Upper Lusatia
The Oberlausitz , oberlausitzisch : Äberlausitz , Upper Sorbian ( Lower Sorbian Górna Łužyca , Czech Horní Lužice , Polish Łużyce Górne , Silesian Aeberlausitz ), is an originally politically independent region, which today belongs to about 67% to Saxony , 30% to Poland and 3% to Brandenburg . In Saxony, Upper Lusatia roughly includes the districts of Görlitz and Bautzen with a northern border between Hoyerswerda and Lauta, and in Brandenburg the southern part of the district of Oberspreewald-Lausitz around the city of Ruhland and some places to the east and south of it. The part of Upper Lusatia, which has been Polish since 1945, between the Queis rivers in the east and the Lusatian Neisse river in the west, belongs administratively to the Lower Silesian Voivodeship ( Dolnośląskie in Polish ); only a small corner around Łęknica (Lugknitz) belongs together with the Polish part of Lower Lusatia to the Lebus Voivodeship . In the south, the Upper Lusatia border corresponds to the Saxon-Czech border from Steinigtwolmsdorf in the west to Zittau and, east of it, the Polish-Czech border to Tafelfichte .
The old capital of Upper Lusatia is Bautzen . The largest city in the region, however, is Görlitz - Zgorzelec, which is divided between Germany and Poland . Upper Lusatia got its name from its northern neighbor Niederlausitz at the end of the 15th century . Originally only this Lausitz was called, which was derived from the Slavic tribe of the Lusici living there (from the old Sorbian word ług for swamp). The area of what is now Upper Lusatia initially had the Slavic name Milska , named after the Milzener Slavic tribe . Later, around 1410, the name Lausitz was adopted for the state of Budissin . From then on, a distinction was made between Upper and Lower Lusatia. The West Slavic Sorbs are at home in both Lusatia .
The yellow or gold three-tinned wall on a blue background in the coat of arms of Upper Lusatia is historically borrowed from the coat of arms of the city of Bautzen . Bautzen represented the Upper Lusatian Union of Six Cities to the outside world, whereby the coat of arms and seal of the city were recognized over time as the emblem of the six cities and later of their entire country.
Geography and nature
Geomorphologically , Upper Lusatia is shaped by the uniform Lusatian granite massif ; only the north and northeast are Pleistocene shaped. The north of the country is occupied by the flat Upper Lusatian heath and pond area . In 1996, UNESCO declared the central part of this natural area to be the Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Landscape Biosphere Reserve - in particular to protect the otter . The middle part is hilly, while the south is dominated by the Lausitzer Bergland . The highest peaks of what is now the German part of Upper Lusatia are in the Zittau Mountains , part of the Lusatian Mountains , which is mostly in the Czech Republic . The most important mountains in Upper Lusatia are: Lausche (793 m), Hochwald (749 m), Landeskrone (420 m), Löbauer Berg (448 m), Kottmar (583 m), Czorneboh (561 m), Bieleboh (499 m), Valtenberg (587 m) and Mönchswalder Berg (447 m). The highest point of the historical Upper Lusatia lies at 1072 m about 500 m northeast of the summit on the slope of the table spruce in the triangle of Upper Lusatia - Silesia - Bohemia , the lowest point at 92 m at the former confluence of the Grenzpulsnitz and the Black Elster (Elster bridge between Lauchhammer-West and Schraden) in the Tettau OL district , west of Ruhland OL.
Upper Lusatian hilly landscape to the east
The border with the Czech Republic runs across the high forest
At the highest point of Upper Lusatia: Tafelstein in the Jizera Mountains (1072 m)
Lowest point in Upper Lusatia near Tettau in Brandenburg (92 m)
.JPG)
All major rivers in Upper Lusatia flow from south to north. In the west, the Pulsnitz formerly formed the state border with Saxony. The Spree starts in the very south of the country and flows through Bautzen. The Lusatian Neisse (Polish: Nysa Łużycka ) forms the German-Polish border today. It rises in the Bohemian Jizera Mountains , occurs near Zittau in the Upper Lusatian area, flows through Görlitz and leaves the country near Bad Muskau in the direction of Lower Lusatia. Most of the smaller rivers are named as "water", often in combination with a location through which it flows. Striking are scale -called rocky Engtäler some rivers such as the Hoyerswerdaer blackwater or Löbauer water . During the Elster Cold Age, they cut deeply into the rock in the hilly zone in front of the mountainous region.
The eastern border of the old Upper Lusatia was marked by the Queis , which also flows past Lauban and flows further north in the Silesian area into the Bober . The middle, open hills and fields between Kamenz and Löbau with Bautzen in the center, the Upper Lusatian region , were particularly suitable for agriculture and are still very productive today.
In the 19th century , lignite was found in northern Upper Lusatia and in the east on both sides of the Neisse and around Hoyerswerda . Particularly the mining in the open pit has destroyed large parts of the old cultural landscape. Coal is currently still being mined in the Nochten and Reichwalde opencast mines south of Weißwasser and in the Polish part near Bogatynia in the Turów opencast mine . Many of the old lignite opencast mines have been recultivated since the 1970s, with particular emphasis being placed on the recultivation and redesign of the mining and industrial landscape, especially after 1990. The newly formed and emerging lakes are already known as the Lusatian Lake District (see also: Lusatian lignite district ).
climate
The climate of Upper Lusatia is mild to warm temperate and has a lot of rainfall (Bautzen: 599 mm per year). The effective climate classification according to Köppen-Geiger describes the region as "Cfb". The man-made climate changes are also clearly noticeable in Upper Lusatia. Between 1990 and 2010, the annual mean temperature in the Bautzen district rose from 8.7 degrees Celsius by 0.6 degrees to 9.3 degrees; During the same period, the number of summer days (days with temperatures above 25 degrees) increased from 34 to 41 days. Although periods of drought in Saxony are increasing statistically overall, Upper Lusatia is affected more than average by this change. Although the annual amounts of precipitation in Upper Lusatia have hardly changed as a result of the climate crisis , they are now distributed differently: it rains less in spring and more heavy rain in summer. This leads to noticeable problems in agriculture and devastating floods from overflowing streams.
