Jurij Grós

Jurij Grós (German Jurij Groß ; born January 1, 1931 in Wendischbaselitz ; † December 28, 2019 in Bautzen ) was a Sorbian politician and political representative of the Sorbs in the GDR . He was the first secretary of Domowina for many years . He represented this with a mandate from the SED as a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR.

Life

Grós was born on January 1st, 1931 as the son of a stone worker in Wendischbaselitz. After the end of the war, he began an apprenticeship as a carpenter in 1945, which he completed in 1948 with a journeyman's certificate. In 1948 and 1949 Grós completed a new teacher training course at the Sorbian Teacher Training Institute in Radibor . This was connected with joining the SED. He then worked as a teacher until 1953. In 1954, Grós moved to the SED party apparatus, initially becoming an instructor in the Kamenz SED district leadership. Shortly afterwards, in 1954 and 1955, he was the first secretary of the FDJ district leadership in Kamenz. In 1955, Grós moved to Domowina, where he was first elected 2nd Secretary of the Federal Board. In June 1964 he was elected first secretary of the national board of Domowina. On the VI. Parliament of the FDJ in Rostock In 1959, Grós was also elected as a Sorbian representative to the Central Council of the FDJ , of which he remained a member until 1971. Between 1962 and 1967, Grós also completed a distance learning course at the party college "Karl Marx" , which he graduated with a degree in social science. In 1969, Groß was elected to the Presidium of the National Council of the National Front for the first time , a position he held until the political change.

At the 8th Federal Congress of Domowina in March 1973, the incumbent chairman Kurt Krjeńc announced his resignation from office for health reasons. This office was abolished and Grós, as the re-elected 1st Secretary of the National Board of Domowina, became the new leader of the Sorbian national organization. Through this election he was co-opted shortly afterwards as a member of the SED district leadership in Dresden. However, Grós was not elected to the Central Committee of the SED. In 1981 he was nominated as the successor to the SED for the People's Chamber before he was elected as a member of the GDR parliament in 1986 . During the political change in the GDR in autumn 1989, Grós initially remained in a leading position - unlike in other mass organizations. He led the Domowina as chairman from November 1989 to the working committee of the federal board up to the extraordinary federal congress on March 17, 1990 in Bautzen, one day before the first free elections to the People's Chamber . There Grós originally wanted to run again for the Domowina chairmanship, but withdrew his candidacy shortly before. Nevertheless, he, who almost symbolized the old political system of the GDR, was elected Deputy Federal Chairman. It can be assumed that this also happened under the impression of his promising candidacy for a mandate from the People's Chamber. Grós ran in the Dresden district for the PDS in second place on the list. Since six MPs were elected for this party in the Dresden district, he represented the Domowina in the last People's Chamber under the PDS mandate. In April 1990, however, he first resigned from his offices at Domowina. In 1993, however, he was re-elected to the federal executive committee, of which he was a member until 2005. From 1994 to 1998 he was also chairman of the PDS district association in Bautzen. He then represented the PDS or Die Linke from 1999 to 2011 in the district council of the Bautzen district .

In the 1990s and 2000s, Grós published his view of Sorbian social life and the Sorbian politics of the GDR and FRG in several books.

Honors

• 1978 Ćišinski Prize

literature

• Jurij Grós: Na wšěm wina je ta Domowina? Ludowe nakładnistwo Domowina Budyšin, 1992, ISBN 3-7420-0931-1 .
• Jurij Groß: Nationality: German - Nationality: Sorbe. Schkeuditz, 2003, ISBN 3-89819-168-0 . 368 pp.
• Jurij Groß: Inquiry after 20 years. Considerations on the national situation of the Sorbs. Bautzen, 2009, ISBN 978-3-930625-49-9 . 336 pp.
• Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Jurij Groß . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of March 19, 1990 p. 2
2. ↑ Neues Deutschland from November 18, 1978 p. 4