A Journey to Sorbia, Part One

19 August 2026 · 6 min read

In July of 2023 I visited... SORBIA, a small Medieval Slavic minority Nation¹ located in the uplands of Southern East Germany... and I visited their last ethnic stronghold, the town of Budyšin (Bautzen in German)²

In this thread I will recall my adventures and thoughts:

I began my Germany to the Nation of Sorbia from the Tyrolian resort town of Seefeld, a town close to my heart I could write quite a lot about of, but for another time, and I spent the whole day driving from there, along the autobahn through Muenchen and Dresden.

The Sorbian nation might sound like Serbian³, this is no mere coincidence! Folk legend has it that the ancestors of the Serbians were Sorbians who were evicted from the land during the Early Middle Ages by Germans expanding eastward, there is some evidence to back up these claims too. The people who stayed became Sorbians and they have, systematically under German rule, seen their culture shrink, but at times, have fought back valiantly and to this day, still manage to live, despite all the pressure to exterminate them and Germanify them⁴. The land often went back and forth, until it was finally made 'Saxon' in 1635⁵.

The first thing that I noticed upon entering Eastern Germany was the decay, it reminded me a lot of my home, the Great Lakes, and I saw the familiar signs of post-industrial decay one might see in Kalamazoo, Lansing, Detroit, or Cincinnati. Something that was completely foreign to me however was the mark of Communism⁶. This was the first former Communist country I've ever set foot in, and the stench was palpable, commie blocks, random soviet murals that for whatever reason haven't been destroyed but heavily defaced (perhaps they like it that way?). I also noticed AFD signs everywhere, and one of the small towns I drove through was having a rally! They smiled at me but glared at my Indian lady friend, but we kept on driving.

Upon arriving after driving for about 12 hours my lady friend and I searched for some for some grub, we found an Indian-Italian fusion place (???) and my Brahmin lady friend had a wonderful time talking to the random Indian man who was working there, even made sure to make it Indian spicy, instead of German (or rather, Sorbian) spicy. The food was okay, strange, perhaps the best Italian food I ever had, because as an American I love fusion foods, and Indian-Italian is quite tasty!

We arrived late at night, and had to check ourselves in, which was an easy enough process. Our hotel was nice, acceptable, with an AC, ate our Italian-Indian food, and headed to bed...

I was quite tired when I took this picture, but this was the view from my hotel at night, it felt quite quaint, and I was trying to admire the architecture. The architecture of the buildings is something that you really notice, and I found it incredibly charming.

We arose the next day and I had this view outside of the hotel room, just beautiful architecture. Never seen anything like it in my life! Lovely paint of green too, on both buildings!

I took my car and drove downtown and parked... in the center of town. And so we set off and decided to tramp around all day, and tramp around we did! This was the first picture I took of the downtown because it reminded me of the Rust Belt here in America

We wandered into a mall that seemingly had nothing open but was still 'open to the public' and I got my first direct flashbang with Communism, a sign pointing to a street called 'Karl Marx'

The mall itself was almost completely abandoned, with nobody in it

As we walked around more I began to see the Post-Industrial decay, and it felt so charming, like home but with a different texture pack

We kept walking around and started to get to the 'German' part of town, why 'German' well it had statues of Germans all over! A mark of the ancient German Settler-Colonialism⁷ enacted upon the region;

"To King Albert of Saxony, from grateful Bautzen."

Bautzen has a complicated history, on one hand it is the last remaining refuge and essentially the capital of the Sorbian people⁸, on the other hand the Sorbians are not -really- an urbane people⁹ historically, and the town itself is a military outpost made by the Saxon kings!

My ladyfriend and I wanted to go an actual mall, it was nothing special, just your average European mall. This specific store was funny enough of note to snap a picture of, McPaper, I kept muttering under my breath this entire trip "1000 year American empire"

Finally we figured out where the 'main city' was and we made our way to the commons, we were greeted by this BEUATY of architecture, which is the Bautzen Town Hall¹⁰, which has been standing since the 1730s!

