The Wendish Research Exchange - Pałys, Piotr: The Lusatian Castellany. A Memorandum by Bohdan Gębarski, May 1946

Lětopis Abstract 2022 1: Pałys, Piotr: The Lusatian Castellany. A Memorandum by Bohdan Gębarski, May 1946

Bohdan Gębarski was already actively involved in the Lusatian cause because of his work for the Polish state in the Polish underground. In the spring of 1946, he sent a memorandum to the Deputy Prime Minister, Władysław Gomułka, in which he proposed the setting-up of an autonomous territory of Lusatia on the Polish western frontier along the river Oder and the Lusatian Neiße river to secure the western frontier of Poland. The creation of an administrative territory under the name Lusatian Castellany was intended to represent the first step towards achieving independence for Lusatia. This territory would stretch eastwards of the Lusatian Neiße and would be placed directly under the administration of the Ministry for the Reclaimed Territories. This territory was intended to provide a refuge for Sorbian patriots and to act as a center for education and propaganda, while at that same time continuing to be under Polish jurisdiction. The creation of the castellany was meant to represent the beginning of the actual process leading to the liberation of Lusatia, whose frontiers, according to Gębarski, were intended to run along the watersheds of the three most important Sorbian rivers, the Schwarze Elster, the Spree and the Lusatian Neiße. Such plans had no chance of achieving greater prominence in the political realities of 1946. The Polish government had no intention of going beyond the political stance of the Soviet Union regarding Lusatia.