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122-701: The areas east and west along the Spree in the German part of Lusatia are home to the Slavic Sorbs , one of Germany’s four officially recognized indigenous ethnic minorities . The Upper Sorbs inhabit Saxon Upper Lusatia, and the Lower Sorbs Brandenburgian Lower Lusatia. Upper and Lower Sorbian are spoken in the German parts of Upper and Lower Lusatia respectively, and the signage there is mostly bilingual. Throughout history,

244-745: A 1031 campaign by Emperor Conrad II in favour of the Saxon German rulers of the Meissen House of Wettin and the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg , who purchased the March of (Lower) Lusatia in 1303. In 1367 the Brandenburg elector Otto V of Wittelsbach finally sold Lower Lusatia to King Karel of Bohemia , thereby becoming a Bohemian crown land . As Margrave Egbert II of Meissen supported anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfelden during

366-649: A Lusatian Land within the Federal Republic of Germany failed after German reunification in 1990. The constitutions of Saxony and Brandenburg guarantee cultural rights, but not autonomy, to the Sorbs. More than 80,000 of the Sorbian Slavic minority continue to live in the region. Historically, their ancestors are West-Slavic-speaking tribes such as the Milceni , who settled in the region between

488-667: A city wall on the steep embankment to the river Spree , with one of the oldest preserved waterworks in central Europe (built 1558). Sites of interest include: There are six museums in Bautzen, including the Stadtmuseum Bautzen ("Bautzen city Museum"), the Sorbisches Museum ("Sorbian Museum", Sorbian: Serbski muzej ) and the Senfmuseum ( Mustard Museum ). Bautzen is the seat of several institutions of

610-773: A hatowa krajina ) is the region richest in ponds in Germany, and together with the Lower Lusatian Pond Landscape forms the biggest pond landscape in Central Europe. According to the earliest records, the area was settled by culturally Celtic tribes. Later, around 100 BC, the Germanic Semnones settled in that area. The name of the region may be derived from that of the Ligians . From around 600 onwards, West Slavic tribes known as

732-726: A hilly southern "upper" section and a "lower" region, which belongs to the North European Plain . The border between Upper and Lower Lusatia is roughly marked by the course of the Black Elster river at Senftenberg and its eastern continuation toward the Silesian town of Przewóz on the Lusatian Neisse. Neighbouring regions were Silesia in the east, Bohemia in the south, the Margraviate of Meissen , and

854-573: A land connection between their Saxon homelands and the Polish territories. Two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the region in the 18th century and Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland often traveled the routes. Numerous Polish dignitaries also traveled through Lusatia on several occasions, and some Polish nobles owned estates in Lusatia. A distinct remnant of

976-557: A larger portion of locals compared to migrating Slavs. Other notable exceptions are the territory of present-day Romania and Hungary , where Slavs settled en route to present-day Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and East Thrace but assimilated, and the modern Albanian nation which claims descent from Illyrians and other Balkan tribes. Bautzen Bautzen ( German pronunciation: [ˈbaʊ̯t͡sn̩] ) or Budyšin ( Upper Sorbian pronunciation: [ˈbudɨʃin] ), until 1868 Budissin in German,

1098-602: A migration background. (as of December 31 unless otherwise stated) The Bautzen City Council consists of 34 members. It meets either in the Town Hall  [ de ; hsb ] or in the Gewandhaus  [ de ] . There are also four local councils (Niederkaina, Stiebitz, Kleinwelka, and Salzenforst-Bolbritz), whose honorary members are elected for five years. Bautzen has a very compact and well-preserved medieval town centre with numerous churches and towers and

1220-715: A movement which came into prominence in the mid-19th century, emphasized the common heritage and unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires: the Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary , the Ottoman Empire , and Venice . Austro-Hungary envisioned its own political concept of Austro-Slavism , in opposition of Pan-Slavism that

1342-577: A population of around 38,000. Although Görlitz is larger, it is Bautzen that is regarded as the historical capital of Upper Lusatia . Bautzen is the political and cultural center of the entirety of the Slavic minority of the Sorbs (Upper and Lower), although Lower Lusatia and the Lower Sorbian -speaking Sorbs have an own, second center, which is Cottbus . About 10 percent of Bautzen's population

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1464-732: A special mixture of herbs and spices) are often associated with the Sorbs even though the cucumbers themselves were introduced by Dutch migrants, who started to pickle them for higher durability. Soon Sorbs adopted the pickling and might have changed the recipes slightly over time. The traditional Sorbian costumes are still to be worn in the Spreewald region even though mainly in the tourism industry. Recently, some women started to revive traditional clothes by using them as wedding dresses, even though this practise differs from original traditions. Percentage of Sorbs : Total number: 93,032 The percentage of Serbs (Sorbs) in Lusatia has decreased since

1586-536: Is Upper Sorbian -speaking. The use of the language is more widespread in the countryside surrounding the town than in the town itself. Bautzen is the seat of several Sorbian institutions like the Domowina , the German-Sorbian People's Theater ( Němsko-Serbske ludowe dźiwadło ), and Sorbian Broadcasting ( Sorbischer Rundfunk , Serbski rozhłós ). From 1346 until 1815, the town was a member of

1708-511: Is a town in eastern Saxony , Germany , and the administrative centre of the district of Bautzen . It is located on the Spree river , is the eighth most populous town in Saxony , and is the seat of Saxony's largest district . Bautzen lies in the bilingual Sorbian settlement area ( Serbski sydlenski rum ) of Lusatia , and is Lusatia's third-largest town after Cottbus and Görlitz , as well as

1830-547: Is also no evidence of Asian admixture. However, samples of Novosibirsk residents and Old Believers in Siberia have 5-10% Central Siberian ancestry despite being genetically close to European Slavs. The pagan Slavic populations were Christianized between the 7th and 12th centuries. Orthodox Christianity is predominant among East and South Slavs, while Catholicism is predominant among West Slavs and some western South Slavs . The religious borders are largely comparable to

