ETHNOSIS AND RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE DURING THE FORMATION OF THE GERMAN NATION

In the conditions of intensification of national processes, the interest of the intellectual community in the phenomenon of dialogue between ethnic groups and titular nations became more urgent. The history of the smallest Slavic nation, the Lusatian Serbs, is an example of how ethnicity and religious confessional specificity were closely intertwined in the modern period. At the same time, although the identity of the Lusatian communities remained important for the content of the process of their revival, they did not fronde but continued to be incorporated into the national process that took place in Germany in the first half of the 19th century. The purpose of the publication is to investigate the positives of confessional dialogue (Protestants, Catholics) in the context of a unique case of ethnic preservation of the relic Lusatian ethnos. Summarizing, the author notes the practical side of the emergence of spiritual conformity between various religious Lusatian communities, which also did not hinder the process of further revival of the Lusatians. Thus, conformism between representatives of various religious elites and secular intellectuals reduced the threat of the final dissolution of Lusatian identity in the German environment. For Lusatians, religion became an important marker that distinguished communities from each other and, over time, began to perform even non-religious functions. At the same time, it should be recognized that the confessional confrontation, although it had a practical side, at the same time, did not establish a tradition of antagonism between the bearers of two types of ethnic-confessional consciousness. The confrontation of the two Christian currents in practice did not exclude the cultural dialogue between the communities of different Lusatian regions, and in some cases, the elite of different confessions even jointly contributed to the cultural emancipation of the ethnos.