Burgenland

This article is about the Austrian state Burgenland. For the German district, see Burgenlandkreis.

Template:Infobox Austrian Bundesland Burgenland (Croatian Gradišće, Hungarian Őrvidék, Felsőőrvidék or Várvidék, Prekmurian Gradišče, Slovenian Gradiščansko) is the easternmost and least populous state or Land of Austria. It consists of two Statutarstädte (towns with a charter) and seven districts with in total 171 municipalities. It is 166 km long from north to south but much narrower from west to east (only 5 km wide at Sieggraben).

Geography

Burgenland is the 7th largest of Austria's 9 provinces (Bundesländer), at 3,966 km². The highest point in the province is Geschriebenstein, at 884 metres, the lowest point is 114 metres, near Apetlon.

Burgenland has a very long border: To the west it borders the Austrian provinces of Niederösterreich and Steiermark. To the northeast it borders Slovakia, Hungary to the east and Slovenia to the farthest south.

Burgenland and Hungary share the Neusiedler See, known for its reeds and shallowness, as well as the mild climate throughout the year. The Neusiedler See is Austria's largest lake serving as a large tourist attraction bringing ornithologists, sailors and wind and kite surfers into the region north of the lake.

Politics of Burgenland

Burgenland's provincial assembly (Landtag) has 36 seats. At the election held on 3 December 2000, the SPÖ won 17 seats, the ÖVP won 13 seats, the FPÖ won 4 seats, and the Green Party won 2 seats. The provincial government is a coalition of the SPÖ and the ÖVP. The voting age for regional elections in Burgenland was reduced to 16 in 2003. In an election held on October 9 2005, the SPÖ won 19 seats, giving them a majority. The ÖVP retained its 13 seats, the Green Party retained its 2 seats, and the FPÖ fell to 2 seats.[1]

Administrative divisions

In Burgenland there are 2 Statutarstädte and 7 districts. From north to south:

The districts of Burgenland

Statutarstädte

These combine the attributes of district and city.

• Eisenstadt
• Rust

Districts

• Neusiedl am See (administrative center Neusiedl am See)
• Eisenstadt-Umgebung (Eisenstadt)
• Mattersburg (Mattersburg)
• Oberpullendorf (Oberpullendorf)
• Oberwart (Oberwart) (Hun. Felsőőr)
• Güssing (Güssing)
• Jennersdorf (Jennersdorf)

History

Between Hungary and Austria

The first inhabitation of Burgenland dates back to the Stone Age. During the Roman Empire it formed the core of the province of Pannonia. After the battle at Augsburg (955), Germanic settlers started to inhabit the area. In 1043 a peace treaty between Kaiser Henry III and King Aba Sámuel of Hungary fixed the western border of Hungary along the Leitha river. The territory of the present-day Burgenland remained the western border-zone of Hungary until 1920.

The majority of the population was Germanic except the Hungarian border-guards of the frontier (gyepű). Germanic immigration was also continuous in the Middle Ages from the neighbouring Austria. In the 16-17th centuries German Protestant refugees arrived in Western Hungary to take shelter from the religious wars of the Holy Roman Empire.

After 1440 the territory of present-day Burgenland was occupied by the Habsburgs of Austria, and in 1463 the northern part of it (with the town of Kőszeg) became a mortgage-territory according to the peace treaty of Wiener Neustadt. In 1477 King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary reoccupied, but in 1491 it was mortgaged again by King Ulászló II of Hungary to Kaiser Maximilian I. In 1647 Kaiser Ferdinand II returned it to Hungary. In the 17-18th centuries wealthy Catholic landowner-families, for example the Esterházys and Batthyánys, dominated the region.

After the demise of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy in 1918, the German inhabitants of Deutsch-Westungarn (German Western Hungary, Burgenland) intended to join Austria. According to the 1910 census 291,800 people lived on the territory of present-day Burgenland. Among them 217,072 were German-speaking (74%), 43,633 Croatian (15%) and 26,225 (9%) Hungarian. Roma people were counted according to their mother language.

