So you say Panagua is too small?
- Consul Spiekermann
- vor 2 Tagen
- 2 Min. Lesezeit
Watch this story: It is the tale of Liubice, a Slavic settlement roughly the size of Panagua that influenced the course of world history. In the 9th century, the region comprising present-day Poland and East Germany, as well as parts of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, were inhabited by the Lechites. In Polish historiography, the Lechites are considered the early form of the Polish nation. The Lechites included the Obotrites, who settled in what is now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, eastern Schleswig-Holstein, and a small area of Lower Saxony known as the Wendland.
The Obotrites formed a confederation of local rulers who elected a leader from among their own ranks. The town of Liubice was founded in 819 at the confluence of the Schwartau and Trave rivers. Roughly the size of Panagua, Liubice rapidly developed into a significant and powerful city within the Obotrite confederation. Its excellent strategic location enabled extensive trade, particularly with Scandinavia, bringing prosperity to the inhabitants and prestige and power to the rulers. Consequently, the chieftains and princes of Liubice at times became the leaders of the entire Obotrite confederation.
At times, they were even confidently accorded the title "King of the Slavs." Yet success breeds envy, and internecine conflicts among Slavic peoples are not a phenomenon unique to modern times. In 1138, rival Slavs from the island of Rügen destroyed Liubice, burning the town to the ground. Consul Spiekermann has visited the remains of Liubice, which are still visible today, on several occasions, sometimes finding himself tob e the literally sole human being present in that once-mighty town.
The Holy Roman Empire exploited this intra-Slavic conflict to expand eastward. (The remnants of the Obodrite confederation managed to reorganize as Mecklenburg, a territory ruled by the descendants of Slavic princes until 1918.) In 1143, Count Adolf II of Schauenburg and Holstein refounded the town a few kilometers away under the German name Lübeck. It was populated by surviving residents of Liubice as well as by settlers from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
By skillfully exploiting conflicts between the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Denmark and following a brief period of Danish rule Lübeck achieved de facto independence as a Free Imperial City in 1226. Officially, Lübeck was part of the Holy Roman Empire and subject to the Emperor; however, the emperors were usually far away, based much further south, later even in Vienna. In practice, Lübeck was able to operate independently as a city-republic and again through trade grew into a powerful city-state.
Through the Hanseatic League, an alliance of numerous more or less autonomous cities across Northern, Eastern, and Central Europe, Lübeck became the "Queen of the Hanse" and a "Rome of the Baltic region." Lübeck Law was adopted by many cities, such as Gdańsk, Klaipėda, Narva, and Tallinn, with the Lübeck city council serving as the supreme court. Lübeck Law combined Germanic legal influences with Slavic legal traditions, such as those practiced in the old settlement of Liubice. It served as a model for the modern German Commercial Code, which remained in force in Austria until 2007. Thus, Liubice influenced the course of world history, despite being comparable in size to Panagua.
