Landler (Protestants)

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The Protestants who lived under Charles VI are referred to as Landler or Transylvanian Landler . and Maria Theresa in the period from 1734 to 1756, a. a. were deported from the Austrian heartland to the only area of ​​the Habsburg monarchy in which Protestantism was tolerated, to Transylvania , near the city of Sibiu .

Political background

The Reformation and Counter-Reformation were forces that exerted a tremendous effect in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and not only in the church area. Power and religion were closely linked, sovereign power was secured by religion. At the latest since the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the denomination became an instrument of the emerging regional absolutism.

For the first time in the imperial archbishopric of Salzburg , the application of the principles of Augsburg and Osnabrück ( Peace of Westphalia 1648) cuius regio, eius religio led to the expulsion of those who could not be converted to the ruler's faith, here the Protestants . In 1684/85 Prince-Bishop Max Gandolf von Kuenburg banished residents of his principality because of their beliefs. In 1731/32 Leopold Anton von Firmian expelled supporters of the Augsburg denomination from his territory with his emigration patent under the pretext that they were rebels. To this end, he requested and received military support from Charles VI. to whom it must have been clear, however, that his empire would have a not inconsiderable number of capable subjects through such expulsions, so-called. "Contributors", hence taxpayers, lost to his most important rival, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia .

Regardless of this, his daughter Maria Theresa, who took over rule in the Habsburg lands in 1740, turned his attention to the question of the religious unity of her subjects some time after she took office, and she decided to fight Protestantism - at least in the Austrian hereditary lands - to ensure a religiously homogeneous (Roman Catholic) population.

Transmigration

"Landler window" in the Protestant parish church of Sibiu to commemorate the immigration of the Landler

The deportation of Protestants under Charles VI. from the Habsburg lands was euphemistically referred to as “ transmigration ” and began in the years 1734–1737.

Over 800 people were deported to Transylvania, almost 200 of them from Carinthia (Buchinger, 1980). The “transmigrants” from the Salzkammergut were settled on the Königsboden in southern Transylvania . Since this area had been heavily depopulated by the Turkish wars and the plague , the expelled Upper Austrians were assigned vacant farms in the communities of Großpold in the Unterwald as well as in Großau and Neppendorf near Hermannstadt. The remaining countrymen outside these three villages quickly assimilated to the Transylvanian Saxons. Some Landler families (Kleinsasser, Hofer, Waldner, Wurz and Glanzer) joined the Anabaptist Hutterites around 1762 , who later emigrated to Russia and finally to North America.

The country was badly damaged economically, large stretches of land were devastated, entire villages were depopulated. The planned settlement in the depopulated villages of the Transylvanian Saxons initially met with little approval from the local population, but soon turned out to be a very advantageous decision.

1752 to 1756 further transmigrations took place, in the course of which more than 2000 people from the so-called " Landl ", the core area of ​​Upper Austria (roughly corresponds to the area between Wels , Gmunden and Vöcklabruck ) and more than 1100 from Inner Austria , i.e. from Carinthia and Styria , were deported to Transylvania. In the meantime, however, the population there had risen again - among other things due to the increased settling of Romanians on the royal soil - and there were hardly any abandoned farms. In this late phase, only those deportees who had sufficient funds of their own could settle in the Saxon villages. The rest of them settled in cities as far as they survived the first years of need.

To handle the transmigrations, a large building complex was built in the suburb of Sibiu in 1754, which was called the Theresianum (similar to the Fuggerei in Augsburg). A monument in front of this building commemorates its founder Maria Theresa.

particularities

In the rural communities of Neppendorf , Großau and Großpold , the newcomers rarely mixed with the Transylvanian Saxons there. The Austro-German dialect, the rural dialect, has been preserved to this day and is cultivated by both those who emigrated to Germany and the few rural residents who remained in the rural villages. In two communities, in Großpold and in Neppendorf, the Landler made up the majority of the German-speaking residents over time.

The political representation of the Landler and the other German-speaking groups in today's Romania is the DFDR ( Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania ). Your most influential representative in Transylvania today is Martin Bottesch , the chairman of the district council of Sibiu.

literature

  • Renate Bauinger-Liebhart: Neppendorf monograph of the place . Denkmayr Verlag, Linz 2005, ISBN 3-902488-22-0 .
  • Renate Bauinger-Liebhart: Neppendorf residents . Denkmayr Verlag, Linz 2006, ISBN 3-902488-75-1 .
  • Renate Bauinger-Liebhart: Neppendorf family stories (family trees) . Self-published, Neuhofen an der Krems 2008, ISBN 3-901572-15-5 .
  • Mathias Beer : Austrian Protestants ('Landler') in Transylvania since the 18th century. In: Klaus J. Bade u. a. (Ed.): Encyclopedia Migration in Europe. From the 17th century to the present . Schöningh et al. a., Paderborn u. a. 2007, ISBN 978-3-506-75632-9 , pp. 818-820.
  • Mathias Beer: “Arbitrary behavior contrary to inherited customs and traditions”. For the reception and integration of transmigrants in Transylvania. In: Mathias Beer, Dittmar Dahlmann (eds.): Migration to Eastern and Southeastern Europe from the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century. Causes, forms, course, result (=  series of publications by the Institute for Danube Swabian History and Regional Studies 4). Thorbecke, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-7995-2504-1 , pp. 317-335.
  • Mathias Beer: The Landler. An attempt at a historical overview. In: Martin Bottesch , Franz Grieshofer , Winfried Schabus (eds.): The Transylvanian Landler. A forensics . Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2002, ISBN 3-205-99415-9 , pp. 23-80.
  • Martin Bottesch, Franz Grieshofer, Wilfried Schabus (eds.): The Transylvanian Landler. A forensics. Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne a. a. 2002, ISBN 3-205-99415-9 .
  • Johanna Bottesch, Martin Bottesch: The Bavarian-Austrian dialect of the Landler von Grosspold (Apoldu de Sus) in Transylvania (Romania) (=  contributions to language island research 10). 2 volumes. VWGÖ, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-85369-892-1 .
  • Martin Bottesch: Landlerii transilvaneni (=  Convergențe transilvane 10). Central, Mediaș 2001, ISBN 973-85183-0-X (Romanian).
  • Erich Buchinger: The "Landler" in Transylvania. Prehistory, implementation and result of a forced relocation in the 18th century (=  book series of the Southeast German Historical Commission 31). R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-486-50351-0 .
  • Roland Girtler : Banished and forgotten. A sinking German-speaking culture in Romania . Veritas-Verlag, Linz 1992, ISBN 3-85329-978-4 .
  • Roland Girtler (Ed.): The last of the exiles. The downfall of the old Austrian farmers in Transylvania / Romania . Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-205-98679-2 .
  • Lore-Lotte Hassfurther (Ed.): Landler. Forgotten old Austrian costume in Transylvania . Wort-und-Welt-Verlag, Thaur near Innsbruck 1989, ISBN 3-85373-116-3 .
  • Dieter Knall : Pushed from home. Last forced resettlement of Styrian Protestants to Transylvania under Maria Theresa (=  research on the historical regional studies of Styria 45). Self-published by the Historical Commission for Styria, Graz 2002, ISBN 3-901251-25-1 .

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