The area had also been discussed as the site of a Czech Corridor to Yugoslavia. The decision about Deutsch-Westungarn was fixed in the peace treaties of Saint Germain and the Trianon. Despite diplomatic efforts by Hungary, the victorious parties of World War I set the date of Burgenland's official unification with Austria as August 28 1921. In fact, the occupation by the Austrian police and customs was stopped on the same day, hindered by sharpshooters who offered armed resistance with the support of Hungary.

1921: The ninth state of Austria

With the help of Italian diplomatic mediation, the crisis was almost resolved in the autumn of 1921, when Hungary committed to disarm the sharpshooters by November 6 1921, with the caveat of a poll about the unification of certain territories, including Ödenburg (Sopron), the designated capital of Burgenland, and eight other communities. The poll took place from 14 December to 16 December, and resulted in a clear (but doubted by Austria) vote of the people for Hungary.

Contrary to the other ('Cisleithanian') present Austrian states, Burgenland did not constitute a specific Kronland. Because of its different historical roots at the time of its formation it did not have its own 'regional' political and administrative institutions such as a Landtag (representative assembly) and Statthalter (imperial governor).

On July 18 1922, the first elections for the parliament of Burgenland took place. To cope with the changeover from Hungarian to Austrian jurisdiction, a lot of interim arrangements were made. The parliament decided in 1925 on Eisenstadt as the official capital of Burgenland, and moved from the various provisional estates throughout the country to the newly built Landhaus in 1929.

The first Austrian census in 1923 registered 285,600 people in Burgenland. The ethnic composition of the province slightly changed: the percentage of Germans increased compared to 1910 (227,869 people, 80%) while the percentage of Hungarians rapidly declined (14,931 people, 5%). This change was due to the emigration of the Hungarian civil servants and intellectuals after the union with Austria.

In 1923, emigration to the United States of America, which started in the late 19th century, reached its climax; in some places up to a quarter of the population went overseas.

After the Nazi German Anschluss of Austria, the administrative unit Burgenland was dissolved and integrated into the districts of Niederdonau (Lower Danube) and Steiermark (Styria).

In addition to the oppression of the Jews, the ethnic groups Roma and Sinti also suffered under the Nazi regime. The KZ Lackenback concentration camp for gyspies was located in the area, as was KZ Zwaten.

The policy of Germanization had effects on other ethnic minorities especially Croatians and Hungarians. Minority schools were closed and the use of native language discouraged.

The Nazis began, with the help of mostly Jewish forced labour and committed inhabitants, to build the Ostwall (Eastern Rampart), which showed itself utterly useless at the time Soviet troops crossed the Hungarian-Austrian border and began to invade Austria. In the last days of the Nazi regime a lot of executions and death-marches of the Jewish forced labourers took place.

Minefields 1945-1970

As of October 1, 1945, Burgenland was reestablished with Soviet support and given to the Soviet forces in exchange for Steiermark (Styria), which was in turn occupied by the United Kingdom.

Under the Soviet occupation, people in Burgenland had to endure a period of serious mistreatment and an extremely slow economic progression, the latter induced by investor-discouraging presence of the Soviet troops. The Soviet occupation ended with the signing of the Austrian Independence Treaty of Vienna in 1955 by the Occupying Forces.

The brutally crushed Hungarian Revolution on October 23 1956 resulted in a shockwave of Hungarian refugees at the Hungarian-Austrian border, especially at the Bridge of Andau (Brücke von Andau), who were received by the inhabitants of Burgenland with an overwhelming amount of hospitality.

In 1957, the construction of the "anti-Fascist Protective Barrier" resulted in a complete bulkheading of the area under Soviet influence from the rest of the world, rendering the Hungarian-Austrian border next to Burgenland a deadly zone of mine fields (on the Hungarian border) and barbed wire, referred to as the Iron Curtain. Even during the era of the Iron Curtain, local trains between the north and south of Burgenland operated as "Corridor trains" (Korridorzüge) – they had their doors locked as they traversed Hungarian territory.

