Sînziana Schönfelder, from TRAWOS, in conversation with Jadwiga Mahlin, pastor in the Schleifer parish
Ms. Mahling, what made you decide to become a pastor and how did you actually come to Schleife?
I come from Lusatia myself, from the Bautzen area, from a 6th-7th generation pastor's family. My father is a pastor. Church and faith have always played a role in our lives. Studying theology myself is a path of its own. Being a young pastor and working with the young congregation in a children's home in Romania had an impact on me. After school, I spent a year in Spain and decided to study theology there. While I was still at school, I opted out of religious education because it simply wasn't good. I took physics as an advanced course, so I could have imagined studying physics. Nevertheless, I opted for metaphysics, so I studied theology in Greifswald, Tübingen, Heidelberg, Beirut (at the Near East School of Theology) and in Leipzig. In 2011, I passed my first church exam and decided against an academic career for personal reasons. I went into the vicariate in Machern near Leipzig. After my second ecclesiastical examination, I found out that there had been a vacancy for a pastor in Schleife parish for some time. This appealed to me for various reasons. One was the Sorbian language, and the Schleife dialect is special. I knew this region from my childhood. I liked the Sorbian heath region and, of course, I was also interested in the whole lignite issue because I have been interested in environmental problems and the stories surrounding them since I was young. Other factors, such as the local school, were then decisive in my decision to apply to Schleife. Normally you don't get to choose your first job, you're assigned to it. But if you want to go to the countryside, you can choose your position.
Even though there are already some female pastors, this profession tends to be dominated by men. Is it a challenge for you to be a female pastor and to have a certain authority as a woman?
Here in the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia, everything is oriented towards Berlin, which makes it much easier and more open. There was a female pastor here in Schleife before me and I think that was important. She was only in office for five years, but she opened up a lot of things for me. It's probably difficult when a female pastor comes for the first time. Apart from that, I have to say that it has been normal for women to be ordained in our regional church for over 50 years. People know other female pastors and the role model is also changing in the pastoral profession. More women are currently studying theology than men and the forecast is that the pastoral profession will become more of a female profession. Nevertheless, you still have to deal with clichés and prejudices time and again, although I don't experience this so strongly in our church district in the regional church. It is sometimes difficult for older members of the congregation, who were simply strongly influenced by an old image of the pastor in their childhood and youth. Of course, the parishioners have to get used to a young pastor and a young family. I don't hold that against them. They themselves say that they have never had a young parish family here where the woman is the pastor.
How big is your parish and what are the proportions between Christians and non-Christians?
The Schleife parish has a total of around 1,500 parishioners in eight villages, but only one church. People have been used to going to this church for centuries. Around 20 to 25% of the inhabitants of Schleife parish are church members. Tradition is important, the church is naturally at the center of the village and is accepted as a partner.
Are all the parishioners Sorbs?
This brings us to the question of who is a Sorbian? I would say that 80% have a Sorbian background. This is noticeable in the surnames, which are very traditional, such as Nagorka, Krautz, Nowak, Gnilica, Sprejz etc. After the Second World War, most families abandoned the Sorbian language.
This is a long-term development: on the one hand, it was the policy of reprisals against the Sorbs in Prussian times and, of course, especially in National Socialist times: Sorbian pastors and teachers were expelled from the villages in order to promote Germanization. The Sorbian-speaking pastor Gottfried Rösler was also expelled here in the Schleifer parish in 1938.
What was the situation after 1945?
After the Second World War, the ideal that had dominated for centuries no longer applied: the rural and agricultural culture firmly anchored in the Sorbian language and faith. The new ideal was the socialist worker who worked in open-cast mining, spoke German as a matter of course and did not wear traditional costume. The language was once again discarded and, in most cases, the traditional costume too. The 80-90 year olds all grew up speaking their mother tongue and also speak the language. The 60-70 year olds understand it because they have learned and heard it from their grandparents. The younger generation, who grew up in the GDR, certainly understand individual words, but the level is rudimentary. It mainly affects Nieder- and Mittellausitz, because that's where the lignite deposits are. A total of 130 villages have been devastated over the decades. When people move to the cities, to apartment blocks in Weißwasser and Hoyerswerda, they are uprooted and lose their language and culture. The linguistic situation is particularly precarious in Central and Lower Lusatia. The area around Bautzen and the Catholic villages are in a better linguistic position. Nevertheless, it has to be said that even there the number of native speakers is still decreasing. For me, language, culture, traditions and customs create identity. When do you become a Sorbian? I think some people here in the Schleifer parish would say: "We are Sorbs, we don't speak the language, but on festive days we wear the traditional costume".
A society is constantly undergoing structural change, especially here in Lusatia.
Let's move on to the topic you mentioned earlier, which is on everyone's lips: structural change. The municipality of Schleife is home to the last village in eastern Germany that is to be dismantled. What is the atmosphere like in your community? How does your community experience structural change?
I find this word structural change very problematic because we are always living in a change of structures: The change in structures after the Second World War, then when the farmers were forced into the LPG, the change in 89/90, then the mass redundancies and so on... that's a massive change in structures. A society is constantly undergoing structural change, especially in Lusatia.
Nevertheless, we are currently particularly affected here: the Schleifer parish or parts of it, such as Rohne, Mulkwitz or Mühlrose, were already listed as a priority mining area in GDR times. No more construction was allowed, as resettlement was already planned. This is why the town centers of these villages are so historic and characteristic, because all the old farms have been preserved. In the 1990s, there was a great flourishing of new construction and renovation of houses because the new lignite plan no longer provided for the villages to be devastated: "you can build, you won't be resettled".
When did that change? Mühlrose is currently to be resettled.
