The Sorbian Museum, (), , is hosted in the salthouse of the Ortenburg, Bautzen. It houses approximately 35,000 inventarized objects, making it the most important museum of Sorbian culture and history.

History

The association

Maćica Serbska Maćica Serbska (Upper Sorbian language, Upper Sorbian name, ; ) is a scientific association of Sorbs. It aims at promoting Sorbian studies and disseminating knowledge about the Sorbs and their culture. It is the oldest Sorbian association that is ...

included the establishment of a Sorbian museum on their agenda in 1856. It was the first institution to collect ethnological and historical objects connected to the Sorbs. For an 1896 exhibition of

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

arts and crafts in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

, exhibits were collected and presented by Sorbian institutions in the so-called Wendish village. When the

Serbski dom The Serbski dom (, 'House of the Sorbs') is an administrative building on Postplatz 2 in Bautzen, Saxony, Germany. It is the cultural and political center of the Sorbian people. It was built between 1947 and 1956. It is the seat of Domowina and t ...

was inaugurated in 1904, the Sorbian Museum was opened simultaneously on the third floor. The closure of the Serbski dom by the Nazi government in 1937 put an end to the first Sorbian Museum. In 1942, its collection was included in the municipal museum of Bautzen. In the German Democratic Republic (GDR), a museum of Sorbian history and ethnology was founded in 1957 in

Hoyerswerda Hoyerswerda () or Wojerecy () is a major district town in the district of Bautzen in the German state of Saxony. It is located in the Sorbian settlement area of Upper Lusatia, in which the Upper Sorbian language is spoken in addition to German. ...

. As objects of the former Wendish Museum kept being restituted, the museum moved to Bautzen due to a shortage of space. The salthouse of the Ortenburg in Bautzen was chosen as the new seat of the Sorbian Museum, since the original building was destroyed in 1945 and the Serbski dom, its replacement, was not built to include the museum. It became part of the municipal museums of Bautzen. In 1988, the exhibition was redesigned and the Sorbian Museum reopened as an independent institution.

Location at the salthouse

Bautzen_-_Ortenburg_-_Sorbisches_Museum_01_ies

The building currently accommodating the museum was built in 1782 as a salthouse and was restructured in 1869 providing its present from. Since 1835 it was the seat of the Royal Saxon Court of Appeals, the highest judicial institution in Lusatia. During the time of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, it hosted the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

, and it later became a residential building in the

German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. After the original location, the

, was destroyed in 1945, the salthouse was determined to be a worthy accommodation for the Sorbian Museum in 1976 in spite of it not having a connection to the Sorbian people and despite its past use by the Gestapo. The salthouse was extensively restored in 2003.

Exhibitions

The exhibition provides information on Sorbian history and culture in

Lusatia Lusatia (; ; ; ; ; ), otherwise known as Sorbia, is a region in Central Europe, formerly entirely in Germany and today territorially split between Germany and modern-day Poland. Lusatia stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the eas ...

. Its main focus lies on the

Sorbian language The Sorbian languages (, ) are the Upper Sorbian language and Lower Sorbian language, two closely related and partially mutually intelligible languages spoken by the Sorbs, a West Slavic ethno-cultural minority in the Lusatia region of Eastern ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

and art.

References

External links

Sorbischen Museums
(Official website)
Youtube-Video: Das Sorbische Museum in 3D
{{Authority control Sorbian culture History museums in Germany Literary museums in Germany Art museums and galleries in Saxony Bautzen