Burgenland Croats

The to-be Burgenland Croats began to emigrate from Lika, Krbava, Kordun, Banovina, Moslavina and Western Bosnia.

The refugee Croats were given land and independent ecclesiastical rights by the Austrian King Ferdinand I, because many of their villages had been pillaged by the Turks.

This gave the Croats a safe place to live while providing Austria with a buffer zone between Vienna and the Ottoman Empire to the south and east.

After falling under Hungarian rule in the Dual Monarchy, liberal laws regarding ethnicity enabled them to rekindle their language and heritage.

However, when a 1900 census revealed that only 18.8% of the population of Burgenland spoke Hungarian, severe policies of Magyarization were implemented, revoking many individual and community rights.

After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918, the area in which the Burgenland Croats lived was divided between Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

This process was temporarily stopped after the adoption of The National Education Act, which allowed for Croatian-language elementary schools.

After a constitutional complaint was heeded in 1987, parts of the law were changed and Croatian was introduced as an official language in 6 out of 7 districts of Burgenland.

The beginnings of literacy are linked to: Klimpuški misal (Klimpuški Missal) (1501), S. Consul Histrianus and Anton Dalmatin's Postila (Postil) (1568), Duševne pesne (Spiritual songs) (1609), and Grgur Mekinić Pythiraeus's Druge knjige duševnih pesan (Other books of the Spiritual songs) (1611).

By the name and dialect there are these different groups of Burgeland Croats: Some Burgenland Croats live in Slovakia (Hrvatski Grob (Chorvátsky Grob), Hrvatski Jandrof (Jarovce), Devinsko Novo Selo (Devinska Nova Ves) and Čunovo, as well as in Hungary: Hrvatska Kemlja (Horvátkimle), Bizonja (Bezenye), Koljnof (Kópháza), Vedešin (Hidegség), Temerje (Tömörd), Plajgor (Ólmod), Petrovo Selo (Szentpéterfa), Hrvatske Šice (Horvátlövő), Gornji Čatar (Felsőcsatár), Umok (Fertőhomok), Narda, Hrvatski Židan (Horvátzsidány) Prisika (Peresznye) and Unda (Und).

[7] There are few football clubs formed of Burgenland Croats: SV Nova Gora (from Neuberg), ASK Pajngrt, SC Filež (Nikitsch), ASKÖ Klimpuh (Klingenbach), ASKÖ Stinjaki (Stinatz), SC/ESV Pandrof (Pandorf), ASV Rasporak (Draßburg), SV Otava (Antau), SK Mali Borištof (Kleinwarasdorf) and ASV Cindrof (Siegendorf).