Residents
Around 780,000 people live in Upper Lusatia, almost 157,000 of them in the Polish part east of the Neisse. Part of the country belongs to the Sorbian settlement area . Around 20,000 people speak Sorbian between Kamenz , Bautzen and Hoyerswerda . At the end of the 19th century the population of the areas north of the Bischofswerda - Wilthen - Löbau - Görlitz line was predominantly Sorbian-speaking. But the local German population is also not culturally homogeneous. The cultural boundaries can be identified quite well in the different dialect regions. While a fairly good standard of German is spoken in the Bautzen basin, the south speaks the Upper Lusatian dialect . In the east, however, Silesian is still sometimes spoken. The German-Polish twin town of Görlitz- Zgorzelec has the greatest density of population . 91,000 inhabitants currently live here, 33,000 of them in the Polish part.
The German population of Upper Lusatia is partly very old due to a trend of emigration, especially young residents, which began after German reunification and often due to a lack of career prospects and a simultaneous low birth rate.
The Polish Upper Lusatia is also sparsely populated , apart from Zgorzelec , Lubań (Lauban) and Bogatynia (Reichenau) . The area is one of the structurally weak regions in Poland. Only the Turów coal-fired power station offers a large number of industrial jobs.
history
Prehistory and early history
According to the current state of prehistoric and early historical research, the area of Upper Lusatia was already used by hunters from the Mesolithic . For the Neolithic the culture of the stitch band ceramics can be proven, followed by the funnel beaker culture , the spherical amphora culture and then the cord ceramic culture of the end Neolithic . The range of ceramic shapes of the cord ceramics can also be observed in the Bronze Age , which begins with the Aunjetitz culture . If the population already increased sharply during the Neolithic due to sedentarism, the new culture-defining material bronze promoted a further development spurt. With the Middle Bronze Age, the Lausitz culture emerged in the area of Upper and Lower Lusatia . The Iron Age Billendorf culture follows on from the Lausitz culture .
For the younger Bronze Age finds reveal a path that connects the settlement areas around Bautzen and Zittau. The fortified hilltop settlement on the Schafberg near Löbau was built along this path in the 10th century BC. Played a special role. Another important hilltop settlement from the Bronze and Iron Ages was built on the rock above the Spree, in what is now Bautzen's old town.
Slavic conquest
The land conquest by the Slavs began in the 7th century in the old settlements . The Milzener tribe settled in the area between today's cities of Kamenz and Löbau . Its center was the castle settlement on the site of today's Ortenburg in Bautzen . There was also a Slavic settlement early on in the Neisse Valley. The rural population has developed numerous Sorbian castle ramparts that, suggesting one hand tribal centers and refuges, but on the other hand, were already the residences of the Slavic nobility on early feudal development approaches.
East German settlement
The independent development of the Milzener was violently interrupted in the 10th century by the eastward expansion of the early feudal German state. With his campaigns of 921/922 and 928/929, King Heinrich I initiated the period of military subjugation of the Sorbs . The Milzener were forced to pay tribute in 932 . After 936 they were able to shake off foreign rule as a result of the tensions that broke out after Heinrich's death. It was not until 990 that Margrave Ekkehard I of Meissen was able to subjugate the Milzener. All important ramparts in the border areas were expanded and prepared as a starting point for further conquests. In place of the Milzener castles, there were German castle guardians (first mentioned in 1006) such as the Ortenburg in Bautzen or the castles in Doberschau and Göda . In 1002 Thietmar von Merseburg first mentioned the city of Bautzen. Ecclesiastically, Upper Lusatia was assigned to the Meissen Diocese, founded in 968 . In 1007 the diocese received the first donation in Milzenerland, the castles Ostrusna (probably Ostritz ) and Godobi (Göda). A further donation to the Meißner church is attested for 1091. Emperor Heinrich IV transferred five other villages in Gau Milsca (Milzenerland) to her , four of them south of Göda.
German rule was soon threatened by the strengthening Polish feudal state , which directed its expansionist efforts to the west. In 1002, Duke Bolesław I. Chrobry (the brave) forced the German King Heinrich II to enfeoff the Gau Milsca. In the Peace of Bautzen , which was concluded between the two rulers on January 30, 1018 after several changeable and bitter campaigns, the Milzenerland and the Lausitz region (today's Lower Lusatia ) initially remained free from the Duchy of Poland . It was not until 1031 that after the victory of King Konrad II over the Polish King Mieszko II Lambert , it came under the rule of the Meissen margraves again.
In 1076, King Heinrich IV transferred the Bautzen land to Duke Vratislav II of Bohemia as an imperial fief , after there had been disputes with the Saxon-Thuringian regional nobility, including the Meissen margrave, about his imperial property policy. The son-in-law of the Bohemian Duke, Count Wiprecht I von Groitzsch , led the government over the Milzenerland independently from the Ortenburg from 1084 to 1108. For the year 1144 it is documented that the provincia Zagost , the area around Seidenberg southeast of Görlitz , was part of the state of Budissin . In this region, too, the diocese of Meissen was given property. The country later called "Upper Lusatia" had reached its greatest expansion to the east as early as the 12th century, and the Queis remained the border with Silesia for a long time .
In 1156, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa entered into an alliance with the Bohemian Duke Vladislav II . In return he promised him, in addition to the royal crown, the enfeoffment of the castle and the land of Budissin; both were put into practice two years later. This marked the beginning of the first permanent Bohemian period in the history of Upper Lusatia, which was to prove momentous for the country's development.
In the first century of Bohemian rule, all of the major cities in Upper Lusatia emerged (Bautzen received city rights in 1240, Görlitz in 1303), and all of the country's important ecclesiastical institutions were founded during this period. Between 1213 and 1218, Bishop Bruno II established the St. Petri Collegiate Monastery in Bautzen , which was also richly endowed by King Přemysl Ottokar I and his successors; Queen Kunigunde founded the Cistercian convent of St. Marienthal in 1234 , which was placed under the diocese of Prague in 1244 , and Bernhard von Kamenz founded the second Cistercian convent of St. Marienstern in 1248 .
The cultivated land has been expanded by clearing since around 1100, mainly by Sorbian farmers. During this time, new places were created in the area around Hoyerswerda . Under the Bohemian kings , the development of the state in Upper Lusatia intensified in the middle of the 12th century , which was carried out in competition between the kings and the Meissen bishops. As part of the German settlement in the east , German farmers were brought into the country; they cleared large forest areas and created numerous new villages. Not infrequently, Sorbian hamlets were expanded by German settlers . The newly settled peasants were legally better off than the long-established Slavic population (the majority of the Sorbian peasants were servants and serfs who had to do slave labor ; this is how it remained in the old settlement country even after the German conquest). Because the aristocratic territories only acquired value through clearing, the German settlers received their farms as inheritance. They only had to pay low interest to the landlords and perform few services for them. They also had more land available than the farmers in the Sorbian old settlement area. The new (mostly German) village communities were also able to regulate their affairs relatively autonomously. As far as Sorbian farmers were involved in the development of the country, they always enjoyed the same rights and privileges as the German-speaking colonists.