1952-405: Is called Lower Lusatia ( Niederlausitz, Łużyce Dolne or Dolna Łužyca ) and is characterized by forests and meadows. In the course of much of the 19th and the entire 20th century, it was shaped by the lignite industry and extensive open-pit mining. Important towns include Cottbus , Eisenhüttenstadt , Lübben , Lübbenau , Spremberg , Finsterwalde , Senftenberg (Zły Komorow), and Żary , which

2074-484: Is currently the main language for a few hundred Lusatian children. There is a daily newspaper in the Sorbian language ( Serbske Nowiny ); a Sorbian radio station (Serbski Rozhłós) uses local frequencies of two otherwise German-speaking radio stations for several hours a day. There are very limited programmes on television (once a month) in Sorbian on two regional television stations ( RBB and MDR TV). In 2020, despite

2196-408: Is defined as the last stage of the language preceding the geographical split of the historical Slavic languages . That language was uniform, and on the basis of borrowings from foreign languages and Slavic borrowings into other languages, it cannot be said to have any recognizable dialects, which suggests that there was, at one time, a relatively-small Proto-Slavic homeland . Slavic linguistic unity

2318-455: Is located on the plateau above the Spree, whose top is marked by the Ortenburg  [ de ] castle. It is bordered by the city walls. The later-built more recent quarters in the east were enclosed by the city ramparts. After their removal, the city expanded further east and to the left bank of the river. However, there has only been a small urban area west of the Spree until today. In

2440-531: Is now considered the capital of Polish Lusatia. Between Upper and Lower Lusatia is a region called the Grenzwall , literally meaning "border dyke", although it is in fact a morainic ridge. In the Middle Ages this area had dense forests, so it represented a major obstacle to civilian and military traffic. Some of the region's villages were damaged or destroyed by the open-pit lignite mining industry during

2562-486: Is somewhat unusual, given such a wide dispersal of Slavic populations. Together they form the basis of the " East European " gene cluster , which also includes non-Slavic Hungarians and Aromanians . Only Northern Russians among East and West Slavs belong to a different, " Northern European " genetic cluster, along with Balts , Germanic and Baltic Finnic peoples (Northern Russian populations are very similar to Balts). The 2006 Y-DNA study results "suggest that

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2684-727: Is the biggest free-standing hall in the world, is located in the north of Lusatia. The closest international airport to Lusatia is Dresden Airport in Klotzsche ( Kłóčow ). The largest Lusatian city is Cottbus ( Chóśebuz ), with nearly 100,000 inhabitants. Other notable towns are the former members of the Lusatian League : the German/Polish twin towns of Görlitz ( Zhorjelc ) and Zgorzelec , Bautzen ( Budyšin ), Zittau ( Žitawa ), Lubań , Kamenz ( Kamjenc ), and Löbau ( Lubij )), as well as Żary ,

2806-781: Is the most spoken Slavic language, and is the most spoken native language in Europe. The alphabets used for Slavic languages are usually connected to the dominant religion among the respective ethnic groups. Orthodox Christians use the Cyrillic alphabet while Catholics use the Latin alphabet ; the Bosniaks, who are Muslim, also use the Latin alphabet and Cyrillic alphabet in Serbia. Additionally, some Eastern Catholics and Western Catholics use

2928-566: The Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . Present-day Slavs are classified into three groups: Though the majority of Slavs are Christians , some groups, such as the Bosniaks, mostly identify as Muslims . Modern Slavic nations and ethnic groups are considerably diverse, both genetically and culturally, and relations between them may range from "ethnic solidarity to mutual feelings of hostility" — even within

3050-721: The Boii ), Old Prussians , and the Pannonian Avars . The West Slavs came under the influence of the Western Roman Empire (Latin) and of the Catholic Church . East Slavs have origins in early Slavic tribes who mixed and contacted with Finns , Balts and with the remnants of the people of the Goths . Their early Slavic component, Antes , mixed or absorbed Iranians , and later received influence from

3172-714: The Duchy of Croatia and the Banate of Bosnia , and West Slavs in the Principality of Nitra , Great Moravia , the Duchy of Bohemia , and the Kingdom of Poland . Beginning in the mid-19th century, a pan-Slavic movement has emphasized the common heritage and unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus of the movement was in the Balkans, whereas the Russian Empire was opposed to it. The Slavic languages belong to

3294-532: The Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg in the west as well as the Margraviate of Brandenburg ( Mittelmark ) in the north. Upper Lusatia ( Oberlausitz , Łużyce Górne or Hornja Łužica ) is today part of the German state of Saxony, except for a small part east of the Neisse River around Lubań , which now belongs to the Polish Lower Silesian voivodeship. It consists of hilly countryside rising in

3416-458: The East–West Schism which began in the 11th century. Islam first arrived in the 7th century during the early Muslim conquests , and was gradually adopted by a number of Slavic ethnic groups through the centuries in the Balkans. Among Slavic populations who profess a religion, the majority of contemporary Christian Slavs are Orthodox, followed by Catholic. The majority of Muslim Slavs follow

3538-552: The Groß-Rosen concentration camp operated in Bautzen. At least 600 men, mostly Poles, but also of other nationalities, were imprisoned there, about 310 of whom died. Ernst Thälmann was imprisoned there before being deported to Buchenwald . In April 1945, the Germans evacuated many prisoners on foot to Nixdorf , where they were liberated by Polish troops on May 8, 1945, while the remaining prisoners were liberated in Bautzen by

3660-554: The Hanafi school of the Sunni branch of Islam. Religious delineations by nationality can be very sharp; usually in the Slavic ethnic groups, the vast majority of religious people share the same religion. Mainly Eastern Orthodoxy : Mainly Catholicism : Mainly Islam : Throughout their history, Slavs came into contact with non-Slavic groups. In the postulated homeland region (present-day Ukraine ), they had contacts with

3782-679: The Holy Roman Empire , while the adjacent Northern March again got lost in the Slavic uprising of 983. The later Upper Lusatian region of the Milceni lands up to the Silesian border at the Kwisa river at first was part of the Margraviate of Meissen under Margrave Eckard I . At the same time the Polan duke of the later Kingdom of Poland raised claims to the Lusatian lands and upon

