The youngest province of Austria, Burgenland derived its name in 1919 from the endings of the four predominantly German-speaking border districts or comitats of western Hungary with the oldest settlement dates back to the Mesolithic Age. The rivers Leitha and Lafnitz, which today form the natural border with the provinces of Lower Austria and Styria, had formed the border between Austria and Hungary from the 11th century onwards. The prehistoric Amber trading route, later a Roman Imperial route from Aquileia to Carnuntum, passed through the country. At the time of the Migration of the Germanic Peoples Huns, Goths, Langobards and Avars settled in what now is Burgenland. In 800 the Avars were defeated by Charlemagne, and the country became a border province of the Frankish-Bavarian kingdom until it fell under Magyar domination in 907. The rivers Leitha and Lafnitz, which today form the natural border with the provinces of Lower Austria and Styria, had formed the border between Austria and Hungary from the 11th century onwards. German-speaking farmers and craftsmen settled in the areas between Magyar border villages; Benedictine and Cistercian monks devoted themselves to cultivating the land.
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. There was support in 1848 by the Emperor in Neoabsolutism by which Slovenian was allowed in village schools. Since 1812, Slavic studies as a foundation were a department and a society in separate communities.
- After the Magyar tribes invaded the Pannonian basin (in 896), they also started the conquest of Transylvania which remained an autonomous principality of the Hungarian Kingdom until the Ottoman victory over the Magyars following the Battle of Mohács (1526).
- In 1720 - 37.2% of the population of Transylvania. In 1786, 29.4% of the population.
- The share of the Hungarian speaking population rose to 28 % in the territory of Burgenland because of the minority pressure of Hungariansation. In Vienna and Graz Hungarian families have lived for centuries. This group was called “Magyaronen” as distinct from the Hungarian population called “Magyaren”.
- Hungarian nationalists mobilized a resistance against the decision in the convention of St. Germain to hand over Burgenland to Austria.
- The Hungarian language group of Burgenland saw itself as minority of the German speaking national state.
- In the Northern Burgenland however there were several resistance groups of Hungarian land worker. Today they live chiefly in two language regions round Oberpullendorf/Felsöpulya and Oberwart/Felsöör as well as in small groups in districts in the Northern Burgenland.
- There is also a consistent Hungarian population in Transylvania that is historically not related to the Magyars led by Árpád: the Székelys, the main ethnic component of the Hungarian minority in Romania.
- About 197,000 Transylvanian Hungarians fled to Hungary between 1918 and 1922.
- In 1940, the joint German-Italian Second Vienna Award gave back Northern Transylvania to Hungary, which held it until 1944.
- Most ethnic Hungarians of Romania live in what is today known as Transylvania, where they make up about 20% of the population. According to Romania's minority rights law, Hungarians have the right to education in their native language, including as a medium of instruction, in localities where they make up more than 20% of the population. More than 30% of courses are held in the Hungarian language.
- The Magyars represent today only around 33% of the population of the Carpathian Basin.
In Hungary, of which today's Burgenland was a part until 1921, the state started his own personal status records in 1895 (in Austria in 1938). This means that from these dates onwards the parishes only produced ecclesiastical records, which are under the sole supervision of the church. For the Burgenland, which until 1921 had belonged to the dioceses Gyoer (Raab) und Szombathely (Steinamanger), an ecclesiastical administration was set up in 1922.
Burgenland in Austria is a narrow, hilly region bordering Slovakia in the northeast and Hungary in the east, and it is indented by Neusiedler Lake. A borderland battleground for nearly 1,000 years, Burgenland has many castles, fortified churches, and walled villages. It is the newest of the Austrian provinces; its territory was transferred from Hungary by the treaties of Saint-Germain (1919) and Trianon (1920). Sopron, the region's leading town, was returned (1921) to Hungary after a plebiscite. Burgenland is the 7th largest of Austria's 9 provinces. 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 and shares with Hungary one of two lakes without natural outflow in Europe, the Neusiedler See; the other one beeing Lake Balaton, in Hungary.
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The Romanian intention of unifying Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania was supported by the Entente powers. In 1920, more than 1.5 million-strong Hungarian minority of Transylvania found itself becoming a minority group within Romania. The same event was seen by ethnic Romanians in Transylvania as a liberation from their former minority status within the Kingdom of Hungary. In the 19th century, the percentage of Magyars in the Kingdom of Hungary rose gradually, reaching over 50% by 1900. However, it should be noted that this increase is largely due to the fact that non-Magyar population of the Kingdom was subjected to Magyarisation in the period between 1867 (the Ausgleich) and World War I.
From 1918 to 1929 Croatia was one of the states in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians. In 1929 it was renamed Yugoslavia and existed as such until 1941 and as a communist state from 1945 to 1991. The Croats are despite all the difficulties the only ones among all the nations of former Yugoslavia whose state has had uninterrupted continuity since the ninth century. The territory of former Yugoslavia (named so in 1929) was a point of contact of three very different worlds in its past: the Catholic West, the Orthodox East, and Islam. In the north of Croatia there is a very small village called Velika Horvatska (Great Croatia), and a small brook bearing the name Horvatska. It reminds us about existence of White Croatia. Of several cases during former Yugoslavia in which young Croatian soldiers were not allowed by Serbian officers to declare that they were born in the village called Velika Horvatska, but were pressed to declare a nearby village Zbilj.
Even today the descendants of the White Croats live in Bohemia. The surname Charvat is still rather widespread there. For example a director of the National Theatre Opera in Prague in 1990's was Mr Premysl Charvat. An outstanding person in part of Prague called Nove Mesto was Jan Charvat (+1424). In the same quarter of Prague there is a street called Charvatska street even today. Villages in Bohemia like Harvaci, Harvatska gorica reveal its early Croatian inhabitants.