Rjana Łužica

"Rjana Łužica" (Lower Sorbian: Rědna Łužyca; lit. “Beautiful Lusatia”) is the Sorbian national anthem. It was written by poet Handrij Zejler. The lyrics were firstly published on August 24, 1827, in the Leipzig magazine Serbska Nowina. Its music was composed in the beginning of 1845 by Korla Awgust Kocor (German: Karl August Katzer). The anthem was publicly performed for the first time on October 17, 1845, in Budyšin/Bautzen (Upper Sorbian Budyšin, Lower Sorbian: Budyšyn), German Bautzen, formerly Budissin).

On August 24, 1827, the then 23-year-old Sorbian theology student Handrij Zejler, who would later become one of the most important figures of the Sorbian national revival, published a poem titled Na sersku Łužicu (“To the Sorbian Lusatia”) in the handwritten newspaper Serbska Nowina, circulated in Leipzig by the Wendish Preachers’ Society (Serbske prědarske towarstwo). The poem consisted of six stanzas and was first set to music that same year by Korla Benjamin Hatas (1806–1839).

After the poet Zejler and the composer Korla Awgust Kocor began their lifelong artistic friendship in 1844—resulting in many joint works—Kocor composed a new melody for Zejler’s text in 1845. The newly created song was first performed at the First Sorbian Singers’ Festival organized by Kocor on October 17, 1845, in Bautzen. It quickly gained popularity and soon rose to the status of a Sorbian national anthem, although today it is sung only with two stanzas (the first and last of the original poem).

Hendrich Jordan prepared a translation of the text into Lower Sorbian, and a German poetic adaptation (not reproduced here for copyright reasons) was written by Kito Lorenc.

The five-line stanza form is accompanied by a seven-bar anacrustic melody, originally in F-sharp minor, which resists any simple formal analysis. The slow tempo and predominantly minor harmonies give the hymn a solemn, melancholic atmosphere that emphasizes the tone of Zejler’s original text.

The Sorbs/Wends Act of the state of Brandenburg and the Saxon Sorbs Act (German: Sächsische Sorbengesetz; Upper Sorbian: Sakski serbski zakoń) guarantee the right to use the Sorbian hymn within the Sorbian settlement area. However, Rjana Łužica is not explicitly mentioned in these legal texts—unlike in some district statutes of the settlement region.

Handrij Zejler's two additional verses have been excluded from the official version.

The line “Och, gab muže stanuli, za swoj narod źěłali" has come to be regarded by many Sorbs as outdated. For this reason, the Sorbian scholarly society Maćica Serbska launched a public discussion in January 2022 under the title Sind nur Männer würdig ewigen Gedenkens? (Are only men worthy of eternal remembrance?). The aim was to “gently modify the text and allow the original and revised versions to be sung in parallel without causing too much disruption.”

This call referred explicitly to the original Upper Sorbian version; among Lower Sorbs, it had already been common practice for some time to replace the word “muže” (men) with “luźe” (people) in their version.^[1]

As a result of the discussion, at the general assembly of Maćica Serbska on March 18, 2023, a recommended wording for the Upper Sorbian version was adopted. This version may be sung alongside the traditional text of the hymn. This solution is considered unproblematic, since singing both versions—the Upper and Lower Sorbian ones—has already been a customary practice.^[2]

• English translation by Reinhard F. Hahn (http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/serbscina-info.php, http://lowlands-l.net/gallery/hahn_rjana-luzica.php)