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3904-504: The Hunger Plan , Germany's intentional starvation of the region, as well as the murders of 3.3. million Soviet prisoners of war . Germany's Heinrich Himmler also ordered his subordinate Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben to start repopulating Crimea , and hundreds of ethnic Germans were forcibly moved to cities and villages there. The Soviet Red Army took back their land from the Germans in 1944 . Stephen J. Lee estimates that, by

4026-607: The Investiture Controversy , King Henry IV of Germany in 1076 awarded the Milceni lands of Upper Lusatia as a fief to the Bohemian duke Vratislav II . After Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had elevated Duke Vladislaus II to the rank of a King of Bohemia in 1158, the Upper Lusatian lands around Bautzen evolved into a Bohemian crown land . Around 1200, large numbers of German settlers came to Lusatia in

4148-691: The Khazars and Vikings . The East Slavs trace their national origins to the tribal unions of Kievan Rus' and Rus' Khaganate , beginning in the 10th century. They came particularly under the influence of the Byzantine Empire and of the Eastern Orthodox Church . South Slavs from most of the region have origins in early Slavic tribes who mixed with the local Proto-Balkanic tribes ( Illyrian , Dacian , Thracian , Paeonian , Hellenic tribes ), and Celtic tribes (particularly

4270-734: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . The first half of the 20th century in Russia and the Soviet Union was marked by a succession of wars, famines and other disasters, each accompanied by large-scale population losses. The two major famines were in 1921 to 1923 and 1932 to 1933 , which caused millions of deaths mostly around Ukraine and the Northern Caucasus . The latter resulted from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin 's collectivization of agriculture in Ukraine . During

4392-523: The Lusatian League . The Bautzen Wenceslaus' Market ( Bautzener Wenzelsmarkt , Upper Sorbian: Budyske Wjacławske wiki ) is "Germany's oldest Christmas market mentioned in a chronicle". Asteroid 11580 Bautzen is named in honour of the city. Like other cities and places in Lusatia , Bautzen has several different names across languages. Its German name was also officially changed in 1868. Besides Bautzen (German) and Budyšin ( Upper Sorbian ),

4514-562: The Margraviate of Brandenburg in the following years. From 1368, it was entirely part of the Bohemian Crown. In 1346 six Upper Lusatian cities formed the Lusatian League to resist the constant attacks conducted by robber barons . The association supported King Sigismund in the Hussite Wars leading to armed attacks and devastation. The cities were represented in the (Upper) Lusatian Landtag assembly, where they met with

4636-579: The Milceni and Lusici settled permanently in the region. In the 10th century, the region came under the influence of the Kingdom of Germany , starting with the 928 eastern campaigns of King Henry the Fowler . Until 963 the Lusatian tribes were subdued by the Saxon margrave Gero and upon his death two years later, the March of Lusatia was established on the territory of today's Lower Lusatia and remained with

4758-464: The Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, many political prisoners were held in the Bautzen I and Bautzen II prisons, built in 1904 and 1906, respectively. During the Kristallnacht in 1938, local Jews were persecuted and Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed. During World War II , in 1942–1943, the Nazis conducted three trials of members of the Polish resistance at the local court, sentencing thirteen to death. The AL Bautzen subcamp of

4880-646: The Peloponnese and Asia Minor being reported to have Slavic settlements. This southern movement has traditionally been seen as an invasive expansion. By the end of the 6th century, Slavs had settled the Eastern Alps regions . Pope Gregory I in 600 AD wrote to Maximus, the bishop of Salona (in Dalmatia ), expressing concern about the arrival of the Slavs: Latin: " Et quidem de Sclavorum gente, quae vobis valde imminet, et affligor vehementer et conturbor. Affligor in his quae jam in vobis patior; conturbor, quia per Istriae aditum jam ad Italiam intrare coeperunt. " English: "I am both distressed and disturbed about

5002-412: The Prague -type pottery associated with Slavs was not found anywhere south of the Danube where large numbers of Slavic-speaking people emerged in the early Middle Ages. Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in large numbers. Byzantine records note that Slav numbers were so great, that grass would not regrow where the Slavs had marched through . Military movements resulted in even

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5124-476: The Quitzdorf Dam was created to provide enough process water for the Boxberg Power Station , the Spremberg Dam was primarily planned for flood protection in the lake district, but was also used for process water for power plants. The Bautzen Reservoir was also artificially created in order to be able to continuously supply the Boxberg Power Station with water. The ponds of the Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Landscape Biosphere Reserve, which are also located in

5246-425: The Republic of Poland along the Oder–Neisse line . Poland's communist government expelled all remaining Germans and Sorbs from the area east of the Neisse river in 1945 and 1946 in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. The Lusatian National Committee in Prague claimed the right to self-government and separation from Germany and the creation of a Lusatian Free State or attachment to Czechoslovakia . The majority of

5368-425: The Roman world, Slavic -speaking tribes formed part of several successive multi-ethnic confederacies of Eurasia – such as the Sarmatian, Hun and Gothic empires. The Slavs emerged from obscurity when the westward movement of Germanic tribes in the 5th and 6th centuries AD (thought to be in conjunction with the movement of peoples from Siberia and Eastern Europe: Huns , and later Avars and Bulgars ) started

5490-512: The Scordisci ), as well as with Romans (and the Romanized remnants of the former groups), and also with remnants of temporarily settled invading East Germanic, Asiatic or Caucasian tribes such as Gepids , Huns , Avars , Goths and Bulgars . The original inhabitants of present-day Slovenia and continental Croatia have origins in early Slavic tribes who mixed with Romans and romanized Celtic and Illyrian people as well as with Avars and Germanic peoples (Lombards and East Goths). The South Slavs (except

5612-417: The Vandals to the Iberian Peninsula and even to North Africa . On the other hand, historian Florin Curta categorically dismisses the concept of "Slavs' migration" and opts instead for short-distance population movements that would explain the spread of Slavic languages . He argues - in favor of this view - that the proposed migration models are inconsistent with the archaeological findings, for example

5734-458: The great migration of the Slavs, who settled the lands abandoned by Germanic tribes who had fled from the Huns and their allies. Slavs, according to this account, moved westward into the country between the Oder and the Elbe - Saale line; southward into Bohemia , Moravia , much of present-day Austria , the Pannonian plain and the Balkans ; and northward along the upper Dnieper river. It has also been suggested that some Slavs migrated with

