Original scientific paper

Lusatian Serbs – The smallest Slavic nation

Slavica Vrkić Žura ; Put Petrića 28a, 23000 Zadar

Abstract

The Lusatian Serbs are the remains of the numerous people who in the mid-first millennium inhabited the area between the Oder and Elbe. They were divided into thirty-three tribes and the most famous ones were Lužičani and Milčani. Today they make up a small percentage of the population of the two areas of the former GDR situated on the upper and middle course of the river Spreve. The author of the first written testimony from the year 631 about the presence of the Lusatian Serbs in the area between the Baltic Sea and Krušna gora is the Frankish chronicler Fredegar. He mentions Derwan the prince of the Lusatian Serbs and calls the nation Surbi. The Germans call them Wenden, and their language wendisch, according to wenedi (veneti) as the Roman historians called the Slavic tribes which lived between the Carpathians and Baltic Sea in the first century AD. The term lužički (germ. Lausitzer) derives from Lyžica or Lužica which means ‘‘marsh land’’.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

107619

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/107619

Publication date:

10.10.2011.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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