Burgenland ("land of castles"), the most easterly of the Austrian Länder, is made up of two quite different territories. To the east lie the great plains of the puszta, extending over the Hungarian frontier to the Carpathians; in this area is Europe's only steppe lake, the Neusiedler See. The southern part of the Burgenland is a region of wooded hills, the eastern foothills of the Alps, with many castles built here in what was for centuries a frontier area, occupied by the Romans and later exposed to attack successively by the Huns and the Turks. It is now a region of pastureland and fruit orchards.
Natural topography of the region
Burgenland is a relatively narrow strip of territory along the Austro-Hungarian frontier, extending from the Danube in the north to the Yugoslav frontier in the south, occupying the eastern slopes of the Leithagebirge around the Neusiedler See and the intricately patterned upland region which extends south and southeastwards from the foothills of the Wechsel range and the hills of eastern Styria.
History
The history of Burgenland, reflected in the pattern of its castles and towns, was conditioned by its situation between two different worlds. Culturally a part of western Europe, it was constantly exposed to pressures from the east.
In the time of the Romans this was the heart of the province of Pannonia, occupied by Illyrians, Celts, Roman settlers and later Ostrogoths and Slavs. About 800 German settlers came to this region but were exposed to fierce onslaughts from the Avars and later the Hungarians. After the battle of Augsburg in 955 settlers from Central Europe pressed ever farther eastwards, occupying Burgenland and building a great many castles of which so many still survive.
During the 15th C. the Hungarians several times conquered the region; in 1459 Burgenland became part of Austria, but after the Treaty of Ödenburg (1462) King Matthias Corvinus united it with Hungary again; after his death King Maximilian won it back for Austria, but in 1647 the Emperor Ferdinand III gave it up to Hungary without a blow being struck.
When the Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed in 1918 the people of Burgenland sought union with Austria, and this was provided for in the treaties of Saint-Germain (1919) and Trianon (1920). The allegiance of the Ödenburg (Sopron) region was to be decided by a plebiscite, in which a majority voted for union with Hungary. The province of Burgenland was given its present name in 1920, derived from the common element in the German names of the former counties of western Hungary (Ödenburg, Pressburg, Wieselburg, Eisenburg); as a result it was initially planned to call it Vierburgenland (The Land of the Four "Burgs").
Since the end of the Second World War the federal province (Bundesland) of Burgenland has shared the destinies of the re-established Republic of Austria.
Art
The architecture of Burgenland cannot rival the magnificent buildings to be seen in other provinces of Austria: in the vicissitudes of history too much has been destroyed. Some palaces and castles have been preserved, including the splendid Esterházy palace in Eisenstadt, Schloss Kittsee (ethnographical museum), some charming houses in Rust, the imposing Burg Forchtenstein and the fine castles and palaces of Rotenturm and Kohfidisch, Eberau and Bernstein, Stadtschlaining, Lockenhaus and Güssing. Among ecclesiastical buildings the most impressive are to be seen at Eisenstadt, Frauenkirchen, Mariasdorf and Rust. Burgenland can claim no major monastic establishment and only a few churches of artistic merit, although it has large numbers of castles and castle ruins, so that any study of its architectural history is almost exclusively confined to this field. The buildings of this type are all based on medieval foundations, preserving many Romanesque features in the substructures and in certain parts of the main structure, particularly the keep. In the 14th and 15th C. many castles were remodelled in the Gothic style. The 16th C. was a period of intense building activity, when a number of castles were either rebuilt or replaced by new buildings.
The people of Burgenland have music in their blood. The composer Franz Liszt (1811-86) was born in this region and the famous actor Josef Kainz (1858-1919) was also a native of Burgenland.
Local crafts play an important part in the lives of the Burgerlanders, especially embroidery and the working of serpentine. Serpentine, a green semi-precious stone, is found in a number of places in Burgenland and is made into jewelry
Distinctive scenery
Scenically Burgenland offers attractive contrasts, with wooded and often steeply scarped hills, narrow wooded valleys, wide fertile depressions of the lower uplands and extensive plains all contributing to give the province its own unique character.
From the hills on the edge of the Pannonian steppe there are striking views, both to east and west, of the Alps of Styria and Lower Austria.
In many parts Burgenland also displays features characteristic of the south, and the sunny slopes of its hills yield almonds and chestnuts, peaches, apricots, sweet grapes and, in sheltered situations, figs.
Landscape and buildings characteristic of the puszta can be seen at their most typical in Bruck an der Leitha, with its straggling farmhouses and oriel-windowed houses.
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