5856-764: The 1900 census due to intermarriage, germanization , cultural assimilation related to industrialization and urbanization, Nazi suppression and discrimination, ethnocide and the settlement of expelled Germans after World War II, mainly from Lower Silesia and northern Bohemia. The region is rich in architecture from various reigns, including Czech, Polish, German and Hungarian, whose styles range from Romanesque and Gothic through Renaissance and Baroque to modern architecture. There are two major Sorbian museums in Cottbus ( Serbski muzej Chóśebuz ) and Bautzen ( Serbski muzej Budyšin ). Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages . Slavs are geographically distributed throughout

5978-449: The 1930s by some 550 Poles. In the interbellum, the German government carried out a massive campaign of changing of place names in Lusatia in order to erase traces of Slavic origin, and while most of the historic names were restored after World War II , some were retained. This era came to an end during the Nazi regime in Germany, when all Sorbian organizations were abolished and forbidden, newspapers and magazines closed, and any use of

6100-1305: The 1970s, the development areas of "Gesundbrunnen" and "Allendeviertel" were erected. After 1990, several neighbouring villages were incorporated. The city is bordered by Radibor , Großdubrau and Malschwitz in the North, Kubschütz in the East, Großpostwitz , Obergurig and Doberschau-Gaußig in the South, as well as Göda in the West. All of these belong to the Bautzen district . The 15 city districts are: Duchy of Poland 1002-1025 [REDACTED] Kingdom of Poland 1025–1032 [REDACTED] Margraviate of Meissen 1032-1075 [REDACTED] Duchy of Bohemia 1075–1198 [REDACTED]   Kingdom of Bohemia 1198–1253 [REDACTED] Margraviate of Brandenburg 1253-1319 [REDACTED]   Kingdom of Bohemia 1319-1469 [REDACTED] Kingdom of Hungary 1469-1490 [REDACTED]   Kingdom of Bohemia 1490-1635 [REDACTED]   Electorate of Saxony 1635–1806 [REDACTED]   Kingdom of Saxony 1806-1871 [REDACTED]   German Empire 1871-1918 [REDACTED]   Weimar Republic 1918-1933 [REDACTED]   Nazi Germany 1933-1945 [REDACTED]   Allied-occupied Germany 1945-1949 [REDACTED]   East Germany 1949–1990 [REDACTED]   Germany 1990– present In

6222-409: The 3rd century AD an eastern Germanic settlement existed here, but excavations have proved that the region was already inhabited as early as the late Stone Age . Sorbs arrived in the area during the migration period in the 6th century AD. The first written evidence of the city is from 1002 under the name Budusin ( Upper Sorbian : Budyšin , Polish: Budziszyn ). In 1018 the Peace of Bautzen

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6344-421: The 5th to the 10th century AD), and came to control large parts of Central , Eastern , and Southeast Europe between the sixth and seventh centuries. Beginning in the 7th century, they were gradually Christianized . By the 12th century, they formed the core population of a number of medieval Christian states: East Slavs in the Kievan Rus' , South Slavs in the Bulgarian Empire , the Principality of Serbia ,

6466-419: The 9th century, attest the autonym as Slověne ( Словѣне ). Those forms point back to a Slavic autonym , which can be reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ , plural Slověne . The reconstructed autonym * Slověninъ is usually considered a derivation from slovo ("word"), originally denoting "people who speak (the same language)", meaning "people who understand one another", in contrast to

6588-400: The Balkans were Slavicized. Thracians and Illyrians mixed as ethnic groups in this period. A notable exception is Greece, where Slavs were Hellenized because Greeks were more numerous, especially with more Greeks returning to Greece in the 9th century and the influence of the church and administration, however, Slavicized regions within Macedonia , Thrace and Moesia Inferior also had

6710-449: The Cyrillic alphabet. Serbian and Montenegrin use both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. There is also a Latin script to write in Belarusian, called Łacinka and in Ukrainian, called Latynka . West Slavs originate from early Slavic tribes which settled in Central Europe after the East Germanic tribes had left this area during the migration period . They are noted as having mixed with Germanics , Hungarians , Celts (particularly

6832-410: The DDR era. Some, now exhausted, former open-pit mines are now being converted into artificial lakes, with the hope of attracting holiday-makers, and the area is now being referred to as the Lusatian Lake District . As Lusatia is not, and never has been, a single administrative unit, Upper and Lower Lusatia have different, but in some respects similar, histories. The city of Cottbus is the largest in

6954-419: The Elbe and the Saale. Many still speak their language (though numbers are dwindling and especially Lower Sorbian is considered endangered), and road signs are usually bilingual . However, the number of all the inhabitants of this part of eastern Saxony is declining rapidly – by 20% in the last 10 to 15 years. Sorbs make efforts to protect their traditional culture manifested in the traditional folk costumes and

7076-410: The GDR's Ministry for State Security , has served as an open memorial since 1993, operated by the Saxon Memorials Foundation. It is accessible to the public. Guided tours are provided and occasionally, films are screened. A permanent exhibition depicts the misery suffered by occupants; visitors may tour detention cells, the isolation area and the yards where prisoners were allowed to exercise. In 2002

7198-475: The German/Polish twin towns of Guben ( Gubin ) and Gubin , Hoyerswerda ( Wojerecy ), Senftenberg ( Zły Komorow ), Eisenhüttenstadt ( Pśibrjog ), and Spremberg ( Grodk ). The name derives from the Sorbian word łužicy meaning "swamps" or "water-hole", Germanized as Lausitz . Lusatia is the Latinized form which spread in the English and Romance languages area. Lusatia comprises two both scenically and historically different parts:

7320-452: The Germans and capturing the region. In Horka , on April 26, 1945, the Germans carried out a massacre of a field hospital column of the 9th Polish Armored Division , killing some 300 POWs, mostly wounded soldiers and medical personnel (see German atrocities committed against Polish prisoners of war ). After World War II according to the Potsdam Agreement , Lusatia was divided between Allied-occupied Germany ( Soviet occupation zone ) and

