Sorbian Museum

The world's main museum of Sorbian language, history, and culture, housed in the Ortenburg

Address Ortenburg 3-5, Bautzen

The Sorbisches Museum, in the salt-house wing of the Ortenburg, is the world's principal museum of Sorbian culture, language, and history. The exhibits cover the arrival of the Slavic Milceni in the region around the 6th century, the survival of the language under Saxon, Prussian, and Nazi rule, and the contemporary Sorbian-speaking villages scattered through Lusatia.

The strongest sections are the textile and folk-art galleries — the elaborate embroidered Easter eggs (kraslicy), the headdresses and bridal costumes, the carved wooden interiors of village houses. Captions are in German, Upper Sorbian, and English. Closed Mondays.

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A story
The Sorbs are one of Europe's smallest surviving Slavic peoples — fewer than 60,000 still speak the language — and Bautzen has been their cultural and political centre for over a thousand years. The museum's collection of embroidered costumes alone runs to several hundred examples, each one specific to a particular village or feast day.

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