The building to the left is the Cathedral of St. Peter, a shared church since 1524

I spent a lot of time just admiring the statues and architecture

These are baroque patrician townhouses, and the statues represent two forms of Truth, Earthly Truth and Divine Truth. It is called the 'Jahreshaus' which means 'Year House' because it has 365 windows

Here's another picture of the facades of a bunch of buildings, I was really just admiring the whole street, I took this picture from the middle of the commons, just truly wonderful architecture

This is a statue of Elector Johann George I of Saxony, under the 1635 Peace of Prague¹¹, Bautzen passed from the Bohemian Crown to Saxony, and Johann was the elector who acquired it, he is the man who 'Made Bautzen Saxon' he was known for being a huntsman and a cheerful drunk

Another beautiful image of the market street, just truly lovely architecture.

This statue is not a deity, though he may look it, he's a knight from one of Bautzen's folk legends known as 'Ritter Dutschmann'¹², legend has it he was a Wendish prince and daring rider who leapt over the market fountain on his stallion and vanished into the fountain

This figure is their, or perhaps the Sorbs, Roland, the symbol of the old people of Bautzen¹³, their rights, and freedoms, and is one of the first examples of something non-Germanic we've seen thus far

You know that fountain we talked about in the center of the market that Ritter into? This is it! And it has some marks of Communism on it, these murals made in 1985¹⁴ depict scene from Bautzen's history

The first scene is the great city fire of 1634¹⁵, where much of the city was completely destroyed

The second relief depicts the 1408 suppression of the craftmen's uprising by Bohemian King Wenceslas, all of the leaders of this were executed

Sadly I didn't take pics of the rest

More pictures admiring the seemingly ancient architecture juxtaposed with modern things like satellite receivers, yellow is an extremely common color in this town, and red roofs. The cobblestone tower in the background is part of the city's ramparts

This is the LEANING TOWER OF BAUTZEN... also known as the Reichenturm¹⁶, a medieval tower gate built in the 1490s and had its stylistic top built in 1718

The blue and yellow crest at the top is a coat of arms honoring the Habsburg emperor

Another picture of the tower from the ramparts and some beautiful architecture in the background, the tower was built in 1490 and is known as the 'Wendish Tower', the building behind it are barracks and it was designed in 1842 by Gottfried Semper¹⁷, in English Tudor style

The tower and its name (Wednischer Turm) the Wendish Tower reveal the purpose here, as the Tower guarded the road toward the more ruralish Wendish (Sorbian) settlements

Just a strange picture I took of an abandoned lot, it felt beautiful to me, I just love juxtaposition, how old could those stones be laying like cobble on the ground?

Lady friend and I were getting quite peckish, so we decided to have supper, but why come to a place like this and not engage in the local cuisine? So we picked the only Slavic restaurant in town, Wjelbik¹⁸, which seemed to be a tourist destination and felt incredibly... kitsch!

You must excuse me, but I did not take any pictures of the food. You see, we ordered steak, and it was quite good, but it look a long time to come, and I may have had one or two or four aperol spritzers, so the rest of the day I am a wee drunk

As a little fun aside, Wjelbik means 'little vault' in Upper Sorbian¹⁹, which is a reference to the vaulted room the restaurant sits within. I wish I had any pictures to show, but boy was I drunk!

Notes

By the editor.