Through immigration from the regions west of the Elbe , a separate Upper Lusatian nobility had emerged over time. This kept the land under control for the king or the margrave and received fiefs in return . The nobility consisted only of such feudal people, because after the conquest the whole land belonged to the king. Free landlords with allodial property , who made up the largest part of the nobility in Bohemia , did not exist in the Budissin region. The emergence of a ministerial nobility was impossible in Upper Lusatia, as there was never a court from the sovereign and therefore no servants. In 1241 the boundaries between the possessions of the diocese of Meißen and the crown of Bohemia were contractually regulated in the Upper Lusatian border document .
Between 1253 (death of King Wenceslas I ) and 1262 (first known Ascanic document), the Ascanians came into the possession of the country of Budissin. Neither the exact time of acquisition nor the legal form of the property - fief, marriage property or pledge - can be determined with certainty. With the appointment of bailiffs as deputies of the sovereign, the Askanians created the most important sovereign office in Upper Lusatia. In principle, the powers of the burgraves and judges from the Bohemian era were combined in one hand and even expanded. The governor was the highest official as the deputy of the sovereign. He ruled in feudal matters, stood before the Supreme Court and was military commander in chief. By and large, the basic powers of the governors remained until after the Thirty Years' War , although administrative practice changed frequently during this long period (see also Governors of Upper Lusatia ).
During the rule of the Ascanians, the division of Upper Lusatia into the states of Bautzen (Budissin) and Görlitz by Margrave Otto IV of Brandenburg in 1268 was the most important event. The independence of the two countries, which only lasted until 1329 and which revived again in the form of the Duchy of Görlitz between 1377 and 1396, had led to the permanent division of the aristocratic state community and the administration. From then on, the nobility held their own meetings in the Land of Görlitz, and this remained so even after the reunification of the two countries. Görlitz quickly gained importance as the center of the eastern part of the country and developed into the economically strongest city in the whole of Upper Lusatia.
After the Brandenburg Ascanians died out in 1319, the princes of the neighboring territories, including the Bohemian King Johann from the House of Luxembourg, claimed Upper Lusatia for themselves. According to the historiographical tradition that is closely related to the Upper Lusatian estates, they "surrendered to King Johanni Lucemburgico for protection" , but this cannot be proven with certainty. In any case, the King of Bohemia was enfeoffed with the land of Bautzen by Emperor Ludwig IV in 1319 ; the eastern half of the country, however, fell as marriage property to Heinrich I , Duke of Jauer , who ceded the country of Görlitz (with the exception of the area around Lauban ) to the Bohemian king in 1329. In the same year Johann incorporated terra et civitas goerlic into the crown of Bohemia . In other words, Upper Lusatia was closely and permanently linked to the Kingdom of Bohemia under constitutional law , without affecting its internal order.
Six cities
In 1346, the five royal cities of Upper Lusatia, Bautzen, Lauban, Löbau, Görlitz, Kamenz and the then still Bohemian Zittau, founded the six-city league . The united forces of the cities were supposed to secure the peace in the country and take action against the noble robber barons. This was also in the interests of the sovereign, Emperor Charles IV , who supported the cities with numerous privileges . The Six Cities were able to successfully assert themselves against the nobility in the following period. With their economic prosperity , so did their political influence. By purchasing numerous villages in the following 200 years, they were able to bring a significant portion of the flat land under the direct rule of the city councils. In addition, they enforced their jurisdiction over the nobility in their soft image .
Hussite Wars
When the Hussite revolution broke out in Bohemia at the beginning of the 15th century , Upper Lusatia opposed this reformation in Bohemia. In alliance with Emperor Sigismund and the Lower Lusatians, war was waged against the armies of the Hussites . Kamenz, Reichenbach, Löbau, Zittau and Lauban were conquered and devastated by the Hussites. Only the two largest cities Bautzen and Görlitz were able to withstand the siege. As a result of the war, the ties between Upper Lusatia and the Bohemian Crown were loosened and due to the weakness of the monarchy , the estates of the margravate were able to regulate their internal affairs largely without royal interference. During this time, the Upper Lusatian Landtag developed as the most important instrument of corporate freedom.
In 1469 the Upper Lusatian estates renounced the Bohemian King George of Podebrady because he adhered to the utraquist ( Kalixtine ) creed, which the Pope had condemned as heretical, even in its moderate form. The Upper Lusatians recognized the anti-king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary , who brought all the neighboring Bohemian countries ( Moravia , Silesia and Lusatia) under his rule, but could never conquer Bohemia itself. Until the Peace of Olomouc (1479), the Upper Lusatians also took part in the war for the Bohemian Crown. Matthias tried to make the administration of his countries more efficient. In Silesia he therefore appointed an Oberlandeshauptmann to whom the two Lausitzes were also subordinate. The Upper Lusatian estates saw this measure as a threat to their autonomy.
With the death of Matthias Corvinus in 1490, Upper Lusatia became part of the Bohemian kingdom again. The bailiff Georg von Stein , hated in the country , was expelled from the Bautzener Ortenburg immediately after the death of his master.
Upper Lusatian Landtag
At the end of the 15th century, the political system of the margravate was largely consolidated. The deputy of the absent sovereign was the governor, who was traditionally appointed from the nobility of one of the Bohemian crown lands. Before 1620, an Upper Lusatian governor was only once. In Bautzen and Görlitz there was still an official governor. These three officials with a few secretaries formed the entire royal administration.
The power center of the state was the upper Lusatian state parliament . From the middle of the 14th century until the division of Upper Lusatia as a result of the Congress of Vienna , the Landtag consisted of two estates, namely "the Land", formed from the Landsassen, including the estates, the knighthood and the Domstift zu Bautzen , the The Cistercian convents of St. Marienstern , St. Marienthal and the Magdalen convent in Lauban fell, as did "the cities", which meant the six cities of Upper Lusatia, which is why the estates have been referred to as "country and cities" since the 14th century. Each stand initially advised on its own, the “country” on special days, the six cities on special city days. No state parliament resolution could be passed without agreement, as the two estates in the Upper Lusatian state parliament each had only one vote. This regulation remained unchanged until the division of Upper Lusatia as a result of the Congress of Vienna. The political unity of the country was thus represented by both classes. The sovereign, represented by the governor, decided if the two estates could not agree.
