Wendish seminar
The Wendish seminar , Sorbian Serbski seminar (Sorbian seminar), Czech Lužický seminář (Lusatian seminar) , Latin Seminarium Lusaticum Pragense - officially actually Lusatian seminar St. Petri - in Prague was founded in 1724 as a training center for the Catholic priests of Upper Lusatia . In the first decades, only Sorbian students from the catchment area of the Lausitz administration lived in the Wendish seminar. After the diocesan borders changed, German students began arriving at the end of the 18th century. The seminar existed until 1922. During these nearly 200 years, the majority of Sorbian students passed through the institute. That is why the Prague Seminar has an important place in the educational history of the Sorbian people .
Founding history
The two brothers and priests Martin Norbert (1637–1707) and Georg Joseph Schimon (1646–1729), members of the Sorbian people, who came from Temritz near Bautzen , had a hospital for people from Lusatia as early as 1694 using their savings on the Lesser Town of Prague Alumni ( pupils who wanted to become priests) founded. In 1706, a plot of land was acquired on the Lesser Town near Charles Bridge . This was entered in the Bohemian land table on April 19, 1706 . The completion of Shimon's plans to create a worthy home and training facility for the Lausitz alumni dragged on for another twenty years. On February 12, 1724, a deed of foundation was drawn up in Prague, which was accepted by the Bautzen Cathedral Chapter St. Petri and on July 6, 1725 by Emperor Charles VI. has been confirmed.
background
In the 16th century, Upper Lusatia belonged to the Kingdom of Bohemia and thus to the sphere of influence of the Catholic Habsburgs . Therefore, the Reformation could not fully assert itself in this landscape. Under the protection of the emperor, the collegiate chapter in Bautzen and the monasteries Marienstern and Marienthal with some of their rural subjects remained with the Roman church. Since then, Upper Lusatia has been biconfessional.
Up until the Reformation, Upper Lusatia belonged to the Meissen diocese , which was lost during the Reformation. Therefore, the Bohemian King Ferdinand I appointed the Bautzen dean as head of an apostolic administration . However, he was not allowed to ordain priests. The training of the priests took place at the universities of Krakow and Vienna or in the Jesuit colleges of Olomouc , Prague or Landshut.
In the Peace of Prague from 1635 Kaiser joined Ferdinand II. The Lusatias to the Saxon Elector Johann Georg I from. The handover protocol, the so-called traditional recession , regulated, among other things, the denominational status quo, so that the Catholic property was guaranteed among the Protestant electors. As before, the Lusatian theology students went to study in the Habsburg lands. In view of the shortage of priests in re-Catholicized Bohemia, many Lusatians took up a pastorate there. With their foundation, the Shimon brothers wanted to enable more Lusatian people to study theology and at the same time ensure that they remained connected to their homeland. For this reason, the cathedral chapter of St. Petri soon took over the patronage of the Wendish seminar.
The construction of the Wendish seminary
After repeatedly piling up difficulties and formalities were finally overcome, construction contracts could be concluded in the winter of 1725/26. The foundation stone was laid on July 15, 1726. A simple baroque building was created , which was called the Wendish seminar or Lusatian seminar . The apostle Simon Petrus became the patron saint, a reference to the holder of jurisdiction, the Bautzen cathedral chapter. The date of the consecration of the new building is not known.
First students and further development
In the autumn of 1728 the first students moved in, two theologians, two philosophers and 15 high school students. The alumni who lived in the Wendish seminary received their spiritual training here primarily. For members of the Sorbian people there were also various mother tongue exercises. The Kleinseiten German grammar school and, after the Abitur, the philosophical and theological faculty of the Karl Ferdinand University were responsible for scientific training . The Bautzen cathedral chapter had appointed a praeses to manage the house, who was responsible to the cathedral dean.
The Electorate of Saxony and the Habsburg Monarchy maintained good relationships for centuries, which also ensured that the Saxon alumni (Sorbs and Germans) in Prague would be free of school fees. The Shimon Brothers Foundation met with a great response from the clergy and the faithful in Lusatia. The result was a willingness to donate and soon more places could be created for students.
After the Saxon ruling house became Catholic at the beginning of the 18th century, Catholic parishes also emerged in Saxony. Some of their priests had also been trained at the Wendish seminary. From the 19th century until the seminar was closed, students from the Saxon hereditary lands were regularly in the institution.
The Sorbian pupils cultivated Slavic language studies and kept in close contact with Czechs and other Slavs , which was important for the identity of the small Sorbian people. On October 21, 1846 Jakub Buk (later prelate and royal Saxon court chaplain and court church pastor) founded a Sorbian school and student association, the Serbowka, together with other pupils in the Wendish seminary .
