Essay by Marie de Vaux Phalipau «Budyšin as the spiritual capital оf the Lusatian people»

Abstract

Background. Published in 1928, the article is devoted to an interesting Sorbian Studies paper by the French Slavistic scholar Marie de Vaux Phalipau (1862-1946), totally unknown in Ukrainian-Sorbian research circles. The author of a large number of Sorbian Studies publications and reports dating back to the 1920s and 1930s, she published her work at a time when the Lusatian question rose acute again in European political and cultural circles. Purpose. In this article, the French researcher turns to the works by authoritative researchers and admirers of Sorbian culture, viz. the Czech J. Wigaz, Italian of Lusatian origin V. Giusti, Belgian Slavicist A.Vierset, the French man J. Bourgoin, et al. The French Slavicist’s work is a major cognitive study presenting not only the history of the Lusatian intellectual capital being developed, but offering a brief historical excursus: geographical location of Budyšin (Budyshin, Bautzen), story-telling its past through the history of old picturesque monuments, change of different rulers, history of the city’s economic growth. There is an extensive «Intellectual Activity» chapter written with great love and liking for the Lusatian people. «The Martyr of the Language» chapter treats the mournful path covered by the Lusatian Sorbian language over the span of the 13th – 18th cc. Never having schools, almost always under the threat of life, the Sorbs passed this language, a substantial corroboration of their Slavonic identity, from one generation onto another. Results. Marie de Vaux Phalipau’s work, written with great respect and liking for the Lusatian people, valuable by its own meticulousness, accuracy of description, good knowledge of the historical realities, is an important page in a better understanding of the great Sorbian Studies heritage of the French Slavicist, author of a large number of studies on the culture and life of the Sorbs