Refugees, Expellees and the Language Situation in Lusatia (1945–7)

The first part of this article deals with the general situation of refugees and expellees in the Soviet Zone of Occupation immediately after 1945, concentrating in particular on Lusatia. It then goes on to consider the special conditions which existed in the bilingual areas of Upper and Lower Lusatia and the impact of the refugees on the language situation. The major source for the article is a research project based at the Sorbian Institute in Bautzen: in the original project a sociologist at the Institute, Ines Keller, examined the life stories of thirty refugee families, representing different generations, which formed part of a general study of German‐Sorbian families. A continuation of this project concentrated on the generation of refugees which came into Lusatia as children or young people, and then married into Sorbian families. 1

Archaeology · German · Political science · Refugee · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · History · Language and Culture · Law · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies