“The Pain of a Dying Species” or the “New Waters” of a Bicultural Literature: Sorbian Literature since 1990

Summary

The period since unification has seen a new era opening up for Sorbian literature. After the establishment of the tradition of bilingual writing in the GDR it has entered an uncertain, but more open relationship with German culture. It has also entered a post-national world, in which the old national limitations no longer apply. Despite some writers insisting on writing only in Sorbian it is difficult to see how it can go back to being a purely inward-looking literature ignoring the German-dominated cultural environment around it. The number of readers capable of reading in Sorbian is diminishing, and even for the majority of Sorbs who are literate in Sorbian, their major reading language will be German. It is only a minority, primarily the Catholic Sorbs, who will continue to read primarily in Sorbian. Several writers have shown possible paths for the future development of a specifically Sorbian contribution in which the connections between Sorbian and German culture are stressed, rather than the divisions between them, which does not necessarily mean a renunciation of a Sorbian identity, but a recognition of present-day realities.  It is nevertheless also true that for a number of Sorbian writers their role as providers of a particular focus for the articulation of concerns about the survival of the Sorbs as a distinct linguistic and cultural group will remain uppermost in their work.