The Wendish Research Exchange - Barker, Peter: Sorbian Ethnic Interests, the GDR State and the Cold War (1945–1971)

Lětopis Abstract 2009 2: Barker, Peter: Sorbian Ethnic Interests, the GDR State and the Cold War (1945–1971)

The development of the Sorbian minority during this period presents a clear example of the clash between international, national and local ethnic politics, in which local interests were subservient to national and international interests. The result was continuing assimilation despite the introduction of a network of cultural institutions and support from neighbouring Slav countries in the very early period up to 1948, especially from Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The SED, under pressure from the Soviet administration, did embark on a policy of support for Sorbian culture and language through the creation of a network of Sorbian cultural institutions in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but ethnic politics became subservient to national and international politics, and Sorbian leaders had to accept that, or face the consequences. The only structures which were able to provide significant support were the Churches, in particular the Catholic Church, where a Sorbian identity was equated with a Catholic religious identity. It was here the grassroots in the Sorbian community found its local support, as the Domowina had been forced to give way to the pressures of national policy, which, despite the rhetoric, did not always have Sorbian ethnic interests at the heart of its concerns. Also, it could not escape the political influence of the Cold War, which meant that the external activities of the Domowina, especially those which took place in the context of the German-German conflict, were constrained by the superpower conflict in the Cold War.