The highest court was the court of the country and the cities , which was formed jointly by both estates. A decision made there was final. Appeals to the King's courts in Prague were not permitted.
In the 15th and early 16th centuries there were conflicts between the nobility and the cities over the question of the higher jurisdiction of the cities in their soft image and the amount of the shares that the two classes had to raise from the sovereign taxes.
The attempt of the nobility to establish the prelates and lords as further classes in addition to the knighthood failed; the two estates with a tie remained until the Congress of Vienna.
Development of the name Oberlausitz
In contrast to the later Lower Lusatia , the old land of the Lusitzi , the later Upper Lusatia, the land of the Milzener, lacked a uniform landscape name. Various terms were used for the area between the Pulsnitz in the west and the Queis in the east until the 16th century: "the whole country of Budissin" or "the countries of Budissin and Görlitz".
The fact that the establishment of the six-city federation in 1346 soon led to a new state name was due to the fact that not only the royal cities of Bautzen, Görlitz, Lauban, Löbau and Kamenz belonged to it, but also Zittau, which had been Bohemian up until then, and only as a result of this Federal was incorporated into the Bautzen Margraviate.
During this time, the designation “Land of the Six Cities” or “Six Cities” for short, in the Greek form “Hexapolis” or “terra hexapolitana” became established for the margravate .
The development of today's state name did not come about as a result of the cities and estates as carriers of a regional identity, but from outside. Since the 15th century, the name Lusatia has been extended more and more often from today's Niederlausitz to today's Oberlausitz. For the first time, the name Lusatia was used in the register of the University of Leipzig, founded in 1409, for all of today's Lausitz. In 1474, in the chancellery of the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus, the six-city country was subtitled as Lusatia superior , i.e. Upper Lusatia. It was not until the middle of the following century that the name of the country was gradually used by the inhabitants, the regional bearers of identity.
reformation
Only a few years after Luther posted his theses in Wittenberg (1517), Reformation ideas also spread to Upper Lusatia. The first Protestant sermons were held in Görlitz , Zittau and Bautzen in 1520 and 1521 respectively. The nobility and city councilors, however, had little interest in the new church movement and tried to prevent it from spreading. Even the king turned against the reformatory efforts in the Lausitz with sharp mandates. In Görlitz and Bautzen, however, the urban authorities soon gave in to popular pressure and officially introduced the Reformation in 1523 and 1524. The changes towards the new church system were only made in small, careful steps. In particular, the Bautzen Collegiate Foundation successfully resisted and remained Catholic for the long term. Overall, it took decades for Lutheran teaching to finally establish itself in most of the country's parishes. This was due to the fact that it was not the sovereign prince who introduced the Reformation in Upper Lusatia, but rather all local authorities (the councils of the cities and the noble landlords) ordered the new denomination for the churches under their patronage and thus decided independently on the turn to Protestantism .
Habsburg rule from 1526 to 1635
| Emperor Ferdinand I. | 1526-1564 |
| Emperor Maximilian II | 1564-1576 |
| Emperor Rudolf II | 1576-1611 |
| Emperor Matthias | 1611-1619 |
| King Friedrich I. | 1619-1620 / 21 |
| Emperor Ferdinand II. | 1620 / 21-1635 |
After the death of the Bohemian and Hungarian King Ludwig II in the Battle of Mohács , the Bohemian estates elected Ferdinand I as King of Bohemia, who in this capacity also became sovereign of Upper Lusatia. However, the estates had already recognized him as their heir because he was Ludwig II's brother-in-law. The new King Zdislav Berka von Dubá , who also administered the office of headmaster at the Prague court, appointed the bailiff . At first, the internal conditions of Upper Lusatia changed only slightly under the new rule. The quarrel between the landed gentry and the Six Cities determined political life. The disputes were conducted with all means of diplomacy. Both sides tried to win the king over to their side. However, Ferdinand made conflicting decisions. Through the mediation of the royal officials, two contracts were concluded in Prague in 1530 and 1534. Once the cities were favored and once the nobility. In this way no permanent balance could be found.
Ferdinand's inconsistent Oberlausitz policy was due to the difficult overall situation in which the Austrian Habsburg found himself. On the one hand he had to face conflicts with the powerful utraquist estates in Bohemia, on the other hand he needed the help of the estates of all his countries in order to be able to finance the Turkish war . The royal tax demands, which Ferdinand's commissioners now bring to the Upper Lusatian state parliaments almost every year, rose steadily. The king could not therefore afford to annoy the estates permanently. Under these circumstances an expansion of the sovereign power was out of the question. The Catholic king was also unable to actively intervene against the ever-growing Protestantism.
In 1537 Ferdinand I visited Upper Lusatia for the only time in his long reign. He stopped briefly in Bautzen and Görlitz, and took on the Ortenburg the country homage contrary. On this occasion, the country and cities got their old privileges confirmed, so that the Prague treaties negotiated a few years earlier became obsolete.
1546 Upper Lusatia in was Schmalkaldic war dragged on which King Ferdinand on the part of his brother Charles V took part. While the utraquist estates of Bohemia openly refused to obey the king and did not take action against the Protestants of the Schmalkaldic League, the country and cities of Upper Lusatia remained waiting. The predominantly Protestant estates then felt compelled to provide Ferdinand with money and troops in 1547, although the Wittenberg theologian Johannes Bugenhagen urged all Protestants in the Bohemian countries in his "Christian Admonition" not to fight against their co-religionists.
By chance the Six Cities incurred the wrath of King Ferdinand. They had approved their troops for only two months, and when the time was up they withdrew from the army camp on the Elbe. That was the evening before the decisive battle at Mühlberg . The order to keep the mercenaries ready had not reached the cities in time. When the war against the princes of the Schmalkaldic League was won, Ferdinand I summoned the representatives of the six cities to Prague, where they had to answer before him. In a kind of show trial, the cities were sentenced and lost all their privileges and all their land holdings. In addition, they had to pay the king the enormous sum of 100,000 guilders. This event went down in history as the Upper Lusatian Pönfall . The great power of the cities was broken, from now on they no longer had any preponderance over the country.
