satian Heath and Pond Landscape[edit]

Logo of the Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Landscape Biosphere Reserve

The Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Landscape (German: Oberlausitzer Heide- und
Teichlandschaft, Upper Sorbian: Hornjołužiska hola 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.

Lusatian capitals[edit]

The town of Bautzen/Budyšin at night

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 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 the capital of Polish
Lusatia.[2]

History[edit]
Early history[edit]
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 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 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 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 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.

Bohemian rule[edit]
As Margrave Egbert II of Meissen supported anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfelden during 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 the course of the Ostsiedlung, settling in the forested areas yet not inhabited by the
Slavs. The Bohemian rule in Upper Lusatia was secured with the extinction of the rival
Brandenburg House of Ascania in 1320 and the rise of the Luxembourg dynasty, Kings of Bohemia
starting in 1310.
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 the fierce opposition of the noble state countries.
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 the rule of the House of Habsburg – until the Thirty Years' War.

Saxon rule[edit]

Map of the Lusatias by J.B. Homann, about 1715.

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 a land connection between their Saxon homelands
and the Polish territories.
Herrnhut, between Löbau and Zittau, founded in 1722 by religious refugees from Moravia on the
estate of Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf became the starting point of the
organised 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 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.

Prussian rule[edit]
The Lusatians in Prussia demanded that their land become a distinct administrative unit, but Lower
Lusatia was incorporated into the Province of Brandenburg, while the Upper Lusatian territories were
attached to the Province of Silesia instead.
The 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed an era of cultural revival for Slavic Lusatians. The
modern languages of Upper and Lower Lusatian (or Sorbian) emerged, national literature flourished,
and many national organisations such as Maćica Serbska and Domowina were founded.
This era came to an end during the Nazi regime in Germany, when all Sorbian organisations were
abolished and forbidden, newspapers and magazines closed, and any use of 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 Nazi-occupied Warsaw.

Since 1945[edit]

The flag of the Lusatian National movement

After World War II according to the Potsdam Agreement, Lusatia was divided between Allied-
occupied Germany (Soviet occupation zone) and 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 during 1945 and 1946. 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 the Sorbian intelligentsia was organised 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–
1947 they produced about ten memorials [3] to the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, France,
Poland and Czechoslovakia; however, this did not bring any results. On 30 April 1946, 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 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 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 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.

Demographics[edit]
Sorbs[edit]

The bilingual part of Lusatia, where the Sorbs make more than 10% of the population

Bilingual station of Forst (Lausitz)

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
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.[when?] Sorbs make efforts to protect their traditional culture manifested in the
traditional folk costumes and 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 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