The Wendish Research Exchange - Mirtschin, Anna: Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism in the Sorbian Catholic Journal, Katolski Posoł, from 1880 to 1933

Lětopis Abstract 2014 1: Mirtschin, Anna: Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism in the Sorbian Catholic Journal, Katolski Posoł, from 1880 to 1933

The subject of this study is the way in which the topics of the Jews, Judaism, and “modern anti-Semitism” were treated in the Sorbian Catholic journal, Katolski Posoł, founded in 1863. Sorbian attitudes were determined by their particular identity structure: they identified themselves with the Slav nations and spoke of their own “nation,” although they were never able to attain independent nationhood themselves. The Catholic Sorbs accepted their role as part of the ultramontane Church and their homeland as Germany as members of the German state. Katolski Posoł combined religious propaganda and education while also asserting its Sorbian national identity. The way, in which it treated Jewish questions in articles published between 1880 and 1933, reflected its attitude towards the Jewry, to anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, which was determined by its own religious and national interests.

The results of this study are ambivalent. They range from identifying the kind of Jewish stereotypes, which were com-mon in German public attitudes and in Catholic circles of the time, to expressions of outright anti-Semitism. Traditional religious anti-Judaism was combined with fear of modern social developments, which were seen as endangering Catholicism and Sorbian Catholic identity. Particular emphasis was given to the Jewish question in articles, in which analogies with their own national situation and the threats to it were recognized.