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....and against those Slavonic brethren I must now fight.. .: Lusatian Sorbs in the Austro-prussian war of 1866

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2021

Abstract

The book represents the participation of Lusatian Sorbs in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 on the basis of contemporary Sorbian press. The Sorbs have fighten as soldiers in the Prussian army and, on the other part, in the Saxonian army corps, i. e. on the Austrian side.

The Sorbian weekly newspaper "Serbske nowiny" documented minutely the situation in their own country and on the battlefield, and reprinted the soldiers' letters from both sides. After a general ingroduction, a detailed description of the cultural context at that time and the sources available, the reflection of the war in Sorbian literature is analysed.

An edition of the soldiers' letters makes a substantial part of the book content, a separate study is dedicated to the individual letters and their authors. The book contains a terminological vocabulary and indices to the edition., a list of fallen or wounded Sorbian soldiers after the contemporary press, and a plenty of illustrations.