The following years were marked by the cities' efforts to regain old positions. Numerous estates that had been ceded to the king in the Pönfall were bought back and numerous old privileges were reacquired from the Prague court chancellery. From 1560 onwards, all six cities were able to appoint their councilors and judges themselves. In the same year the estates agreed on the so-called treatise with the king . In this document the extensive rights of the estates were set down and officially recognized by Ferdinand I.
In 1562 Ferdinand I granted the estates the so-called superior court grace. Since then, the entire aristocracy and again the cities had complete jurisdiction over their subjects. This brought the changes made by Ferdinand to the Upper Lusatian state constitution to a conclusion. The situation created around the middle of the 16th century remained largely unchanged until 1815 and determined the relationship between the estates and their rulers. As early as 1544, in the Decisio Ferdinandea named after him, the emperor had granted the nobility the privilege of precedence and defined the rights of the great Upper Lusatian dominions of Muskau , Seidenberg and Hoyerswerda . In 1548 the newly created Prague Court of Appeal was established as the last appeal instance for the Upper Lusatian jurisdiction and a year later an important new office was created with the provincial governorate. The governor should enforce the royal rights - especially with regard to taxes and duties. He was always appointed from the local nobility and was subordinate to the Bohemian Chamber in Prague.
1549 was with Christoph von Dohna for the first time a local Protestant nobleman to bailiff appointed. The owner of the Koenigsbrück rulership quickly made himself unpopular with the nobility and the cities because he was corrupt and did not properly administer the courts. The estates therefore sued Dohna with the king in Prague (the application comprised over 100 points), but the governor died before the end of the trial (1560) and, according to old tradition, only Bohemian or Silesian nobles became governors in Bautzen until the Thirty Years' War called.
Since the fifties of the sixteenth century there was a stabilization of the remaining Catholic institutions in the country. This was mainly due to the policy of the Bautzen cathedral dean, Johann Leisentrit, who came into office in 1559 . Emperor Ferdinand had appointed him commissioner for religious matters in both Lusatia. Leisentrit was nominally the church authority for Catholics and Protestants. He used this position to keep the remaining Catholic parishes for his denomination, but otherwise behaved tolerantly towards the Evangelicals. When Emperor Maximilian II also succeeded his father in Upper Lusatia in 1564, he officially allowed the estates to enter the Confessio Augustana for the first time . This assurance was also given again and again by his successors at the national homage .
Education and culture took off in the second half of the 16th century. In the cities of Görlitz, Zittau and Bautzen, grammar schools were founded, which were attended not only by citizens' sons, but also by the sons of Upper Lusatia and increasingly also the Bohemian and Lower Silesian nobility. Schools were also expanded in the other cities of Löbau, Kamenz, Lauban and even in smaller rural towns. Bautzen, in turn, received at least regional importance as a printing site. The mayor of Görlitz, Bartholomäus Scultetus , created the first map of Upper Lusatia at the end of the 16th century.
At the end of the 16th century, denominational conflicts intensified in Europe and not least in Bohemia. In the countries of the Bohemian Crown, this was due to the advances of the Counter-Reformation, which the papal nuncio in Prague, the archbishop there and the bishop of Olomouc , and especially the Jesuits, slowly achieved. The other reason was the rise of Calvinism, which was not included in the Augsburg religious peace . In the Bohemian and Austrian countries, the religious conflict was also overshadowed by the struggle for power in the state. Should this primarily lie with the predominantly Protestant estates or should it be entirely in the hands of the emperor? Although the estates had the political preponderance in Upper Lusatia and the question of religion seemed to have largely been resolved, the small margravate was also infected by the political unrest in neighboring Bohemia. The Protestant majority was concerned that the Counter-Reformation could spread to Upper Lusatia and the Catholic canons in Bautzen were no longer as willing to compromise and accommodating as they were in the Leisentrit era.
At the beginning of the 17th century relations between the estates and the then sovereign Rudolf II deteriorated . People were dissatisfied with the steadily increasing tax demands due to the Turkish wars , because the emperor was unable to achieve any tangible success. The creation of the office of Chamber Procurator (this should better enforce the financial claims of the sovereign) in 1595 had aroused the displeasure of the estates. Together with the Silesians, they also complained about the Bohemian court chancellery and demanded the establishment of a separate chancellery for the German-speaking neighboring countries of the Crown of Bohemia.
After the Protestants of Silesia and Bohemia wrested majesty letters from the emperor, weakened by the Habsburg fratricidal dispute, in 1609 and were thus recognized under national law, the Upper Lusatians also wanted to obtain such a certificate. But your efforts were unsuccessful. Emperor Matthias , who succeeded Rudolf II on the Bohemian throne in 1611, also refused the Protestant Oberlausitzers the letter of majesty . This was one of the most important reasons that Upper Lusatia joined the Bohemian class uprising in 1618/19 after the second lintel in Prague .
When the unrest began in Bohemia, the Upper Lusatian estates initially acted passively. They ignored the urgent calls from the Bohemians to support them in the war against the Habsburgs. Only after the death of Emperor Matthias in March 1619 did they change their policy. They joined the Bohemian Confederation and were involved in the deposition of Ferdinand II and the election of Frederick V (nickname: Winter King) as King of Bohemia. The goal of the Protestant estates of the margraviate was to make Upper Lusatia a completely Protestant country. They wanted to get rid of the Catholic Bautzen Cathedral , introduce Protestant pastors in the few still Catholic places and finally found their own regional church. However, they were reluctant to bear the military risk and the associated costs of raising troops for the Winter King, who was being harassed by the Catholic League, and when the war spread to Upper Lusatia they were unable to offer effective resistance. The Elector Johann Georg von Sachsen , who was allied with Ferdinand II, was able to occupy Upper Lusatia between September 1619 and January 1620 without major fighting .
.jpg)
For his military aid against the rebellious Bohemian countries, the Saxon elector had been promised financial compensation by the emperor. If no payment was made, the Lausitzes should be handed over to the Wettiner as a deposit. Ferdinand II could not pay and in 1623 had to grant the pledge for both margravate. The handover was regulated in the so-called immission recess. As a result, Upper Lusatia escaped the imperial counter-reformation, which led to the prohibition of Protestant denominations and churches in Bohemia and Moravia in the 1920s. In the period that followed, many religious refugees from Bohemia came to Upper Lusatia. They mainly settled in Zittau and the neighboring weaving villages in the Lausitz mountainous region, where their industry led to an economic boom.
