” of religion and
nationality. They were able to consolidate their own identity and their own “milieu,” and as a result they were – from about 1800, the beginning of
the modern period - largely spared assimilation. The situation for the Catholic Sorbs is very different from that of the Protestant Sorbs in that for
the approximately 15-20,000 Catholics faith and (Sorbian) ethnic origin form a whole; their traditional territory is regarded today as the core
Sorbian area.
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