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Sassonia (Germania : State) CercaDefinizione
Situated in east-central Germany, the state of Saxony was bordered by Thuringia in the west,, by the state of Bavaria to the south and southwest, by Czechoslovakia to the south and southest, by the Prussian provinces of Silesia to the northeast - Brandenburg to the north and by Prussian Saxony to the northwest.
The original territory of the Germanic Saxon tribes extended far beyond Saxony's modern boundaries. Before 1180 the name Saxony was applied to the territory conquered between about A.D. 200 and 700 by the Saxon tribes. This territory included Holstein and the area west of the lower Elbe River. In 843 Saxony became part of the East Frankish, or German, kingdom. By the early tenth century Saxony had emerged as a hereditary duchy, and in 919 Duke Henry of Saxony was elected the German king. He founded the Saxon, or Ottonian, dynasty, which held the German crown until 1024. Under the Ottonians, Germanic peoples advanced eastward into Slavic territory.
Napoleon conquered Saxony in 1806 and made it a kingdom. It became one of his most loyal allies, and, after his overthrow, its territory was greatly reduced by the victorious powers at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15). Prussia acquired Wittenberg, Torgau, northern Thuringia, and most of Lusatia, which became the Prussian province of Saxony. The truncated kingdom of Saxony became a member of the German Confederation.
In 1871 Saxony became part of the new German Empire. Its monarchy was abolished after Germany's defeat in World War I, and Saxony adopted a republican constitution as a free state under the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). The territory continued to be a state under the Third Reich (1933-1945) and the German Democratic Republic until 1952, when it was abolished as a formal territory. The state of Saxony was reestablished in 1990 during the unification of East and West Germany.
Under the German Empire and Weimar Republic, the state of Saxony comprised the following administrative subunits: Bautzen, Chemnitz, Dresden, Leipzig, and Zwickau. Administrative seats of these subunits are identical to the respective subunit names. (en-US)
Fonte
The Times Atlas of World History. Edited by Geofrey Barraclough. Third Edition. Maplewood, New Jersey: Hammond, 1989.