Language death occurs usually as a combination of circumstances. In the Lower Sorbian area the cohesion of the language area with its dialectal features was considerably reduced by moving entirevillage populations to other areas in order to get easily to the lignite coal deposits. This in itself required more effort to speak the language across […]
This article by Dr. Peter Barker first appeared in: Dislocation and Reorientation. Exile, Division and the End of Communism in German Culture and Politics, ed. Axel Goodbody, Pól Ó Dochartaigh Denis Tate, German Monitor No. 71, Rodopi, Amsterdam/New York, 2009, pp. 179-195. -0- This chapter will highlight three particular points in the post-war social development of
Dislocation and Reorientation in the Sorbian Community (1945-2008) by Peter Barker Read More »
This article by Dr. Peter Barker first appeared in Editions Rodopi, German Monitor, no. 75 in 2012. -0- Jurij Brězan was the major Sorbian writer of the 20th Century, who was known above all for his novels, a genre which before 1945 hardly existed in Sorbian literature. Despite his view that his most important task was
Re-writing My Life and Work: Jurij Brězan’s Autobiographical Writings by Peter Barker Read More »
Dr. Charles Wukasch shares some memories. -0- As I’ve pointed out several times, the Miertschins were one of the Serbin families which kept up Wendish for a number of years. If my memory serves me correctly, Carl Miertschin (the father of TWHS member Monroe) told me that his grandfather came over on the Ben Nevis.
Frederick the Great and a Wendish Soldier Read More »
Last month I was reading through the post titled “Serbin in the News by Weldon Mersiovsky” on The Wendish Research Exchange website under the “Wend Blogs” on “Weldon’s Wendish Works”. I found the information to be very interesting. There were several references about some kind of disagreement between two doctors named Molette (also spelled Mallette
The Discovery of J. H. Dunk Read More »
I’ve been asked to expand a bit on my earlier blog on the Wendish language in Texas. I’m titling this “Five Wends in Texas.” Albert Miertschin The first I wish to mention is Albert Miertschin. There was an article in 1962 or 1963 in the Austin American-Statesman about Albert and the Texas Wendish community. When
Five Wends in Texas Read More »
This document was written by David Goeke in response to a question posed by Dr Charles Wukasch in his Blog, titled “Question on German Orthography.” It is presented here because it merits its own place in Dave’s blog. I’m jumping into this conversation in a rather unorthodox manner (what else is new), but, I wanted
From Wendish to German to English Read More »
Weldon Mersiovsky asked me to look through the 19th-century issues of Serbske Nowiny to see if there were references to the Wendish migrations. I went through a number of them on-line and found a few things. One thing that surprised me was that, although 99.9% of the articles, advertisements, etc. were in the old Fraktur script, I did come across
Question on German Orthography Read More »
Danny Mattijetz is my first cousin on my mother’s side of the family. The Mattijetz family was a close knit family so we saw each other often as we grew up. We continued to stay in touch. Recently, we both started posting on Facebook, and that is where Danny found out I was looking for
Modern Day Inventor Read More »
The Diary of Spruce McCoy Baird is held in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. The transcription of the diary was purchased from the Library in 2015. it is valuable to Wendish researchers in that it mentions Serbin and the conditions in the United States in the immediate years following the Civil
The Diary of Spruce McCoy Baird Read More »