Under Saxon electors from 1635 until the division in 1815
The Prague Peace of 1635 bound the two Lausitzes (Upper and Lower Lusatia) to the Electorate of Saxony.
The Upper Lusatia was formally given to the Saxon Elector Johann Georg I through the traditional recession in Görlitz on 14/24. April 1636 handed over as hereditary Bohemian fief. Associated with this was the regulation that the religious conditions of the “Margraviate of Upper Lusatia” remained untouched and the estates retained their rights. The Upper Lusatia thus remained a separate country under constitutional law and could not be merged with the Saxon heartlands. Thus, Saxon state law did not necessarily apply to Upper Lusatia and had to be decided by the assembly of the estates in the state parliament.
In 1666, Johann Georg II established the Bautzen mint for Upper Lusatia, where he had the right to mint , in order to create a suitable mint for trade with Silesia and Bohemia. Since the state of the Electorate of Saxony expressed concerns about the impaired coinage and the hoped-for profit from the minting failed to materialize, the mint was closed the following year and its equipment was brought to the Dresden mint .
Freedom of religion (more precisely: the landlord determined the religion) not only meant that the two monasteries of St. Marienstern ( Panschwitz-Kuckau ) and St. Marienthal ( Ostritz ) as well as the Bautzen cathedral monastery were preserved in the predominantly Protestant Upper Lusatia , but also that religious refugees from Bohemia also settled. The best known settlement is the Moravian Brethren .
In 1779 the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences was founded by Adolph Traugott von Gersdorf and Karl Gottlob Anton , and in 1811 the "Ornithological Society of Görlitz", today's natural research society of Upper Lusatia, was founded by the cloth merchant Johann Gottlieb Kretzschmar . In the battle of Bautzen on 20./21. May 1813 Napoleon I was able to achieve his last major victory.
Saxon and Prussian Upper Lusatia (1815–1945)
At the Congress of Vienna (1815), the Kingdom of Saxony suffered major territorial losses in favor of Prussia . Among other things, half of Upper Lusatia and Görlitz had to be ceded. The Upper Lusatian estates had tried to the last to prevent the division of the country. Among other things, they had turned to the Austrian Chancellor Metternich with a petition. However, this initiative was unsuccessful. The new border cut the country from northwest to southeast. It ran south of Ruhland and Wittichenau in the direction of Reichenbach / OL , met the Lausitzer Neisse south of Görlitz and ran along the Wittig to the Bohemian border (all the places mentioned here fell to Prussia). The arbitrarily drawn border cut through a political, economic, cultural and ecclesiastical unit that had grown over 800 years: of the six cities, two (Görlitz and Lauban) now belonged to the Prussian state. The effectiveness of the old Upper Lusatian Estates Assembly was limited to the rest of Saxony. The settlement area of the Upper Sorbs was now divided between two states. The ecclesiastical autonomy of the Protestants came to an end in Upper Lusatia and they were incorporated into the Church of the Old Prussian Union , Church Province of Silesia. The few Catholics of the Lausitz administration were also divided. The villages of the two monasteries St. Marienstern and St. Marienthal were now on both sides of the border. The Catholic parishes of Prussian Upper Lusatia were finally subordinated to the Prince Diocese of Breslau in 1821 . After 1815, the Prussian government began immediately with the urgently needed modernization of the administration in its part of Upper Lusatia. After a few experiments, four districts were formed in the 1920s and integrated into the province of Silesia . It was only at this relatively late point in time that the Silesian area expanded westward across the Queis . Before that, Upper Lusatia had never belonged to Silesia, although both countries were mostly ruled by a common sovereign, the Bohemian King , from the 13th to 17th centuries . In 1945 the Prussian parts of Upper Lusatia that had remained in Germany after the Second World War came back to Saxony, the Saxon-Prussian division gave way to a German-Polish division.
Especially in the southern part of Saxon Upper Lusatia, but also in the Prussian part of Upper Lusatia, it was possible after 1815 to successfully build on old traditions, especially in the manufacture of textiles, but also in many other trades. The region was one of the early industrial areas in Germany. As early as 1836, business people from Saxony and Prussia came together to plan and build the Dresden – Breslau railway line across Upper Lusatia. Construction began in 1844, two years later the Upper Lusatian section of the line to Löbau was completed and in September 1847 the trains ran continuously from Dresden to Wroclaw.
The special legal status of Upper Lusatia was eliminated by the Saxon constitution of 1831 . In the years that followed, the traditional system of estates was gradually replaced by the institutions of the modern state. For the area of the Saxon Upper Lusatia the district main team Bautzen was formed. Until the 1850s, the peasant population was relieved of inheritance.
In the Prussian Upper Lusatia, Görlitz in particular benefited from integration into the largest German state. A wide range of industrial companies settled here. There were good rail connections to the largest sales markets in Berlin and Breslau.
Since the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the Sorbs have been exposed to increasing repression . As an instrument of oppression, the new rulers were able to some time in the Amtshauptmannschaft Bautzen existing Wend Division draw. From 1937 onwards, all of their clubs and the entire Sorbian press were gradually banned. Teaching in the mother tongue and religious instruction in Sorbian were also no longer permitted. In 1940 all Sorbian Catholic priests were expelled from Upper Lusatia. The National Socialist racial policy towards the Sorbs was not clear. In addition to humiliation and oppression, there was an attempt to integrate the Wends into the “Germanic master race” well into the Second World War. Therefore they were called "Wendish speaking Germans" in order to separate them from the other Slavs. Numerous place names of Sorbian origin were renamed in the course of Germanization in 1936/37 . Considerations to deport the entire Slavic people to the General Government were not implemented due to the course of the war.
During the Second World War, Upper Lusatia was largely spared from air raids. In 1945, however, it became a combat zone. First of all, this affected the city of Lauban , which had already been captured by the Red Army in February but was recaptured by the Germans. That is why the Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels staged his last weekly newsreel appearance in Lauban with the usual perseverance slogans. In April 1945 the last fighting took place near Bautzen and Kamenz. They were related to actions by the Red Army, which were aimed on the one hand at the capture of Berlin and on the other hand at the occupation of Dresden and the advance into Bohemia. Hoyerswerda was bombed by the British Air Force through a mistake that it was the Lauta aluminum plant. While there was still war-related destruction in Bautzen, this could be prevented in Kamenz, because some citizens disregarded the orders of the Nazi authorities and surrendered the city to the Russians without resistance. In contrast to many Germans, many Sorbs perceived the arrival of the Red Army as liberation from National Socialist-ethnic discrimination and forced assimilation.
