The Wendish Research Exchange - Roggan, Alfred: Bogumił Šwjela – Pastor of the Confessional Church in Dissen. A letter in the Tower Ball as a Professio

Lětopis Abstract 2019 2: Alfred Roggan: Bogumił Šwjela – Pastor of the Confessional Church in Dissen. A letter in the Tower Ball as a Profession of his Faith, Convictions and Actions

Perceptions of the life-work of Bogumił Šwjela (1873–1948) suffer from the relatively unsatisfactory level of research on the facts, fractures and traditional convictions of that era. A letter written by Šwjela in 1936 can therefore be seen as a document, which stands as a profession of his faith, his convictions and his actions. The document is written in the form of a consecration service: after the opening intercessional prayer, facts concerning the restoration of the building and the companies involved are recounted. There then follows an acknowledgement of the new political conditions in Germany, which comes after a reference to the unfinished confessional struggle. The letter finishes with a description of the use of the Wendish language in the parish of Dissen-Sielow and Striesow, and points clearly to its difficult future as a result of the obstacles put in place by the state.

The document makes clear that following the seemingly homogeneous state-church relationship in the period of the German Imperial Empire, the ensuing multi-party state of the Weimar Republic created mistrust; National Socialism as a vision for the future was however not rejected by many Germans and Wends. For many parts of the church, and also for Bogumił Šwjela, there was recognition of the fact that the NS state still deserved to be recognized as the state authority, in accordance with the Lutheran understanding of the relationship between church and state.

For the first time, the participation of Wendish builders and above all Wendish artists in the restoration and development of the church in Dissen is described.