7442-492: The Iranian Sarmatians and the Germanic Goths . After their subsequent spread, the Slavs began assimilating non-Slavic peoples. For example, in the Northern Black Sea region, the Slavs assimilated the remnants of the Goths. In the Balkans, there were Paleo-Balkan peoples, such as Romanized and Hellenized ( Jireček Line ) Illyrians , Thracians and Dacians , as well as Greeks and Celtic Scordisci and Serdi . Because Slavs were so numerous, most indigenous populations of

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7564-421: The Lake District area, were partly created in the Middle Ages, but also during the GDR period for agricultural reasons, as the moor-rich land was restructured and made usable. These very shallow waters are mostly used for fish farming. The ponds of the Muskau Arch are also located between the large opencast mining holes. They arose from faults in the terminal moraine of glaciers from the Ice Age, and partly through

7686-430: The Lusatian National Committee also submitted a petition to the Polish Government, signed by Paweł Cyż – the minister and an official Sorbian delegate in Poland. There was also a project to proclaim a Lusatian Free State, whose Prime Minister was intended to be the Polish archaeologist of Lusatian origin, Wojciech Kóčka . In 1945, the northeastern part of Upper Lusatia west of the Neisse rejoined Saxony and in 1952, when

7808-409: The Peaceful Revolution of 1990, however, the city’s population declined significantly, dropping from 52,000 in 1989 to around 38,000, largely due to emigration and low birth rates. Since the early 2000s, this decline has slowed considerably. Today, Bautzen ranks as the 10th largest city in Saxony by population. As of December 31, 2011, 98.3% of Bautzen's residents were of German origin, with 6.1% having

7930-600: The Sclaveni as having swamps and forests for their cities. Another 6th-century source refers to them living among nearly-impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes. Menander Protector mentions Daurentius ( r.  c. 577 – 579 ) who slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I for asking the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars; Daurentius declined and is reported as saying: "Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs – so it shall always be for us as long as there are wars and weapons". According to eastern homeland theory, prior to becoming known to

8052-434: The Slavic expansion started from the territory of present-day Ukraine, thus supporting the hypothesis placing the earliest known homeland of Slavs in the basin of the middle Dnieper ". According to genetic studies until 2020, the distribution, variance and frequency of the Y-DNA haplogroups R1a and I2 and their subclades R-M558, R-M458 and I-CTS10228 among South Slavs correlate with the spread of Slavic languages during

8174-566: The Slavic word denoting " German people ", namely *němьcь , meaning "silent, mute people" (from Slavic *němъ " mute , mumbling"). The word slovo ("word") and the related slava ("glory, fame") and sluh ("hearing") originate from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew- ("be spoken of, glory"), cognate with Ancient Greek κλέος ( kléos "fame"), as in the name Pericles , Latin clueō ("be called"), and English loud . In medieval and early modern sources written in Latin, Slavs are most commonly referred to as Sclaveni or

8296-436: The Slavs, who are pressing hard on you. I am distressed because I sympathize with you; I am disturbed because they have already begun to arrive in Italy through the entry-point of Istria ." When Slav migrations ended, their first state organizations appeared, each headed by a prince with a treasury and a defense force. In the 7th century, the Frankish merchant Samo supported the Slavs against their Avar rulers and became

8418-679: The Slovenes and Croats) came under the cultural sphere of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), of the Ottoman Empire and of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Islam , while the Slovenes and the Croats were influenced by the Western Roman Empire (Latin) and thus by the Catholic Church in a similar fashion to that of the West Slavs. Consistent with the proximity of their languages, analyses of Y chromosomes , mDNA , and autosomal marker CCR5de132 shows that East Slavs and West Slavs are genetically very similar, but demonstrating significant differences from neighboring Finno-Ugric, Turkic , and North Caucasian peoples. Such genetic homogeneity

8540-423: The Sorbian intelligentsia was organized in the Domowina , though, and did not wish to split from Germany. Claims asserted by the Lusatian National movement were postulates of joining Lusatia to Poland or Czechoslovakia. Between 1945 and 1947 they produced about ten memorials to the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia; however, this did not bring any results. On 30 April 1946,

8662-520: The Sorbian languages was prohibited. During World War II, some Sorbian activists were arrested, executed, exiled or sent as political prisoners to concentration camps . From 1942 to 1944 the underground Lusatian National Committee was formed and was active in German-occupied Warsaw . During the war, the Germans established and operated several prisoner-of-war camps , including Oflag III-C , Oflag IV-D , Oflag 8, Stalag III-B, Stalag IV-A and Stalag VIII-A , with multiple forced labour subcamps in

8784-843: The South to the Lusatian Highlands near the Czech border, and then even higher to form the Zittau Hills , the small northern part of the Lusatian Mountains ( Lužické hory / Lausitzer Gebirge ) in the Czech Republic. Upper Lusatia is characterized by fertile soil and undulating hills as well as by historic towns and cities such as Bautzen , Görlitz , Zittau , Löbau , Kamenz , Lubań , Bischofswerda , Herrnhut , Hoyerswerda , and Bad Muskau . Many villages in

8906-600: The Soviets on April 20, 1945. Between 21 April and 30 April 1945, the Battle of Bautzen was fought which resulted in the town being recaptured by the German army. This meant Bautzen and its surroundings stayed in German hands until Germany's capitulation . From 1952 to 1990, Bautzen was part of the Bezirk Dresden of East Germany . Bautzen was infamous throughout East Germany for its two penitentiaries. "Bautzen I"

9028-796: The Upper Lusatian territories were attached to the Province of Silesia instead. One of the main escape routes for insurgents of the unsuccessful Polish November Uprising from partitioned Poland to the Great Emigration led through Lübben and Luckau . The 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed an era of cultural revival for Sorbs. The modern languages of Upper and Lower Lusatian (or Sorbian) emerged, national literature flourished, and many national organizations such as Maćica Serbska and Domowina were founded. There were also notable Polish communities in Lusatia, such as Klettwitz (Upper Sorbian: Klěśišća , Polish: Kletwice ), inhabited in

9150-715: The affairs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , were calling for national self-determination. During World War I , representatives of the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes set up organizations in the Allied countries to gain sympathy and recognition. In 1918, after World War I ended, the Slavs established such independent states as Czechoslovakia , the Second Polish Republic , and