The Sorbs, or Wends, are a Slavic people of Lusatia, split between Upper Sorbs around Bautzen in Saxony and Lower Sorbs around Cottbus in Brandenburg. Estimates run to about 60,000 to 80,000 in all. They are first mentioned in the 6th or 7th century, and scholars link the Milceni to Upper Sorbian and the Lusici to Lower. source ↩
Budyšin is the Upper Sorbian name. The town is first mentioned as Budusin in 1002 by the chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg, and in 1018 the Peace of Bautzen was struck there between the Empire and Poland. Its German name was fixed officially only in 1868. source ↩
The name is the same: both peoples descend from Srbi. The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, writing in the 10th century in De Administrando Imperio, says the Serbs came from "White Serbia" in the north. Many scholars place that homeland around Lusatia, and tie it to a 7th-century migration under Heraclius. It is contested, but it is a real tradition, not a legend only. source ↩
In Why I Wholly Reject Nationalism she sets the Sorbs beside the Poles of Września, the Welsh and the Okinawans as cases of the same policy. The Nazis called the Sorbs "Wendish-speaking Germans," denied that they were a Slavic people, banned the Domowina as anti-national in 1937, and took the Sorbian House. source ↩
Lusatia was passed between rulers for centuries. It was part of Poland from 1002 to 1031 under Boleslaw I, then Bohemia took the south in the 1070s, and in 1635 it became a fief of the Saxon electors, with much autonomy kept through the Lusatian League. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna split it again, giving Lower Lusatia to Prussia. source ↩
East Germany recognised the Sorbs as a minority and founded more than 100 Sorbian schools, and it funded Sorbian culture. Yet the number of speakers still fell by half, partly through the suppression of the church and forced collectivisation. By 1989 nine schools taught wholly in Sorbian and 85 offered it as a subject. source ↩
Henry I conquered Lusatia in 932. In 939 the margrave Gero reportedly killed thirty Sorbian princes at a feast. Their western neighbours fared worse: the Polabian Slavs of the Wendland lost their language in the 18th century, and the widow Emerentz Schultze, reputed to be its last perfect speaker, is said to have died in 1756. source ↩
Bautzen holds the Domowina, the umbrella body of the Sorbian associations, the Sorbian Institute, Sorbian Radio, the German-Sorbian People's Theatre and the Serbski dom, which opened in 1904. The Domowina was founded on 13 October 1912 in Hoyerswerda by delegates of 31 associations, was banned in 1937 and was re-established at Crostwitz on 10 May 1945. source ↩
One reason was law. In German-ruled Lusatia Sorbs were pushed out of the guilds, and many guilds admitted only members of German descent. Eastern German guilds wrote this into their statutes as the Wendenparagraph, as in the bakers' guild of Beeskow in 1387. A people shut out of the trades is left the villages. source ↩
The Town Hall stands on the Hauptmarkt, where a stone house of the aldermen is said to date from 1213. The fire of 1704 destroyed it, and its baroque form, with the double stair, comes from Johann Christoph Naumann's rebuilding between 1729 and 1732. source ↩
The Peace of Prague was signed on 30 May 1635 by Emperor Ferdinand II and Elector Johann Georg I. Saxony had held both Lusatias since 1623 as the price of its support in the Bohemian revolt, and Ferdinand gave them up "in perpetuity" in the Traditionsrezess annex of 1636. source ↩
The figure is by the Dresden sculptor Christoph Walther II, about 1576, and stood in the middle of the market fountain of 1572 to 1575. In the legend Dutschmann boasts in an inn that his horse can clear the fountain. It shies at the first try, and after the second he vanishes. One telling has him drowned, another has him land in the next lane. source ↩
Roland statues stood in medieval towns as emblems of a town's freedom and rights. Bremen's, put up in 1404, is on the UNESCO list, and the type belongs to cities that used Saxon law. German Wikipedia suggests the Dutschmann figure may be Bautzen's own Roland. For Bremen as the free city that her Why I Wholly Reject Nationalism holds up, see that essay. source ↩
In 1985 the Hauptmarkt was redesigned and a new fountain made by the Dresden sculptor Johannes Peschel. The knight was set on a tall granite column, with a copy replacing the damaged original, and picture panels on the fountain show scenes from Bautzen's past. source ↩
The city's own history says Swedish troops caused serious destruction in 1634. Accounts differ on whose soldiers set the fire. The Thirty Years' War also lies behind the move to Saxony: in 1639 the town was besieged and occupied by the Swedes. source ↩
The Reichenturm was built about 1490 to 1492. It leans roughly 1.4 metres, was first noticed to lean in 1747, and works in 1953 stopped the movement. It is called one of the steepest leaning towers north of the Alps that visitors can still climb. source ↩
Semper, best known for Dresden's opera house, built the Bautzen barracks in 1842 to 1844. He prevented the planned demolition of the Wendischer Turm of 1490 to 1492 in 1841 by joining it to the barracks. Its crenellations and small corner turrets echo the medieval defences it sits against. source ↩
Wjelbik is a Sorbian restaurant in a listed vault some six hundred years old, repaired after wartime damage and home to the restaurant since 1978. Its menu is Sorbian, Saxon and Lusatian, and its windows show Lusatian legend figures. The family that runs it took over in 1991. source ↩
Upper Sorbian is endangered. Estimates of its speakers vary widely, from under 10,000 to about 25,000, most of them older. It is strongest in the Catholic triangle between Bautzen, Hoyerswerda and Kamenz, where 60 to 65 percent of residents speak it. Saxony's Sorbian law gives bilingual road signs in the settlement area, and Bautzen has a Sorbian gymnasium. source ↩