The name „Burgenland“ was born in 1921, so if you search an English language index for that name you find very little. If you use Austria or Hungary you get much more than what you want. Pannonia helps but often refers only to Roman times. Lately the use of that name for the Burgenland region is appearing in Austrian publications. One name that works is Transdanubia (translates to „over or across the Danube“-German Donau-Hungarian Duna)-this „across“ presupposes you are standing in the middle of Hungary, just east of the Danube (where it flows south) and are looking west.

The Danube, one of the world’s mightiest rivers stretches from the Black Forest of southern Germany to the Black Sea. It runs east through Regensburg and Passau, Germany, to Vienna, Austria and on to Bratislava, Slovakia, then continues to Budapest, Hungary where it abruptly heads south to Mohacs, Hungary and again turns in an easterly direction to Belgrade, Serbia. It continues east, forming the border between Romania and Bulgaria, before emptying into the Black Sea. We were fortunate in being able to cover the entire distance (from Passau, Germany) by riverboat a few years ago. An eight day odyssey of much historical interest. Later we traveled from Amsterdam to Vienna using the Rhine, Main, Rhine-Main Canal and Danube and thus have been able to cross Europe by river boat.

Most travel writers will tell you that the „Beautiful Blue Danube“ of the Strauss waltz is not blue but a muddy brown.We’ve found that on a warm, sunny afternoon, following a long lunch, with the river banks slowly passing by, the river is beautiful and as blue as the sky. Likewise on a soft summer night, following a well-wined dinner, with wife in hand and a waltz playing in the background, it can be a romantic, star studded, glistening deep blue-so much for reality! I’m sure that’s how Strauss saw it.

On its banks you’ll see fishermen’s huts, stock and geese being watered, crumbling castles, and river hamlets, not to mention urban bridges, promenades and shipping quays, but bucolic scenes still predominate. Between urban areas you can still see bits of „old Europe“ -and imagine the whole historic panorama.

This introduces the name Transdanubia, whose western region includes our Burgenland. This area is unique in that it is hill country (Hügelland), neither alpine nor plain. It has a different geography. It also has an older history and has always been borderland and a racial melting pot. The mixture has spawned a unique culture, part German-part Magyar-part Slav. The portions of interest to us from north to south, start with the Leitha River region below Vienna and the Neusiedler See. As we drop south from the Neusiedler See we come to many other streams which wend their way to the Neusiedler or eventually, after joining other rivers, empty into the Danube. Among them are the Leitha, Wulka, Rabnitz, Pinka, Lafnitz and Raba. They add their names to many of our Burgenland villages. We’ve just delineated a major part of the Roman Province of Pannonia and what we consider the best of Transdanubia, truly the mother of the Burgenland.

G. J. Berghold, Burgenland Bunch <GBerghold@aol.com>, Editor BB News