Genealogy /
Are Sorbs Polish? Does anyone know about Sorbish enthnicity? [62]
I would not be surprised to learn that communist historiography suggested that Germany's Western Slavs were either Polish, or close enough to be "rightfully" Polonized.
No, it never did that. The Sorbian people themselves claimed an independent Sorbian state should emerge after the WWII, but Stalin rejected the idea. If you search the net, you'll find several maps showing the territory of that proposed state incorporating both Ober- and Nieder Lausitz (Upper and Lower Lusatia).
The Pomeranian language became extinct after the war, and despite spending time there, no one recognizes a separate Pomeranian people or culture.
You obviously refer here to the case of the group of Kashubians known as Slovinians (Słowińcy) around and in the village of Kluki near Łeba. These were the only group of Kashubians (Pomeranians) to the west of the Polish-Prussian border of 1772 who survived germanization and still spoke Kashubian in 1945. And yes, they almost all emmigrated to West Germany after the war, such was the Polish culture different to them from the German one. But the rest of Kashubians who lived east of that 1772 border retained their regional culture and language to this very day despite being part of Prussia and then Deutches Reich between 1772 and 1918. The Kashubian language is taught at Kashubian schools these days. Of course, Kashubians are perfectly bilingual, but when I was in Kashubia a few years ago, on hearing waitresses in the restaurant of an open-air museum, I noticed that the pronunciation of those girls was subtelty different from the standard Polish one. At first I thought they might be young Ukrainians working in a restaurant, but when asked, they said they were ... Kashubians!
So the Pomeranian language and culture is well and alive in contemporary Poland.
