The Wendish Research Exchange - Koschmal, Walter: Beyond a ‘Homeland’ at Home: On Sorbian Transnationality

Lětopis Abstract 2015 2: Koschmal, Walter: Beyond a ‘Homeland’ at Home: On Sorbian Transnationality

The themes of ‘homeland’ and homeland discourse play a central role in Sorbian culture. That which is specific to and foreign to its culture is often strictly separated, for example by Jan Skala in the journal Kulturwille (1925). This article discusses the reasons – using amongst others the example of the polemical debate between Johannes Urzidil and Skala – for the emphasis on exclusion, as opposed to transitional processes. An ambivalent and variable concept of homeland is developed as a modern, regionally influenced one. This has already been formulated in Sorbian lyric poetry in the 20th Century. The transnational concept of homeland is associated with a pluralistic Sorbian identity. It no longer needs to set itself apart from other European regional identities and ‘homelands.’