The Wendish Research Exchange - Kroh, Peter: Jan Skala and the Hambach Festival

Lětopis Abstract 2010 2: Kroh, Peter: Jan Skala and the Hambach Festival

Sorbian and German history are closely interlinked, as well as the ideas and traditions accompanying them. We are therefore reminded here of Skala’s demand that Sorbs should also preserve and defend the ideals of German humanism while maintaining their understandable national interest as a Slav minority in Germany. The Hambach festival of 1832 is undoubtedly part of this. It symbolises the striving for freedom of speech and of the press, for the sovereignty of the people and equal rights between nations and nationalities, for legal security, for respect for the dignity of every nationality as well as support for their language and culture. In view of the recent desecration of Sorbian wayside crosses and place name signs, but also because of political decisions endangering their future, it is high time that Sorbs conduct a broad public and political debate about the future path of their nation, self-confidently, democratically and freely, in the spirit of the Hambach festival.