page_title: Sorbs
section_title: Early modern period
hierarchical_section_title: Sorbs / History / Early modern period
caption_attribution_description: Hornjoserbsce: Serbski dom, sydło Domowiny, Załožby za serbski lud a dalšich institucijow, na Póstowym naměsće w Budyšinje.Deutsch: Das Haus der Sorben (Serbski dom), Sitz der Domowina, der Stiftung für das sorbische Volk und weiterer Institutionen auf dem Postplatz in Bautzen/Budyšin.English: House of the Sorbs (Serbski dom), seat of Domowina and other Sorbian institutions on Postplatz in Bautzen/Budyšin.Čeština: „Srbský dům“ (Serbski dom) v Budyšíně, sídlo Domowiny a dalších institucí.Polski: Dom Serbołużycki (Serbski dom) w Budziszynie, siedziba Domowiny i innych instytucji.
context_page_description: Sorbs are a West Slavic ethnic group predominantly inhabiting Lusatia, a region divided between Germany and Poland. Sorbs traditionally speak the Sorbian languages, which are closely related to Polish, Kashubian, Czech, and Slovak. Sorbian is an officially recognized minority language in Germany. Sorbs are linguistically and genetically closest to the Czechs and Poles.
  Under German rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, policies were implemented in an effort to Germanize the Sorbs. These policies reached their climax under the Nazi regime, who denied the existence of the Sorbs as a distinct Slavic people through referring to them as "Sorbian-speaking Germans", and persecuted them fiercely. Due to a gradual and increasing assimilation between the 17th and 20th centuries, virtually all Sorbs also spoke German by the late 19th century and many of the current generation no longer speak the Sorbian language. The community is divided religiously between Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism. The former Prime Minister of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich, is of Sorbian origin.
context_section_description: Between 1376 and 1635 Lusatia was part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, under the rule of the Luxembourgs, Habsburgs and other kings. From the beginning of the 16th century the whole Sorbian-inhabited area, with the exception of Lusatia, underwent Germanization. In 1635 Lusatia became a fiefdom of Saxon electors, but it retained a considerable autonomy and largely its own legal system (see Lusatian League). The Thirty Years' War and the plague of the 17th century caused terrible devastation in Lusatia. This led to further German colonization and Germanization.
  In 1667 the Prince of Brandenburg, Frederick Wilhelm, ordered the immediate destruction of all Sorbian printed materials and banned saying masses in this language. At the same time the Evangelical Church supported printing Sorbian religious literature as a means of fighting the Counterreformation. In 1706 the Sorbian Seminary, the main centre for the education of Sorbian Catholic priests, was founded in Prague. Evangelical students of theology formed the Sorbian College of Ministers.
caption: "House of the Sorbs" (Serbski dom) in Bautzen
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