In the 18th, but even more in the 19th and 20th century, the Industrial Revolution initiated a massive and historically unrivaled rearrangement of cultural landscapes in the highly developed European countries, i.e. in England, France, and Germany, to just name the most relevant ones. This European example was then followed by other countries in North America and – much later – in South America and Asia. This economical process led – in several stages – to surges of migration and a concomitant urbanization of a growing number of areas, leading to further changes in the cultural landscapes. In the early 19th century, Lower Lusatia was still a calm region shaped by agriculture. The biggest towns of that region did not yet surpass the mark of 6.000 inhabitants (Cottbus, Guben, Sorau). In the second half of the century, the region experienced an intensive industrialization. Numerous small and medium-sized businesses were founded in the cities, the textile industry emerging as the most important sector. In the countryside, several surface mines were opened that initiated the most tremendous landscape changes. Lignite surface mining was the industrial sector that caused – and is causing to this day – the most comprehensive landscape destruction, generally in some distance from existing towns. In the course of these processes, thousands of workers moved into the industrial centers. In Lower Lusatia, the population increased considerably in the town Cottbus as well as in the two districts of Calau and Spremberg, where lignite mining expanded in a particularly intensive way. The other concomitant process was the Polish immigration from Greater Poland, Pomeralia and Upper Silesia into the western Prussian provinces at the turn of the 20th century. The extent of this process was surprisingly vast: altogether, more than a million people of Polish descent migrated toward the West. The Prussian language statistics (Preußische Sprachenstatistik), and more specifically the statistics of elementary schools from 1886 to 1911, provide essential data and evidence for that, even though the statistical data are not always reliable since the Prussian authorities sought to prove the idea of progressing Germanness with the help of this data. Nonetheless, the general trend of a large number of Polish speakers in these areas clearly shows in the statistics. In Lower Lusatia, we can also observe an increasingly growing number of Polish settlers (workers) until WWI. It is plausible to assume that a majority of them settled down permanently, especially in the districts Calau and Spremberg, as they immigrated together with their families. The percentage of Polish speaking pupils in elementary schools in the district Calau was 9,4 % in 1911, and 3 % in the district Spremberg. Before the outbreak of WWI, the total number of the Polish population was most likely about 10.000 (10 %) in the Calau district and about 2.000 (5 %) in the district Spremberg.
Wytwórczość włókiennicza stanowiła jedno z podstawowych zajęć ludności zamieszkującej Dolne Łużyce w okresie przejścia od produkcji rękodzielniczej do maszynowej. Ze względów technicznych opracowanie zostało podzielone na dwie części. W prezentowanej, pierwszej, dokonano analizy stanu zatrudnienia rękodzielników i pracowników fabrycznych, edukacji zawodowej, kwestii socjalnych oraz charakterystyki produkcji tekstylnej w regionie od włączenia Dolnych Łużyc do Prus w 1815 r. do wybuchu II wojny światowej.
W 1764 r. Christian Gottfried (von) Seydel nabył wieś Luboszyce oddalone kilka kilometrów od Gubina, które do 1815 r. jako część Dolnych Łużyc przynależały do Saksonii, następnie przeszły pod panowanie pruskie. Pojawienie się rodziny von Seydel w Luboszycach pod koniec XVIII w. odnotowywane zostało w kilku źródłach. Dalsze jej dzieje zrekonstruowano przy pomocy płyt nagrobnych pierwotnie rozproszonych na cmentarzach polanowickim i luboszyckim. Zachowana ewidencja nagrobków wraz z badaniami terenowymi, które doprowadził do odnalezienia kilku jeszcze zachowanych do dnia obecnego nagrobków, pozwoliły na rekonstrukcję historii majątku do 1945 r. Proponowany artykuł ma stanowić przykład zastosowania badan epigraficznych do prozopografii w tym przypadku szlachty dolnołużyckiej.
EN
In 1764 Christian Gottfried (von) Seydel acquired village Luboszyce. It was located several kilometers away from Gubin at Lower Lusatia which was part of Saxony until 1815. Then this region came under Prusian rule. Von Saydel family appeared in Luboszyce at the end of XVIII century and that was recorded in several sources. It was possible to reconstruct family further story by studying gravestones, originally scattered on cemeteries in Polanowice and Luboszyce. Extant cemeteries records and field researches which led to discover few preserved gravestones,allowed to reconstruct history of Seydel manor until 1945. The article presents theusage ofepigraphic studies within prosopography researches, in this case the ones of Lower Lusatia nobility.
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