Starting in 1965 and finishing in 1971, the minefields were cleansed because people were often harmed by them, even on the Austrian side of the border. This could well be taken as a sign of the Soviet Union towards opening the borders to the Western countries, starting in the late 1970s.

Wine and Iron Curtain

Despite Burgenland (especially the area around Neusiedler See) always producing excellent wine, some vintners in Burgenland added illegal substances to their wine in the mid-1980s. When this was revealed, Austria's wine exports dwindled dramatically. After recovering from the scandal, vintners in Austria, not only in Burgenland, started focusing on quality and mostly stopped producing poor quality wine.

On July 27 1989, the Foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary, Alois Mock and Gyula Horn, cut the Iron Curtain (in German: "Eiserner Vorhang") in the village of Klingenbach in a symbolic act with far-reaching consequences. Thousands of East Germans used this possibility to flee to the West. Again, the inhabitants of Burgenland received them with great hospitality. Later, this was often referred to as the starting shot of the German reunification.

After 1990 Burgenland regained its traditional role as a bridge between the western and eastern parts of Central Europe. Cross-border links were strengthened with the joining of Hungary and Slovenia the European Union in 2004. Both countries became part of the Schengen zone in late 2007 when border controls finally ceased to exist in the region.

Minorities

Burgenland has notable Croatian (29,000 - 45,000) and Magyar (5,000 - 15,000) populations.

Hungarians live in the villages of Oberwart/Felsőőr, Unterwart/Alsóőr and Siget in der Wart/Őrisziget. The three villages together are called Upper Őrség (Hun: Felső-Őrség, German: Wart), and they have formed a language island since the 11th century. The other old Hungarian language island in Oberpullendorf/Felsőpulya has almost disappeared today. The Hungarians of Burgenland were "őrök" ie. guards of the western frontier, and their special dialect is similar to the Székelys in Transylvania. Their cultural centre is Oberwart/Felsőőr. Another distinct Hungarian group were the indentured agricultural workers living on the huge estates north of Neusiedler See. They arrived mainly from the Rábaköz region. After the dissolution of the manors in the mid-20th century this group ceased to exist.

The Croatians arrived after the devastating Ottoman war in 1532, when the Ottoman army totally destroyed some parts of the territory. Their resettlement by estate owners was finished only in 1584. They have preserved their strong Catholic faith and their language until today, and in the 19th century their national identity grew stronger because of the influence of the National Revival in Croatia. Between 1918 and 1921 Croatians opposed the planned annexation of West-Hungary to Austria, and in 1923 seven Croatian villages voted for a return to Hungary. The Croatian Cultural Association of Burgenland was established in 1934. In the Nazi era (1938-45) the Croatian language was officially prohibited, and the state pursued an aggressive policy of Germanization. The Austrian State Treaty of 1955 guaranteed minority rights for every native ethnic minority in Austria but Croatians had to fight for the use of their language in schools and offices even in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2000 51 new bilingual village name signs were erected in Burgenland (47 Croatian and 4 Hungarian).

The language of the Croatian minority is an interesting 16th century dialect which is different from standard Croatian. In minority schools and media the local dialect is used, and it has had a written form since the 17th century (the Gospel was first translated to this dialect in 1711). Today the language is endangered by assimilation, according to the UNESCO "Red Book". The Croatians of Burgenland belong to the same group as their relatives on the other side of the modern Hungarian border.

In addition to Germans, Croatians and Hungarians, Burgenland used to have substantial Roma and Jewish populations, wiped out by the Nazi regime. Before their deportation during 1938, the traditionally very religious Burgenland Jews were concentrated in the famous "Seven Communities" (Siebengemeinden / Sheva kehillot) in Eisenstadt, Mattersburg, Kittsee, Frauenkirchen, Kobersdorf, Lackenbach and Deutschkreutz, where they formed a substantial part of the population: e.g., in Lackenbach, 62 % of the population was Jewish as of 1869. After the war, Jews from Burgenland founded the Jerusalem haredi neighbourhood of Kiryat Mattersdorf, reminding of the original name of Mattersburg, once a centre of a famous yeshiva.

