Wendland

Coordinates: 52°57′59″N 11°09′01″E / 52.9665°N 11.1503°E / 52.9665; 11.1503
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Wendland (disambiguation).
In the north the Wendland is bounded by the flood plain of the Elbe

The Wendland is a region in

Hanoverian Wendland in the county of Lüchow-Dannenberg in Lower Saxony
.

In 2012 the state of Lower Saxony nominated the

shortlist of candidates for future UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Subsequent decisions that will determine the success of this bid take place in 2013 at the conference of education ministers (Kultusministerkonferenz) and no earlier than 2017 by UNESCO.[1]

Etymology

Wendland is not an ancient regional name. The term was first used around 1700, when a priest from

Polabian inhabitants of this area. He viewed the people in the Dannenberg districts as Wends, an old German word for Slavs
, and so named the region the Wendland. Over the course of time the name stuck. The term Vendland was used for the regions east of
Burizleif
of Vendland.

Landscape

In the west the partially wooded Drawehn ridge dominates the Hanoverian Wendland; view from the Hoher Mechtin
The Lüchower Landgraben and Grenzgraben depressions separate the Wendland in the south from the Altmark; view over the Flötgraben of Lemgow

Geographically the western Wendland is also the eastern edge of the

wind-borne sand (see also: Wendland and Altmark
).

Culture and history

The Wendland was heavily influenced by the

Early Modern Period the Wendland was inhabited by Western Slavs, called Wends in German. As a result there are numerous place names that have Slavic origins, as well as circular villages of the Rundling type that emerged during times of German-Slav conflict in the Medieval period. The Slavic language of the Wendlanders, the Draveno-Polabian
, died out by 1756. Previously, the Wendland was the westernmost point of the Slavic language region.

Until the

Wende ("great change") in 1989/90, the Wendland was a border zone that extended like a salient into East Germany. Beginning in the late 1970s, it was known for protests against the atomic waste storage facility at Gorleben, and for the so-called Free Republic of Wendland
of 1980 – a protest camp later cleared by police.

Since 1989, a cultural festival, the Kulturelle Landpartie, has taken place in the Wendland annually between

Ascension Day and Pentecost
.

Types of settlement

Lüchow

In Hanoverian Wendland, a distinctive type of historic circular village, known as the Rundling, is common even today. Almost all Rundlinge still bear village names of Slavic origin. This type of settlement occurred in regions from the Baltic Sea to the Ore Mountains, but has only survived in its original form in any numbers in the Wendland due to the relative isolation of the region since the Middle Ages and its distance from the main trading routes.

Over 100 villages in the area still preserve the characteristic appearance of a Rundling. But similar villages called by other names such as Runddorf or Platzdorf or Rundangerdorf occur in significant numbers in neighbouring Altmark as well as the eastern parts of the counties of Lüneburg, Uelzen, Gifhorn and in the south on the Vorsfelder Werder (Rühen, Wendschott, Brackstedt, Velstove) and some parts of Schleswig-Holstein. However, unlike those in the Hanoverian Wendland, they have been greatly modified. It has been put forward that the unusually good preservation state of the Rundlings in the Hanoverian Wendland is largely due to their relatively isolated situation and the low economic prosperity of the region. But socio-cultural reasons appear to have also played an important role.[2]


Shortlisting for World Heritage status

The

UNESCO World Heritage Sites. On 18 June 2012, the Lower Saxon Ministry of Science and Culture (Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur) announced its decision following a selection process that had started in 2011.[3] The conference of cultural ministers (Kultusministerkonferenz) decided in 2014[4] that the villages would not be among the 10 objects selected from the 32 candidates. They were rolled forward into the next cycle of entries in the years 2017–2023,[5] but the initiative failed again.[6]

The original bid was based on 15 Rundling villages chosen to represent a selection of highly distinctive

gable ends facing a central green as well as the fact that their houses represent a regionally specific variation of this type of farmhouse. The state of Lower Saxony hoped that the bid will prove successful because these circular villages are among the most unrepresented categories of cultural landscapes and farming architecture in the UNESCO's world heritage list. However the decision was taken by the German state governments on December 4th 2023 not to put the "Rundling Landschaft" forward to UNESCO in Paris.Elbe-Jeetzel Zeitung 4.12.2023 See published article https://rundlingsverein.de/
There are no current plans to resubmit the bid.

Literature

External links

References

  1. ^ Wer wird Welterbe? in: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung dated 18 June 2012
  2. ^ "Rundlingsverein" (in German). Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  3. ^ Pressemitteilung: „Altes Land“ und „Rundlingsdörfer des Hannoverschen Wendlandes“ werden für die deutsche Tentativliste gemeldet des Niedersächsischen Ministeriums für Wissenschaft und Kultur vom 18. Juni 2012
  4. ^ Kein UNESCO-Welterbe? Dann eben nicht! bei ndr.de vom 17. Juni 2914 at the Wayback Machine (archived 2014-08-17)
  5. ^ Elbe-Jeetzel-Zeitung vom 14. Juni 2014
  6. ^ Die runden Dörfer des Wendlands bei ndr.de vom 23. Januar 2019

52°57′59″N 11°09′01″E / 52.9665°N 11.1503°E / 52.9665; 11.1503

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wendland&oldid=1192801274"