Latest history since World War II
After the Second World War, the part of Upper Lusatia east of the Neisse came under Polish administration. Unless they had fled in the last weeks of the war, the German population was expelled by the end of summer 1945. Soon afterwards Poles (especially people who had been driven from the areas that fell under the Soviet Union) were settled. In the eastern part of the now divided city of Görlitz, thousands of refugees from the Greek civil war were also housed in the first post-war years . In the first post-war conferences, the USSR advocated adding Upper Lusatia to Czechoslovakia, but soon abandoned this position.
The Sorbian umbrella organization Domowina was one of the first democratic associations to be re-approved by the Soviet occupation authorities; after initial problems , the construction of the house of the Sorbs , which was carried out by her, received state support. Upper Lusatia, west of the Neisse, was assigned to the state of Saxony by the Soviet occupying forces. When the GDR government dissolved the federal states in 1952, most of the land was assigned to the Dresden district. The districts of Hoyerswerda and Weißwasser in the north (with several lignite mines) were added to the "energy district" Cottbus.
Although the German part of Upper Lusatia has largely belonged to Saxony since 1990, the division of the state almost 200 years ago has left deep marks. In the east of the country in particular there are disputes over historical identity. One parliamentary group (reinforced by the displaced persons who came to the country in 1945 and their descendants) emphasizes the legacy of the Prussian-Silesian period. These efforts are also supported by local homeland and music associations as well as organizations for displaced persons. The region is sometimes referred to as Silesian Lusatia or Lower Silesian Upper Lusatia because of its 130-year membership in the Prussian province of Silesia .
The other side rather refers to the centuries-long unity of Upper Lusatia before the Congress of Vienna and sees the division of 1815 as an arbitrary Prussian act, since the new Saxon-Silesian border cuts through a historically grown unit. Due to the centuries-long ties between Upper Lusatia and the Crown of Bohemia before the Saxon period, there were many historical and cultural similarities with Silesia, which is why the development of a Silesian identity between 1815 and 1945 could take place without any difficulties.
Another clue for this ambivalent relationship with Saxony and Brandenburg was the decision of the Evangelical Church of Silesian Upper Lusatia in 2003 to merge with the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and not with the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Saxony . The main reason was probably that the EKBB and the EKsOl were both united churches based on their common Prussian history, with both Lutheran and Reformed roots.
When the Saxon constitution was drawn up in 1990 and the local government was reorganized, the Silesian parliamentary group prevailed. That is why the preamble of the Saxon constitution expressly mentions the Lower Silesian areas as a part of the country with special historical traditions and the district newly formed in 1994 on the Neisse was named Lower Silesian Upper Lusatia District . An independent administrative district "Lower Silesia" or "Upper Lusatia" with its seat in Görlitz, as demanded by some, was not formed. With the district reform of 2008 , both the names Lower Silesia and Upper Lusatia disappeared from the administrative division of Saxony.
Culture
Typical for Upper Lusatia is a "rolling R" in usage, which characterizes the Upper Lusatian dialect and is spoken mainly in the higher-lying communities. The half-timbered houses , a combination of half-timbered and solid construction with shingle roofs, are typical of houses. Well-known stories and legends are those of " Prager Hansel ", the legend about Krabat and Pumphut . Contrary to the tradition of the Easter fire in many areas of Lower Lusatia, there is a witch's fire here on Walpurgis Night . In the Sorbian-Catholic parishes and around Ostritz , the Easter riders proclaim the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. The custom of the Easter shooting is especially cultivated in the Lusatian Mountains .
Since 2014, the Upper Lusatia or Upper Lusatia Day has been held annually on August 21. This is a regional day of action and remembrance, on which residents and friends of Upper Lusatia, associations, institutions and businesses are called upon to organize activities and events.
Celebrations and events
- Bautzen Spring - end of May
- Day of the open framework house - end of May
- Slide stool days - mid-June
- Eibauer beer train - end of June
- Silesian Tippelmarkt - mid-July
- International Folklore Festival Lausitz - every two years in mid-July
- Jacobimarkt Neugersdorf (Gierschdurfer Schiss'n) - end of July
- Zittau City Festival - July / August
- Day of Upper Lusatia - August 21 (festive days in the whole of Upper Lusatia from the weekend before to the weekend after August 21)
- Kamenz Forest Festival - August
- Görlitz Old Town Festival - late August / early September
- City Festival Hoyerswerda - September
- Lusatian Fish Weeks - September to November
- Bautzen Wenceslas Market - December
Special plants
The flora of Upper Lusatia is shaped by the natural areas of the Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Area in the north, Upper Lusatian climes in the middle and the Lusatian Bergland and Zittau Mountains in the south.
Particular types of Oberlausitz belonged to 1900, the Gray Schei digestion feather grass that Violette mullein and Ordinary Frans Hauswurz continue forest Nabelnüsschen , Attich , bellflower , the Hasenlattich and Grove Ragwort and the Hairy chervil .
literature
General treatises
- Collection of the privileges relating to the statum des Marggrafthums Oberlausitz in Justiz-Polizey and other matters . 6 volumes and registers, Budissin 1770–1827.
- Gottlieb Friedrich Otto : Lexicon of the Upper Lusatian writers and artists who died and are now living since the fifteen centuries. 3 volumes, Görlitz 1800–1803 (on this: Supplement volume, edited by MJD Schulze, Görlitz / Leipzig 1821).
- Johann Gottfried Theodor Sintenis : The Upper Lusatia, an instructive and entertaining reader, excellent for all those who take a very special interest in this country. Zittau 1812 ( full text in the Google book search).
- Collectanea Lusatica. Collection of Lusatian writings and files. Finding aid . Edited by Tino Fröde, Olbersdorf 1997, OCLC 315120641 .
- Joachim Bahlcke (ed.): History of the Upper Lusatia. Dominion, society and culture from the Middle Ages to the end of the 20th century . 2nd revised edition. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-935693-46-X . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- Karlheinz Blaschke : Contributions to the history of Upper Lusatia . Oettel, Görlitz 2000, ISBN 3-932693-59-0 .
- Breslau Academic Association for Lausitzian History and Language: The unification of Upper Lusatia under Bohemian rule in the fourteenth century . Breslau 1841. ( full text in the google book search).