Name

The name Vierburgenland (Land of Four Castles) was created in 1919 by Odo Rötig, a Viennese resident in Sopron/Ödenburg. It was derived from the name of the four Hungarian vármegye (in German Komitate, 'counties') known in Hungarian as Pozsony, Moson, Sopron and Vas, or in German as Pressburg, Wieselburg, Ödenburg and Eisenburg. After the town of Pozsony/Pressburg was assigned to Czechoslovakia the number vier was dropped, but the name was kept because it was deemed to be appropriate for a region with so many old frontier castles. The Burgenland name was officially adopted by the first provincial Landtag in 1922.

In Hungarian the German name is generally accepted but there are three modern alternatives used by minor groups. The Hungarian translation of the German name, Várvidék was invented by László Juhász, an expert of the region in the 1970s and it is becoming increasingly popular especially in touristic publications. The other two names Őrvidék and Felső-Őrvidék derive from the name of the most important old Magyar language island, the Felső-Őrség. This microregion is around the town Felsőőr/Oberwart so these new names are a bit misleading however they are sometimes used.

The Croatian and Slovenian names Gradišće and Gradiščansko are translations of the German name. The village of Jennersdorf is no more than 5 kilometers from the Slovenian, as well the Hungarian borders. The province's southernmost region was historically part of Slovenia (see the United Slovenia movement).

Alternatively, the Serbians, Czechs and Slovaks call the western shores of the Neusiedler See (lake) surrounding the town of Rust Luzic' or Lusic. However, the descendants of Luzic Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats, Czechs and Slovaks were eventually assimilated into the ethnic German or Hungarian cultures over four centuries.

The province has a long history of Slavic, as well Austrian-German and Hungarian-Magyar settlement. The province's easternmost portion (the shores of the Neusiedler See) carried its own topographical term Seewinkel in Austrian-German. This is the least Austrian-German influenced area since the Hungarian and Slovak borders are less than 10 kilometers away.

Symbols

Heraldic description of the coat-of-arms of Burgenland:

Or, standing upon a rock sable, an eagle regardant, wings displayed gules, langued of the same, crowned and armed of the first, on his breast an escutcheon paly of four, of the third and white fur, fimbriated of the field, and in dexter and sinister cantons two crosslets paty sable.

The arms were introduced in 1922 after the new province was created. They were composed from the arms of the two most important medieval noble families of the region, the Counts of Nagymarton and Fraknó (Mattersdorf-Forchtensten, eagle on the rock) and the Counts of Németújvár (Güssing, three bars of red and white fur).[2]

The flag of the province shows two stripes of red and gold, the colours of the coat-of-arms. It was officially confirmed in 1971.

Burgenländische Gemeinschaft

Candid of 2007 winner

The Burgenländische Gemeinschaft was founded in 1956, hoping to unite those from Burgenland who have emigrated and now span the globe. The main goals include fostering Burgenland unity, establishing a global community, organizing family trips and gatherings, and reinforcing a sense of homeland attachment. Efforts are also being made to ensure the security of important Burgenland historical documents. Since its inception over 50 years ago, regional chapters have spread throughout the world, with large communities in USA, Canada, Argentina, Switzerland, and Germany. In the USA alone, Burgenländische Gemeinschaft services over 20,000 people.[3]

Also notable is the annual "Miss Brüderschaft der Burgenländer" competition, held in a gala style event in New York. The current title is held by Lillianna Baczeski of Southbury, CT, having received the title from the 2006 winner, Jennifer Tuifl.[4]

Sources

• History of Burgenland (PDF file)

External links

• Official website
• Burgenland Travel Guide
• Template:Fr icon Pictures of Eisenstadt
• Burgenland-Croatian Center
• The home page of the Burgenland Bunch Genealogy Group