“Freedom beckons!”

The Sorbs are a national minority without a state of their own. Their traditional settlement area is Lusatia, a region in southeastern Germany that borders the Czech Republic and Poland and has close ties to both. Calls for autonomy and national independence gained increasing influence among the Sorbs/Wends from the nineteenth century onwards. “Freedom beckons!” proclaimed a hopeful slogan in early 1919, at a time when the map of Europe was being redrawn in the aftermath of the First World War. The exhibition comprises 13 themes:

​1. The Sorbs of Lusatia · Łužiscy Serbja

​2. In the German Empire: Nation – State – Identity? · W kejžorstwje: narod – stat – identita?

​3. The First World War, Defeat and Revolution · Prěnja swětowa wójna, poražka a rewolucija

​4. The “Wendish State” · „Serbski stat“

​5. Peace Negotiations and the Sorbian Question · Měrowe jednanja a serbske prašenje

​6. The Sorbs and Czechoslovakia · Serbja a Čěskosłowakska

​7. Sorbian Friendship Associations in Europe · Serbske přećelske towarstwa w Europje

​8. Politics and Minority Rights · Politika a mjeńšinowe prawa

​9. Sorbian Culture in the Weimar Republic · Serbska kultura we Weimarskej republice

​10. Under State Surveillance: the “Wends Department” · Pod statnym dohladom: Wendenabteilung

​11. The Nazi “Volksgemeinschaft” and Persecution · NS-„Volksgemeinschaft“ a přesćěhanje

​12. The GDR: “Fatherland of the Sorbs”? · NDR: „Wótčina Serbow“?

​13. Minority Protection and Democracy · Mjeńšinowy škit a demokratija