- Guido Erbrich, Rafael Ledschbor, Anja Pohontsch, Mirko Pohontsch: Where Krabat learned to do magic. Out and about in the Sorbian Upper Lusatia. Domowina-Verlag , Bautzen 2010, ISBN 978-3-7420-2152-6 .
- Tino Fröde: Privileges and Statutes of the Upper Lusatian Six Cities - A foray into the organization of urban life in Zittau, Bautzen, Görlitz, Löbau, Kamenz and Lauban in the early modern period. Oberlausitzer Verlag, Spitzkunnersdorf 2008, ISBN 978-3-933827-88-3 .
- Alfred Moschkau : Guide through the cities of Bautzen, Bischofswerda, Camenz, Löbau, Herrnhut, Görlitz, Lauban, Zittau and their surroundings . Dietze, Dresden 1872 ( digitized version )
- Lutz Mohr : History-Fate-Shaping. In search of historical traces between Oberlausitzer Bergland and Schluckenauer Zipfel . Oberlausitzer Verlag, Zittau 2019, ISBN 978-3-946795-22-3 .
- Alfred Moschkau : Guide through Upper Lusatia with special consideration of the Zittau Mountains (Oybin, Hochwald, Lausche, Isarkamm etc.) and the neighboring Bohemia , Verlag Louis Senf, Leipzig 1880 ( digitized in the SLUB )
- Frank Nürnberger (Ed.): Upper Lusatia. Beautiful home. Oberlausitzer Verlag , Spitzkunnersdorf 2004, ISBN 3-933827-42-6 .
- Frank Nürnberger: Pictures from Upper Lusatia. Oberlausitzer Verlag, Spitzkunnersdorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-933827-98-2 .
- Siegfried Schlegel (Ed.): Upper Lusatia, a lovable piece of Germany - a little about the country. Bautzen printing and publishing house, 2008, ISBN 978-3-930625-45-1 .
- Arnold Freiherr von Vietinghoff-Riesch : The Upper Lusatian Forest. Its history and structure up to 1945. M. & H. Schaper. Hanover 1961. (Reprint: Oberlausitzer Verlag, Bautzen 2001, ISBN 3-933827-46-9 )
- Theodor Scheltz: Total history of the Upper and Lower Lusatia edited according to old chronicles and documents .
- Volume 1, Hall 1847 ( digitized version ).
- Hermann Knothe : History of the Upper Lusatian nobility and its goods from the XIII. until the end of the XVI. Century . Leipzig 1879 ( digitized ).
Encyclopedic Articles
- Lausitz , encyclopedia entry, in: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition, Volume 12, Leipzig / Vienna 1908, pp. 254-257 ( Zeno.org ).
Series of values of the German homeland
- Around Bautzen and Schirgiswalde (= values of the German homeland . Volume 12). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1967.
- The south-eastern Upper Lusatia with Zittau and the Zittau Mountains (= values of the German homeland . Volume 16). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1970.
- Between Strohmberg, Czorneboh and Kottmar (= values of our homeland . Volume 24). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1974.
- Lausitzer Bergland around Pulsnitz and Bischofswerda (= values of our homeland . Volume 40). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1983.
- Western Upper Lusatia between Kamenz and Königswartha (= values of our homeland . Volume 51). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-05-000708-7 .
- Görlitz and its surroundings (= values of the German homeland . Volume 54). 1st edition. Verlag Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1994, ISBN 3-7400-0932-2 .
- Between Löbau and Herrnhut (= values of the German homeland . Volume 56). 1st edition. Verlag Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1996, ISBN 3-7400-0935-7 .
- Upper Lusatian heather and pond landscape (= values of the German homeland . Volume 67). 1st edition. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2005, ISBN 978-3-412-08903-0 .
Economic history
- Erhard Hartstock: Teichwirtschaft in der Oberlausitz: Outline of the history from the beginnings to 1945 Paperback, Lusatia-Verlag, 2004, ISBN 978-3-936758-08-5
- Hermann Knothe: History of the cloth making trade in Upper Lusatia up to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Burdach, Dresden 1883 ( digitized version )
- Wolfgang Koschke, Steffen Menzel: Rennherd - Hammer - Hüttenwerk. The history of Lausitzer Eisens , Verlag Gunter Oettel, Görlitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-938583-21-0 (contains a catalog of the locations of iron hammers and ironworks in both the German and Polish parts of Upper Lusatia)
- Steffen Menzel: The iron industry in Upper Lusatia from the late Middle Ages to the middle of the 19th century. 2008 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Literature about Upper Lusatia in the Saxon Bibliography
- Upper Lusatia life (regional perspectives)
- Private website for the Oberlausitz region
- Link catalog on the topic of Upper Lusatia at curlie.org (formerly DMOZ )
- Lusatia-Verband eV - The network for Upper Lusatia
Individual evidence
- ↑ Torsten Richter: Upper Lusatia is also Brandenburg. In: Lausitzer Rundschau , June 15, 2013.
- ↑ Climate Data (2020). Climate Bautzen. Access date: August 21, 2020. https://de.climate-data.org/europa/deutschland/sachsen/bautzen-9552/
- ↑ a b c Sebastian Kositz: Climate change and the consequences. In: Sächsische Zeitung , August 11, 2017.
- ↑ cf. z. B. Breslau Academic Association for Lausitzian History and Language: The unification of Upper Lusatia under Bohemian rule in the fourteenth century . Breslau 1841 ( full text )
- ↑ Martin Reuther : The Upper Lusatia as a history space. Essence and character . In: sheets for German national history . No. 93, 1957, pp. 102-128.
- ↑ Lenka Bobková: Zittau in the Six Cities and the Politics of Charles IV . In: Gunter Oettel, Volker Dudeck (Hrsg.): 650 years of Upper Lusatian Six Cities. 1346-1996 . Bad Muskau 1997, pp. 37–47 ( communications from the Zittau History and Museum Association 25).
- ^ A b Hermann Knothe: The various names of the current Margraviate of Oberlausitz . In: Archives for Saxon History . New series, No. 1, 1875, pp. 69-74.
- ^ Information on the Upper Lusatia Day from the Görlitz district and Hans Klecker
- ↑ Oscar Drude: The Hercynian flora district: Basic features of the plant distribution in the central German mountain and hill country from the Harz to the Rhön, to the Lausitz and the Bohemian Forest . Engelmann, Leipzig 1902.
Coordinates: 51 ° 10 ′ 0 ″ N , 14 ° 20 ′ 0 ″ E