Pawoł Nedo

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Pawoł Nedo (around 1970)

Pawoł Nedo , German Paul Nedo (born November 1, 1908 in Kotitz ; † May 24, 1984 in Leipzig ), was a Sorbian educator and ethnologist and from 1933 to 1937 and from 1945 to 1951 chairman of Domowina , the umbrella organization of Sorbian associations. He is one of the most important personalities of the Sorbian movement of the 20th century.

Life

Pawoł Nedo was born on what was then the eastern edge of the Sorbian language area. The mother, a village tailor, and the father, a locomotive heater, were Sorbs but decided to speak German with their only child. Later, however, the mother tried to teach the boy to read Sorbian texts. After elementary school, his parents succeeded in enabling him to attend the rural high school in Bautzen , where he graduated from high school in 1928. His family background was sufficient to take part in Sorbian lessons and, moreover, in the lessons of the Sorbian school association. From 1928 to 1932 he studied pedagogy, German and folklore at the University of Leipzig . It was only here, among his Sorbian study friends, that he began to deal in detail with the Sorbian language , literature and folklore. Here he also became a member and later chairman of the Association of Sorbian Students.

From 1932 to 1937 he was employed as a teacher in Klix , Quatitz and Rackel . His enthusiasm for Sorbian folklore and his commitment in connection with Bautzen's millennium at Pentecost 1933 prompted him to stand up for the interests of the Sorbian people on a political level. Walter Frenzel , district cultural supervisor of the NSDAP , appointed Nedo in July 1933 as a "specialist advisor for Wendish cultural issues" for the Bautzen NSDAP district. In October 1933 he was a candidate for the SA as a public teacher, but he was expelled the following year. In the November 1933 elections , he called on the Sorbs to approve National Socialism . Until he left school in 1937, he was also a member of the National Socialist teachers' association .

At an extraordinary meeting on December 27, 1933, he was spontaneously and unanimously elected chairman of the Domowina, with the proviso that it should be reformed. For this purpose, other matters should be included in addition to the previous culture-oriented field of activity and the Domowina should be expanded to represent all Sorbian national interests. Antisorbian measures and attitudes as well as indifference and reluctance within the Sorbian population brought his project to failure. In addition, the Domowina had also been at the mercy of anti-Sorb propaganda activities from the National Socialist Sorbian policy since 1935. Under this impression, he distanced himself from the ruling system. So the Domowina should finally be imposed a statute in which the Sorbs should generally be deprived of the status of an ethnic minority and should limit their organization to purely cultural purposes. Above all, however, the Domowina refused to describe itself as an association of "Wendish speaking Germans", which would have amounted to a denial of the Sorbian ethnic identity. However, this was demonstratively rejected, so that the Domowina was banned on March 18, 1937.

Nedo quit his job as a teacher and went to Berlin. There he initially worked in a Polish bank and had contact with the Polish secret service. After an initial, brief imprisonment in November 1939, he withdrew and earned his living as estate secretary. At the end of November 1944 he was arrested again and experienced the end of the war as a remand prisoner.

After the war he immediately returned to Lusatia and, in addition to his role as chairman of the revived Domowina, was appointed school councilor for the Bautzen-Nord school district in June 1945 . Here he created the conditions for the development of a Sorbian school system . In the summer of 1945 he joined the KPD , the following year the SED . At the end of 1950, however, the former communist Kurt Krjeńc was chosen by the SED district leadership to take Nedo's place as Domowina chairman. For this purpose, Nedo was entrusted with a new office. He was transferred to the Saxon Ministry for National Education in Dresden. From Dresden he could no longer exercise his honorary function as Domowina chairman. He resigned from this position after 17 years. At the founding of the Institute for the Sorbian Nation led by Pawol Nowotny in May and the establishment of Sorabistik he played a major role at the Leipzig University in the fall of the 1951st

In 1959 he became professor for Sorbian and German folklore at the University of Leipzig , where he qualified as a professor in 1963 on Sorbian folk tales and folk poetry until he was appointed professor for folklore at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1964. From 1966 he was also director of the Institute for Ethnology and German Folklore and from 1953 to 1968 chairman of the section for ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR .

He retired in 1968 for health reasons. After that, he remained active in cultural theory for many years. He mainly devoted himself to research into costumes and folklore .

In 1978 he received the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver and in 1983 in gold.

Nedo died six months after his 75th birthday on May 24, 1984 in Leipzig and was buried on June 2 in the south cemetery there.

Footnotes and individual references

  1. Serbske Nowiny 92 (November 11, 1933) 260
  2. ^ Paul Nedo: Outline of the Sorbian Folk Poetry , Bautzen 1966.
  3. Neues Deutschland , April 28, 1978, p. 5
  4. Neues Deutschland, October 6, 1983, p. 3
  5. Memorial words for Prof. Dr. Paul Nedo, spoken by Manfred Bachmann on June 2, 1984 at the Südfriedhof in Leipzig (excerpt). In: Lětopis C 28 (1985), pp. 111-113.

literature

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