Sorbs | Costume of the year: Black, white and diverse

The Easter singers in the State Chancellery from left: Marion Knorr, Romy Ruff, Nadine Adam, Stephanie Bierholdt, Diana Schuster and Astrid Schramm Photo: dpa/Britta Pedersen “Chwalśo Kněza!” (Praise the Lord). Six women sing this in Sorbian and German. On Wednesday they stand on the stage of the Brandenburg Hall in the Potsdam State Chancellery and wear black and white skirts, jackets and hoods. Which item of clothing is black and which is white, and whether there is a piece of green or blue material sewn into the back of the skirt, depends on where the singers come from and whether they sing six weeks before Easter, on Good Friday or for the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.

In 2011, the custom of Easter singing was revived in Lower Lusatia, says Diana Schuster. That wasn't so easy. Historical photos often did not provide clear information about what the costume should have looked like on which day. Not many women who still remembered were still alive. And when the grandchildren asked, “Grandma, how did you do that back then?”, three old women might give three different answers.

One of the women on stage is from Rohne in Saxony. There, as in the old days, people sang all night long until dawn on Easter Sunday. In Lower Lusatia in Brandenburg - in Jänschwalde, Gulben, Werben and Sielow - this is no longer done this way, says Schuster. "We start at four in the morning."

The traditional costume of the Sorbian Easter singers is currently the costume of the year, just as it was in 2013 for the Lower Lusatian festival costume, which was also Sorbian, and in 2017 the third costume from Brandenburg was the Fläming costume. "Brandenburg is on the winner's podium for the third time, and with a costume from my immediate homeland," says Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD), who lives in Forst in the Lusatian lignite mining area, happily.

“A traditional costume is more than just fabric and a few ribbons,” said Woidke on Wednesday when he received the Easter singers at the State Chancellery. “A traditional costume stands for a connection to the homeland, a traditional costume stands for history.” The Prime Minister is convinced that it also represents the future. “There is hope.” For many years, the Lower Sorbian language and culture threatened to die out. But now more young people are learning this rarely used Slavic language again. Woidke found out about this on Tuesday from Dawid Statnik, chairman of the Sorbian umbrella organization Domowina.

In addition to the six Easter singers and many men and women in Fläming costume, Andrea Pursche and others also came who wore the Lower Sorbian holiday costume. What caused this holiday costume to be the eighth costume of the year in 2013? It “opened a window of opportunity” and strengthened tourism in the Spreewald, says Pursche. She needs to know. She is responsible for marketing in the Lübbenau tourist information center. Pursche's toque is particularly large, colorful and festive - an eye-catcher!

»We wear home on our skin.«

The German Traditional Costume Association has 5,000 clubs with a total of one million members. “We wear home on our skin,” explains association president Knut Kreuch in Potsdam – and complains that the concept of home is often misused. Kreuch is a social democrat and mayor of Gotha in Thuringia. Brandenburg only has a small regional costume association in “our fortunately reunited fatherland,” reports Kreuch. It is all the more remarkable that three of the 21 German traditional costumes of the year are from here.

With us, no one has to pay to be informed. Sounds like a bad business model? It is too. But independent journalism and participation for everyone are more important to us than profit. Journalism still costs money: research, printing and all the people who do it. That's why we depend on you. We need 300,000 euros by the end of the year.

Donate once or regularly, every amount counts. So that nd remains.