The Wendish Research Exchange

Schuster-Šewc, Heinz: The Place Names of Lusatia – Notes on the Present State of Research

mersiowsky - 10-2-2016 at 11:40 AM

Lětopis Abstract 2008 2: Schuster-Šewc, Heinz: The Place Names of Lusatia – Notes on the Present State of Research

The complete source material from scientific analyses of place names is now available thanks to the intensive research into place names conducted in Leipzig and Berlin since the 1950s. The Sorb, Ernst Mucke-Muka, had already created important premises for their interpretation. In 1973 the popular science work of Jan Meschgang, “The Place Names of Upper Lusatia,” appeared after his death, and was followed in 1975 by “The Place Names of Lower Lusatia” by Ernst Eichler, which had similar goals, and in 1993 by “The Place Name Book of Lower Lusatia” by Siegfried Kφrner. Building on the above works Walter Wenzel followed with two further publications: “The Lower Lusatian Book of Place Names” (2006) and “The Upper Lusatian Book of Place Names” (2008). This present piece undertakes above all a critical analysis of the two last publications and suggests a number of its own different interpretations of names.