9272-409: The capital of Polish Lusatia. The Lusatian Lake District (German: Lausitzer Seenland , Lower Sorbian: Łužyska jazorina , Upper Sorbian: Łužiska jězorina ) is an artificially created lake area. By the end of the 2020s, Europe's largest artificial water landscape and Germany's fourth-largest lake area are to be created by flooding disused brown coal mines in the Lusatian brown coal mining area. Some of

9394-533: The city commemorated its 1000th birthday. In 2010 it was hit by a flood. During the Early Middle Ages, Bautzen was one of the largest cities in Central Germany. However, from around the 15th century, its population growth began to stagnate. The relatively late onset of industrialization in Bautzen brought new momentum, leading to population growth even during the era of East Germany. Following

9516-555: The course of the Ostsiedlung , settling in the forested areas yet not inhabited by the Slavs. For centuries, from as early as the Middle Ages, trade flourished, and several important trade routes ran through Lusatia, connecting German states in the west, Poland in the east and Bohemia in the south. In 1319, the region was divided between the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Duchy of Jawor , the southwesternmost duchy of fragmented Piast -ruled Poland, while northernmost parts also passed to

9638-488: The cultural self-administration of the Sorbian people : Alstom Transportation operates a large factory on Fabrikstraße making railway locomotives, carriages and trams. It was built by the former VEB Waggonbau Bautzen, which was acquired by Bombardier Transportation in 1998 via Deutsche Waggonbau and acquired by Alstom when Bombardier Transportation was sold by parent Bombardier Inc. in 2021. The mustard Bautz'ner Senf

9760-583: The death of Emperor Otto III in 1002, Margrave Gero II lost Lusatia to the Polish Duke Boleslaw I the Brave, who took the region in his conquests, acknowledged by Henry II first in the same year in Merseburg and later in the 1018 Peace of Bautzen , Lusatia became part of his territory; however, Germans and Poles continued to struggle over the administration of the region. It was regained in

9882-733: The end of World War II in 1945, the Russian population was about 90 million fewer than it could have been otherwise. Also during World War II, fascist Italy sent tens of thousands of Slavs to concentration camps in mainland Italy, Libya , and the Balkans , because Italian leader Benito Mussolini also had a hatred of them. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed , and many former Soviet republics became independent countries. Currently, former Soviet states in Central Asia such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have very large minority Slavic populations, with most being Russians. Kazakhstan has

10004-742: The era of the emperor Justinian I ( r.  527–565 ), such as Procopius of Caesarea , Jordanes and Theophylact Simocatta , describe tribes of these names emerging from the area of the Carpathian Mountains , the lower Danube and the Black Sea to invade the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Empire . Jordanes, in his work Getica (written in 551 AD), describes the Veneti as a "populous nation" whose dwellings begin at

10126-580: The estate of Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf became the starting point of the organized Protestant missionary movement in 1732 and missionaries went out from the Moravian Church in Herrnhut to all corners of the world to share the Gospel. The newly established Kingdom of Saxony , however, sided with Napoleon ; therefore, at the 1815 Congress of Vienna , Lusatia was divided, with Lower Lusatia and

10248-482: The fierce opposition of the noble state countries . In 1469 the region passed to Hungary , and in 1490 it returned to the Bohemian Crown, then under the rule of Polish Prince Vladislaus II . Following the Lutheran Reformation, the greater part of Lusatia became Protestant except for the area between Bautzen, Kamenz and Hoyerswerda. The Lusatias remained under Bohemian rule – from 1526 onwards under

10370-585: The horseshoe was filled with clays. Ice advances in the following cold periods eroded the higher parts of the terminal moraine. Due to oxidation and the associated loss of volume in the areas near the surface of the brown coal seams, furrows of 3 m to 5 m, a maximum of 20 m deep, 10 m to 30 m wide and up to several kilometers long were formed. Known as "Gieser" (from the Sorbian "jězor" for "lake"), they form long stretches of drainless ditches that are either filled with standing water or often peat-covered. After already centuries of extraction of clay and sand, brown coal

10492-640: The individual groups. The oldest mention of the Slavic ethnonym is from the 6th century AD, when Procopius , writing in Byzantine Greek , used various forms such as Sklaboi ( Σκλάβοι ), Sklabēnoi ( Σκλαβηνοί ), Sklauenoi ( Σκλαυηνοί ), Sthlabenoi ( Σθλαβηνοί ), or Sklabinoi ( Σκλαβῖνοι ), and his contemporary Jordanes refers to the Sclaveni in Latin . The oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic , dating from

10614-399: The inland ice that was up to 500 m thick compressed the sand and brown coal layers in front of and below it over a length of more than 40 km to form a small-scale fold arch with a compression terminal moraine up to 180 m high and 700 m wide. The structure is currently preserved as a flat, undulating hill range and is almost unique in the world. The meltwater lake that subsequently emerged within

10736-628: The largest Slavic minority population. Proto-Slavic , the supposed ancestor language of all Slavic languages, is a descendant of common Proto-Indo-European , via a Balto-Slavic stage in which it developed numerous lexical and morphophonological isoglosses with the Baltic languages . In the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis , "the Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations [from the steppe] became speakers of Balto-Slavic". Proto-Slavic

10858-408: The largest lakes are connected to each other as a chain of lakes by navigable canals. The new lakeland is largely created from remaining holes from former brown coal opencast mines. These are flooded and converted into lakes. Some of the resulting lakes have already reached their final water level, others will not be completely flooded for a few years. Other lakes are artificially dammed lakes. While

10980-568: The loss of the Sorbian language in most of Lusatia, there are some Sorbian traditions and habits that still live on to this day. In February, many people (mostly people from villages, regardless of German or Sorbian ancestry) will still engage in the Sorbian tradition of Zampern (a festive procession) . Some Sorbian dishes like boiled potatoes with linseed oil and curd (German: Quark mit Leineöl ) are still prevalent and, today, are eaten in other parts of Germany (like Berlin or western Saxony) too. Spreewälder Gurken (pickled cucumbers potted by using