Since the 19th century, the Wendish seminar came into the focus of competing Slavic and German nationalisms. The Protestant (Prussian) German side claimed that the Wendish seminar was panslavist and a danger for Saxony and even for Germany. One spoke or wrote of Slavic agitation plans and accused the Saxon government of tolerating all of this. In any case, not too much German convictions were expected from the Habsburg kuk government. There were many defamations, the Bautzen bishop and the praeses in Prague often had to take a stand against them.
In the seminar itself there were no nationalistically motivated disputes until its dissolution. Sorbs, Germans and Czechs worked as head of the institution. Sorbian and German students lived and studied together.
The dissolution of the seminar in 1922
When the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the Kingdom of Saxony no longer existed after 1918 , the seminary fell into a crisis that could no longer be overcome. The new Czechoslovak rulers revoked the freedom to study and threatened to confiscate the foundation's capital. The Bautzen chapter was unable to provide any help given the inflation in Germany. Renovations in the Wendish seminary that had long since become necessary could not be tackled due to lack of money. The livelihood of the alumni was no longer guaranteed. The Catholic Church, to which the seminary belonged, was pressured by the Saxon and Reich governments to close it because they did not want to tolerate training for priests in hostile Slavic countries.
When the diocese of Meissen was rebuilt, the new bishop Christian Schreiber was responsible for the formation of priests. The new canon law that came into force in 1917 required that the practical training of future priests should be carried out in their own diocese. After much back and forth, it was finally decided at the beginning of 1922 in the Bautzen Episcopal Ordinariate to dissolve and sell the Wendish seminary. The last president, Jozef Jakubasch, received the relevant instructions. In August 1922 the last pupils were sent back to Saxony, in October of the same year the Wendish seminar was sold (entered in the land table on October 30, 1922). The sale of the seminary, perceived by many Catholic Sorbs as an attack on their nationality, was one of the reasons that some of the Sorbs were in sharp opposition to Bishop Christian Schreiber.
Due to the financial difficulties of the diocese of Meißens, a new seminar could only be set up in Schmochtitz near Bautzen in 1927 . Until then, the Saxon priesthood candidates had attended the seminary in Fulda . For the linguistic training of the Sorbian students, this place without a Slavic institute was actually of little use.
Today in this building u. a. also the liaison office of the Free State of Saxony and the seat of the Společnost přátel Lužice (Society of Friends of Lusatia) together with the Hórnik library, the most extensive collection of Sorbian and Sorbian literature in the Czech Republic.
Matriculation
From 1728 to 1922, 768 alumni attended the Wendish seminar in Prague. There were 428 Sorbs, 319 Germans and 21 candidates of other nationalities. Most of them became priests in Lausitz and throughout Saxony.
The register of all pupils and students kept in the seminar was edited by Zdeněk Boháč. Based on their evaluation, Boháč divides the seminar history into three periods.
- First period: (1706) 1728 to 1783, at that time only Sorbian pupils lived in the seminary.
- Second period: 1784 to 1821, in addition to the Sorbs, Germans also came to Prague to study. They came from the area of the St. Marienthal monastery and from Dresden .
- Third period: 1822 to 1922: Since the area around Wittichenau had to be given to the Archdiocese of Breslau , fewer Sorbs who wanted to become priests came to Prague from now on. The third period also saw the founding of the German Empire (under Prussian hegemony) and a growing nationalism that intensified after the First World War.
The seminar students included numerous later influential actors in Sorbian social life, including Jakob Wosky von Bärenstamm , Jan Pětr Jordan , Jakub Bart-Ćišinski , Georg Wuschanski , Jakub Skala , Filip Rězak , Jakub Lorenc-Zalěski and Jan Cyž .
literature
- Dieter Rothland: The Wendish seminar. In: One Church - Two Peoples. Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 2003, ISBN 3-7420-1926-0 .
- Peter Bien: Seminary and Saxony's "message". Changes in a place steeped in history. in Dresdner Latest News from August 6, 2012, p. 16.
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Alexander Koller: The concern for the "vigna inculta et abbandonata". The Roman Curia and Lusatia in the 16th and 17th centuries . In: Joachim Bahlcke (ed.): The Upper Lusatia in early modern Central Europe. Relationships - structures - processes . Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-08983-8 , pp. 152-173, here p. 172.
Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 15.2 ″ N , 14 ° 24 ′ 30.3 ″ E