Yes, that changed radically in 2006: the new mining district concept stated that the villages of Rohne, Mulkwitz, Mühlrose and Schleife south of the railroad and Klein-Trebendorf were to be devastated and excavated. For Schleife parish, this would have meant the resettlement of 1700 people and the relocation of three cemeteries. This statement immediately dropped the value of the land, because who would move to a village that was to be relocated? People then spent 10 years planning the relocation. At the beginning of 2015, the owner, the Swedish state-owned company Vattenfall, said: "We are selling our lignite division, we want to move in the direction of renewable energies, lignite is difficult for us". It was then sold to EPH, a Czech multinational consortium with opaque structures. In 2017, the new owner announced a new mining area concept: the villages of Schleife south of the railroad, Rohne, Mulkwitz and Klein Trebendorf will not be used, but the village of Mühlrose may be. After the past 10 years of investment freeze, when people had already said goodbye to their homes, another turnaround: "You can stay!".
How are the local people coping with this incessant back and forth? Is there any hope?
The people in the places that remain are regaining hope, they have changed their structural thinking again because they will stay in their homes. They now have to start identifying with their place again. For me, that is structural change! Mühlrose is probably the last village in eastern Germany to be released for resettlement. At the moment, the move is a voluntary early resettlement. Only in a few years' time, if the lignite plan is approved, can the resettlement be enforced under mining law. But whether the rewritten lignite plan will still be approved is written in the stars.
What I am currently experiencing in Mühlrose is the end of a historic place. It is disintegrating - through disputes, but also through people moving away. The houses and courtyards, including the historic ones, are being demolished. Only a few will remain.
The situation in which we live here in Schleifer Kirchspiel is one of great disparity. Some people stay in their homes, even build new houses, invest in the future, start families. Others are in a quandary: "Do I stay or do I move? But people have realized that the whole story of coal is a finite one! In the past, the coal company was always there: it invested a lot in community life, a new school and fire departments were built. Before my time, even the church was renovated by the mining company.
An incredible amount of money has flowed into these villages and this is currently changing in people's attitudes; it is no longer possible to make everything dependent on the mining company alone. People are developing more initiative and their own ideas again. In Rohne, for example, a cultural barn is to be built, the bus stop has been converted into a reading stop and so on.
And I'm delighted about that! I'm very positive about the whole thing. People are identifying more with their homeland again, with what makes their villages valuable.
In my sermons, I hardly ever talk about the lignite issue. I preach biblical stories and they speak for themselves.
At some point you ask yourself the question: where do I want to live, what do I actually want and what opportunities do I have?
Yes, a structural change like the current one can only work if people develop initiatives and ideas. A lot of money from above is not enough. These villages have experienced what a lot of money means: quarrels, envy and a paralysis of initiative. That is exactly what has happened here in recent years. All that was expected was that the mining company would pay and be done with it. From my point of view, money also hinders structural change and a big shower of money will not change people's thinking. We can see that in Trebendorf right now. A large sports park was built there and the Saxony State Office of Criminal Investigation is currently investigating embezzlement. This is tearing a small town apart because there are covetousness: one family was involved there, the other family was involved elsewhere... Now there are house searches in Trebendorf. And that's why structural change is difficult when the focus is only on economic development and infrastructure. If, on the other hand, culture and alternative schools are promoted, families who prefer to send their children to an independent school may also come here. They then consider whether they might move from the metropolitan area to the rural area after all.
How do you imagine these conflicts between people in your community? You then have both sides in front of you ... do you sometimes have to mediate between different parties?
Many people think that you talk a lot as a pastor or that you have to talk a lot. But the main task for me as a pastor is to listen. I am there for people and that is also the strength of the church and faith. No matter which party they belong to or how they feel about the lignite issue: We celebrate worship together! And that's what's special and what I really like: despite everything, people come to church, to the service, and find support.
In my sermons, I almost never talk about the lignite issue. I preach biblical stories and they speak for themselves.
And after the sermon, they sometimes come up to you and say...?
"It worked!" I see this as a central and absolutely important task in our parish, because these eight villages are divided into three communities and because they are held together by the church. That's why it's called "Eight villages - one parish". The question is always how to create this cohesion, because you don't need to set up a philosophical reading circle here in the village. It would be nice, but it might not work that way.
I've realized that the fire department, for example, is very important to people and that's why I've started to hold fire department services where all eight fire departments from all eight villages come together and we celebrate their efforts. They are always there for everything, the fire departments are there for the organization of village festivals, they put out the forest fires that we have more frequently here in the region, they are there in case of accidents, etc. They are the first response force. They are the first responders in the villages. I think it's important to recognize, appreciate and value this.
These are unifying measures where it's not about "you are the municipality", "we are the municipality", "you got so much money", "we got so much money" or "we got nothing"... That's not the focus. What actually connects us? Every village has a fire department and that unites us. The basic problem is that people often don't feel seen and valued. Appreciation! That people are seen for what they are, with their problems, but also with their beautiful sides. That we convey the Christian message that "you are loved, you are wanted just as you are, God sees you, God blesses you". And that is positive, that is positive energy, that is a message of hope!
So this region, which is really bleeding and so wounded, there is a future for this region too! And at this point I am very certain that my faith will carry me through. And I want to convey this hope to the people here, on the ground!
... she joined the project "Gender-sensitive welcoming culture in the district of Görlitz" in summer 2017 and developed formats to take women into account, with a special focus on female farmers in the district of Görlitz. This resulted in the film Land leben. Land lieben, which she produced together with René Beder. In addition to her scientific work at the IHI Zittau - TU Dresden, she researches at the TRAWOS Institute of the Zittau-Görlitz University of Applied Sciences Religion-sensitive integration culture in Eastern Saxony - and remains F wie Kraft as an author of portraits.