11102-476: The medieval Slavic expansion from Eastern Europe, most probably from the territory of present-day Ukraine and Southeastern Poland . According to a 2017 study, Slavic speakers like Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians have similar genetic components. Ukrainians and Belarusians have near-equal amounts of two "European components", which are commonly found in North Europe and Caucasus respectively. There

11224-558: The mining of soil raw materials such as sand, clay and coal even before industrialization. In general, these ponds are not created intentionally by humans, but are filled with water due to a lack of drainage. The Muskau Morainic Arch is a terminal moraine formed during the Elster glaciation , which together with its immediate surroundings forms the " UNESCO Global Geopark Muskau Morainic Arch" (German: Muskauer Faltenbogen , Sorbian: Mužakowski Zahork , Polish: Łuk Mużakowa ). A glacier on

11346-412: The name was officially changed from Budissin to the more Germanized form Bautzen . In 1839, the Sorbian student organization Societas Slavica Budissenensis was founded in the city. In 1845, the Sorbian national anthem was publicly performed for the first time in the city. The Sorbian House (Upper Sorbian: Serbski Dom ), a Sorbian cultural centre, was opened in the city in 1904. After

11468-472: The northeastern part of Upper Lusatia around Hoyerswerda , Rothenburg , Görlitz , and Lauban awarded to Prussia . Only the southwestern part of Upper Lusatia, which included Löbau , Kamenz , Bautzen , and Zittau , remained part of Saxony. The Lusatians in Prussia demanded that their land become a distinct administrative unit, but Lower Lusatia was incorporated into the Province of Brandenburg , while

11590-621: The northern parts of Eurasia ; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe , Eastern Europe , Southeastern Europe , and Northern Asia , though there is a large Slavic minority scattered across the Baltic states and Central Asia , and a substantial Slavic diaspora in the Americas , Western Europe , and Northern Europe . Early Slavs lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from

11712-513: The prisoners of which were mostly Jews, Poles and Russians, but also Frenchmen, Italians, Yugoslavs, Czechs, Belgians, etc. During the war, the Poles postulated that after the defeat of Germany, the Sorbs should be allowed free national development either within the borders of Poland or Czechoslovakia , or as an independent Sorbian state in alliance with Poland. The Eastern Front reached Lusatia in early 1945, with Soviet and Polish troops defeating

11834-482: The region has been ruled variously by Poland , Bohemia , Germany and Hungary . The Lusatian Lake District is Europe's largest artificial lake district. The village of Herrnhut ( Ochranow ) is the seat of the Moravian Church . Muskau Park in Bad Muskau ( Mužakow ) and Łęknica is a UNESCO World Heritage Site . The Tropical Islands Resort , a large water park housed in a former airship hangar that

11956-552: The region's ties to Poland are the 18th-century mileposts decorated with the coat of arms of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth located in various towns in the region. Polish-Sorbian contacts increased in that period. With the Age of Enlightenment , the Sorbian national revival began and resistance to Germanization emerged. Herrnhut , between Löbau and Zittau , founded in 1722 by religious refugees from Moravia on

12078-456: The region, and though it is recognized as the cultural capital of Lower Lusatia, it was a Brandenburg exclave since 1445. Historically, the administrative centres of Lower Lusatia were at Luckau and Lübben , while the historical capital of Upper Lusatia is Bautzen . Since 1945, when a small part of Lusatia east of the Oder–Neisse line was incorporated into Poland , Żary has been touted as

12200-595: The region. Prisoners included Polish POWs and civilians, and French , Belgian, British, Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, South African, Dutch, Italian, Soviet, Serbian, Slovak and American POWs. There were also several Nazi prisons with multiple forced labour subcamps, including in Görlitz , Luckau , Zittau , and a prison solely for women in Cottbus , and multiple subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp ,

12322-621: The rule of the House of Habsburg – until the Thirty Years' War . According to the 1635 Peace of Prague , most of Lusatia became a province of the Electorate of Saxony , except for the region around Cottbus possessed by Brandenburg. After the Saxon elector Augustus the Strong was elected king of Poland in 1697, Lusatia became strategically important as the elector-kings sought to create

12444-544: The ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe, Samo's Empire . This early Slavic polity probably did not outlive its founder and ruler, but it was the foundation for later West Slavic states on its territory. The oldest of them was Carantania ; others are the Principality of Nitra , the Moravian principality (see under Great Moravia ) and the Balaton Principality . The First Bulgarian Empire

12566-666: The second-largest town in Upper Lusatia . The town lies in the hilly Upper Lusatian Gefilde ( Hornjołužiske hona ), a part of the northwesternmost foothills of the Sudetes , just north of the Lusatian Highlands . Bautzen is the first larger town on the Spree River ( Spree → Havel → Elbe → North Sea ), and the Bautzen Reservoir ( Budyska rěčna zawěra ) lies in the north of the town. In 2021, Bautzen had

12688-692: The shortened version Sclavi . Ancient Roman sources refer to the Early Slavic peoples as "Veneti" , who dwelt in a region of central Europe east of the Germanic tribe of Suebi and west of the Iranian Sarmatians in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, between the upper Vistula and Dnieper rivers. Slavs - called Antes and Sclaveni - first appear in Byzantine records in the early 6th century AD. Byzantine historiographers of

12810-974: The sources of the Vistula and occupy "a great expanse of land". He also describes the Veneti as the ancestors of Antes and Slaveni, two early Slavic tribes, who appeared on the Byzantine frontier in the early-6th century. Procopius wrote in 545 that "the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a single name in the remote past; for they were both called Sporoi in olden times". The name Sporoi derives from Greek σπείρω ("to sow "). He described them as barbarians, who lived under democracy and believed in one god, "the maker of lightning" ( Perun ), to whom they made sacrifice. They lived in scattered housing and constantly changed settlement. In war, they were mainly foot soldiers with shields, spears, bows, and little armour, which

12932-487: The start of World War II was to exterminate, expel, or enslave most or all West and East Slavs from their native lands, so as to make " living space " for German settlers. In early 1941, Germany began planning Generalplan Ost , the genocide of Slavs in Eastern Europe which was supposed to start after a major expansion of German concentration camps in occupied Poland and the fall of Stalin's regime. This plan

