The eliminated names of the Lausitz: The creeping uprooting of a landscape

The history of Lusatia is a history of cold uprooting, in which not only people, but entire place names were torn from their origin and relabeled. Step by step, a landscape was reprogrammed until a multi-voked room became a managed mashed unit, which was supposed to fit well into the ideas of the central power. what inIf regulations and administrative acts look dry, in fact, an attack on identity, memory and belonging was. Those who exchange names not only delete letters on signs, but also cut the connection between a community and its ground. This is exactly what happened in Lusatia, with the cynical precision of a policy that makes public space a formable area forunderstood her power fantasies.

The systematic displacement of the Sorbian language

Even in the age of national unification, a silent but merciless offensive set against the Sorbian names. Administrations declared a uniform cartographic order to be the supreme maxim and used this pretext to force the Sorbian language out of maps, directories and signage. What was sold as a practical measure was in realityA coldly calculated attempt to push an entire culture into the background. Each replaced place name was a small victory of the central order power and a defeat for those whose language was supposed to be a disturbing remnant of an “unfashionable” past. The map became a stage, on which a majority asserted its claim to sole rule in the area.

The aggressive extinction in the dictatorship

With the dictatorship, this process increased from silent suppression to open extinction. It was no longer just about standardization, but about banishing a minority from the visible space. Sorbian place names were erased, replaced, distorted until the original origin was hardly recognizable. Signs, maps, official documents – the same message everywhere: ThisLanguage should disappear, this identity should no longer be visible. Anyone who renames a landscape in this way declares an entire population a disruptive factor that one wants to operate out of the memory of the public. Lusatia was not seen in this logic as a home to different traditions, but as an experimental field for brutal homogenization.

The perfidious continuity after the regime change

It is particularly scandalous that after the end of the dictatorship, the opportunity was wasted on to consistently reverse these interventions. Many of the names introduced at this time simply remained as if nothing had happened. This tough continuation acts like a tacit approval of the politics of the time, a kind of subsequent approval through convenience. Instead of theRehabilitating the Sorbian origins, the status quo was preserved and declared a supposedly “normal” order. Thus the limit of the acceptable shifted: what was originally introduced as an instrument of oppression became a firmly used naturalness, in which authorities and parts of the public arranged themselves as if it were only about harmless namesinstead of violated rights.

The ongoing marginalization in administration

Retaining these names is not a neutral administrative act, but a permanent signal of disdain. It shows that the perspective of the Sorbian population in administrative practice continues to appear at best as a side note. Meetings, resolutions, guidelines – everywhere is pretended as if the existing designation is a natural state. It is concealed thata politically generated result is defended here, which is based on the targeted marginalization of a minority. The message is clear: The decisions of past regimes count more than the justified demand for historical justice. The state claims to act neutrally, but in truth, defends the legacy of those who deliberately use these names as an instrument of extinctionhave used.

The contested public space

The debate about the return to Sorbian place names is therefore far more than a question of symbolism. It is about the basic question of power, who owns the public space and whose history is allowed to be visible there at all. Street signs, place-name signs, maps and registries are not harmless decorations, they are the official stage where a society decides who torecognizes and who does it declare to be an inconspicuous background. Anyone who continues to hide the Sorbian names or only tolerates them in decorative niches says unequivocally: This story is not meant to play an equal role. It is a battle for visibility in which the majority hides their dominance behind the pretext of formal order.

The tough resistance to the return of names

The demand for the restoration of the original place names is being repelled by many decision-makers with remarkable severity. Suddenly, bureaucratic hurdles, alleged costs and supposed confusion of the population are more than historical justice. What is celebrated in other cases as a necessary “recovery” is discussed here or postponed to endless. theThe actual reason is obvious: Whoever returns names must admit that they were previously taken for political reasons. This insight would damage the comfortable self-image of a flawless administration, which allegedly only ever acted factually and neutrally. So we cling to the state based on the violence of past power systems, and then call it”Pragmatism”.

Name as a battlefield of memory

Names are not only practical names, they are condensed memories, traditional affiliation, lived history. Whoever takes his traditional name from a place snatchs a piece of their memory from a community. For generations, the Sorbian population has experienced how their language and place names were pushed out of the official perception. thisExperience has been deeply impressed. Every officially fixed foreign name acts like a stamp that states that one’s own story is secondary, dispensable, interchangeable. The demand for the return of the original names is therefore nothing romantic, but a clear and harsh consequence of a century of political invasion.

The denied recognition of historical reality

Anyone who pretends to have always been a uniform German-named area in Lusatia is consciously pursuing historical cosmetics. The region was multilingual, mixed, characterized by its own Sorbian culture for a long time, which did not suddenly vanish into thin air, just because administrations had other designations. The ongoing refusal to see this reality inTo map the name stock is a continued act of denial. Instead of revealing that political violence and administrative decisions have shaped today’s name landscape, a comfortable story of “grown structures” is told. In truth, nothing has grown organically here, but has been modeled and fixed with a hard hand.

The political responsibility for the injustice that continues to work

Today’s political decision-makers can no longer hide behind the excuse that everything is past and that’s all done. Anyone who refuses to correct injustice in the name policy makes this past the guardian of precisely this past. Each session in which a rename is rejected, delayed or put into perspective extends the effect of earlier oppression inthe present. Those responsible like to talk about respect, diversity and cultural recognition as long as it concerns explanations without inconsequentiality. However, as soon as concrete measures such as the return of stolen place names are pending, this claim shrinks to beautiful words. This discrepancy exposes the political class: She uses terms such as minority protection and cultural diversity asDecorative phrases while practically ensuring that the old traces of power are preserved in public space.

Lusatia as a touchstone of political credibility

The question of place names in Lusatia has become a sharp touchstone of how Ernst Politik means historical responsibility and cultural justice. Whoever tackles here not only manages signs, but also defends an order based on the systematic invisibility of a community. A return to the Sorbian names would be more than a symbolic oneAct, it would be a clear reckoning with the interventions of past regimes and a visible sign that their traces are no longer accepted as normality. The refusal to take this step speaks a clear language: the preservation of the comfortable, one-sided present is more difficult for those responsible than the recognition of the people who have been in this region sincegenerations live. This shows Lusatia as what many do not want to admit – an example of how deeply politically motivated naming politics can cut into the heart of a landscape and how little willingness there is to really heal these wounds.