13054-580: The state was divided into three administrative areas ( Bezirke ), the Upper Lusatian region became part of the Dresden administrative region. After the East German Revolution of 1989 , the state of Saxony was reestablished in 1990. Lower Lusatia remained with Brandenburg , from 1952 until 1990 in the Bezirk of Cottbus . In 1950, the Sorbs obtained language and cultural autonomy within

13176-475: The style of village houses. The coal industry in the region (like the Schwarze Pumpe power station needing vast areas of land) destroyed dozens of Lusatian villages in the past and threatens some of them even now. The Sorbian language is taught at many primary and some secondary schools and at two universities (Leipzig and Prague). Project "Witaj" ("welcome!") is a project of eight preschools where Sorbian

13298-480: The then–East German state of Saxony. Lusatian schools and magazines were launched and the Domowina association was revived, although under increasing political control of the ruling Communist Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). At the same time, the large German-speaking majority of the Upper Lusatian population kept up a considerable degree of local, 'Upper Lusatian' patriotism of its own. An attempt to establish

13420-677: The town at that time. From 1346 to 1815, it was a member of the Six Cities' Alliance of the Upper Lusatian cities of Görlitz , Zittau , Löbau , Kamenz , Lubań , and Bautzen. In 1429 and 1431 the town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Hussites . In 1634, it was destroyed by the Swedes during the Thirty Years' War . It was the site of one of the battlefields of the Napoleonic War Battle of Bautzen in 1813. In 1868,

13542-540: The town has had the following names: The town on the River Spree is situated about 50 km (31 mi) east of Dresden between the Lusatian highland and the lowlands in the north, amidst the region of Upper Lusatia . To the north stretches the Bautzen Reservoir , which was flooded in 1974. This is the former location of the villages of Malsitz ( Małšecy ) and Nimschütz ( Hněwsecy ). The old part of Bautzen

13664-426: The very south of Upper Lusatia contain a typical attraction of the region, the so-called Umgebindehäuser , half-timbered-houses representing a combination of Franconian and Slavic style. Among those villages are Niedercunnersdorf , Obercunnersdorf , Wehrsdorf , Jonsdorf , Sohland an der Spree with Taubenheim, Oppach , Varnsdorf or Ebersbach . Most of the area belonging to the German state of Brandenburg today

13786-428: The war, Nazi Germany used hundreds of thousands of people for slave labor in their concentration camps , the majority of whom were Jewish or Slavic. Both groups were a part of what Germans claimed to be a "vast racially subhuman surplus population" that they " intended to eliminate in time from their new empire ", their term for "racial subhumans" being Untermensch . Thus, one of Adolf Hitler 's ambitions at

13908-446: Was founded in 681 as an alliance between the ruling Bulgars and the numerous Slavs in the area, and their South Slavic language, the Old Church Slavonic , became the main and official language of the empire in 864 AD. Bulgaria was instrumental in the spread of Slavic literacy and Christianity to the rest of the Slavic world. Duchy of Croatia was founded in 7th century and later became Kingdom of Croatia . Principality of Serbia

14030-854: Was founded in 8th, Duchy of Bohemia and Kievan Rus' both in the 9th century. The expansion of the Magyars into the Carpathian Basin and the Germanization of Austria gradually separated the South Slavs from the West and East Slavs . Later Slavic states, which formed in the following centuries included the Second Bulgarian Empire , the Kingdom of Poland , Banate of Bosnia , Duklja and Kingdom of Serbia which later grew into Serbian Empire . Pan-Slavism ,

14152-474: Was mined in the area of the Muskau Arch in the 19th and 20th centuries, partly in pillar mining and partly in opencast mining. Due to the location of the mined seams, noticeably elongated lakes formed in the remaining holes north and east of Weißwasser after the end of mining. The Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Landscape (German: Oberlausitzer Heide- und Teichlandschaft , Upper Sorbian: Hornjołužiska hola

14274-530: Was predominantly led by the Russian Empire . As of 1878, there were only three majority Slavic states in the world: the Russian Empire, Principality of Serbia and Principality of Montenegro . Bulgaria was effectively independent but was de jure vassal to the Ottoman Empire until official independence was declared in 1908. The Slavic peoples who were, for the most part, denied a voice in

14396-433: Was reserved mainly for chiefs and their inner circle of warriors. Their language is "barbarous" (that is, not Greek), and the two tribes are alike in appearance, being tall and robust, "while their bodies and hair are neither very fair or blond, nor indeed do they incline entirely to the dark type, but they are all slightly ruddy in color. And they live a hard life, giving no heed to bodily comforts..." Jordanes describes

14518-515: Was signed between the German king Henry II and the Polish ruler Bolesław I the Brave . The treaty left the town under Polish rule. In 1032 it passed to the Margraviate of Meissen within the Holy Roman Empire , in 1075 to the Duchy of Bohemia , elevated to a kingdom in 1198 (with short periods of Brandenburgian and Hungarian rule), in 1635 to Saxony , whose electors were also Polish kings in personal union from 1697 to 1763. One of two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through

14640-686: Was to be carried out gradually over 25 to 30 years. After an approximate 30 million Slavs would be killed through starvation and their major cities depopulated, the Germans were supposed to repopulate Eastern Europe. In June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa , Hitler paused the plan to focus on the extermination of the Jews . However, some of the plan was nonetheless implemented. Millions of Slavs were murdered in Eastern Europe; this includes victims of

14762-486: Was to some extent visible as late as Old Church Slavonic (or Old Bulgarian ) manuscripts which, though based on local Slavic speech of Thessaloniki , could still serve the purpose of the first common Slavic literary language. Standardised Slavic languages that have official status in at least one country are: Belarusian , Bosnian , Bulgarian , Croatian , Czech , Macedonian , Montenegrin , Polish , Russian , Serbian , Slovak , Slovene , and Ukrainian . Russian

14884-496: Was used as an official prison, soon to be nicknamed Gelbes Elend ("Yellow Misery") due to its outer colour, whereas the more secretive " Bautzen II " was used as a facility to hold political prisoners, dissidents and prisoners of conscience. Today, Bautzen I is known as the Bautzen Correctional Institution and is used to hold prisoners who are awaiting trial. Bautzen II which was also operated by

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