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| Oberwart Felsőőr |
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| Coat of arms | Location |
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| Administration | |
| Country |  Austria |
|---|---|
| State | Burgenland |
| District | Oberwart |
| Mayor | Gerhard Pongracz |
| Basic statistics | |
| Area | 36.5 km² (14.1 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 315 m (1034 ft) |
| Population | 6,893 (16/11/2008) |
| - Density | 189 /km² (489 /sq mi) |
| Other information | |
| Time zone | CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) |
| Postal code | 7400 |
| Website | www.oberwart.at |
Oberwart or Felsőőr (German: Oberwart ; Hungarian: Felsőőr; Croatian: Gornja Borta) is a town in Burgenland in Austria on the banks of the Pinka River, and the capital of the district of the same name. Oberwart is the cultural capital of the small ethnic Hungarian minority in Burgenland, living in the Upper Őrség or Wart microregion.
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History
The settlement was established in the 11th century by the guards of the Hungarian frontier (őrs) together with Unterwart (Alsóőr) and Siget in der Wart (Őrisziget). It was first mentioned in historical documents in 1327 under the name Superior Eör. It was part of the old county of Vas until 1921. Old surnames and the special local dialect shows that the population was related to the Székelys of Transylvania (ie. the guards of the eastern border of Hungary).
The community of the őrs received the privileges of the nobles by King Charles I of Hungary in the 14th century. The privileges were acknowledged by Rudolph I in 1582. The village was partially destroyed by the Ottoman army in 1532.
Reformation appeared in Felsőőr in the 16th century and it was backed by the mighty Counts of Battyhány. The pastor of village, Ferenc Eőri took part on the synod of 1618. In the Age of Counter-Reformation most of the region had to return to Catholic faith, but the free noble village of Felsőőr remained Calvinist. In 1673 the army occupied the church and the school and gave them to the Catholics. The rectory was destroyed and the pastor expelled. The villagers erected a new church in 1681 from wood. According to the laws of the Diet of 1681 Felsőőr became an "articular place" which means that it was the only legal place to practice Protestant religion for the whole region.
The villagers participated in the Hungarian national uprising of István Bocskay in 1605 and Count Francis II Rákóczi in 1705. In 1706 the Austrian army of General Heister sacked Felsőőr. In 1841 the village got the right to held a market. In the time of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 the villagers defeated (with the help of a Hussar troop) a smaller Croatian army. They have to pay a huge amount of tribute to avoid collective punishment.
After the Austrian-Hungarian Ausgleich in 1867 the village began to develop rapidly and the population reached the number of 3800 in 1910 (3000 Hungarian and 800 German). According to the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 Felsőőr was annexed by Austria, but the Hungarian population opposed the decision and organised a movement to establish the autonomous province of Lajtabánság. In November 1921 Austrian army occupied the village.
After the Anschluss with Germany in 1938 the Jewish inhabitants of the village (appr. 140 people) were deported, and the synagogue was transformed into a fire department depot. According to the Nazi policy of Germanisation the old Hungarian school of the Reformed Church was secularized. In 1939 Oberwart became a town. In April 1945 the Soviet Army occupied Oberwart after a week of fierce fighting and plundered the half-destroyed town. In the 1950s and 1960s Oberwart/Felsőőr was rebuilt and thoroughly modernized.
Sights
- Reformed Church - The present imposing Baroque church was built in 1771-73 by Christoph Preising. The tower was built in 1808-09 by Matthias Preising. The furniture, the pulpit and the ecclesiastical equipment are valuable art pieces from the 18-19th centuries.
- Old Rectory - The Old Rectory was built in 1784 next to the Reformed Church in rural Baroque style with a nice arcaded porch. It was enlarged in 1823. Today it is a community center and museum. The old documents of the Calvinist community (for example the parish registers since 1732) are very important historical sources.
- Former School of the Reformed Church - The famous school of the church was founded in the 1600s. The old school building behind the church was built in 1802.
- Old Parish Church - The old parish church of the Ascension was enlarged and rebuilt in Gothic style in 1463. In the 16-17th centuries it was a Calvinist church. The huge tower was built that time in 1656 under the pastoral service of János Szeremley. The church was rebuilt in Baroque style in 1728 and 1778. The restoration in 1975 revealed the medieval architectural details and the interesting murals in the apse from the 14th century (St George and St Michael). The furniture is Baroque from the 18th century.
- New Parish Church - The modern concrete-and-glass church and religious center was built in 1967-69 by the plans of Günther Domenig and Eilfried Huth.
- Evangelical Church - It was built between 1812-15 in Neo-Classical style. The evangelical parish has been always the third in numbers behind the other two religion in Oberwart (for example 684 people in 1880 and 1198 in 2001).
- Flea Market - On the first Saturday of every month, a flea market is held in central Oberwart.
Hungarians
In the course of the 20th century Magyars lost their historical majority in Felsőőr/Oberwart but the town remained the most important Hungarian educational, religious and cultural centre in Burgenland.
Nowadays there are appr. 1100 ethnic Hungarian inhabitants of the town, mostly members of the Calvinist parish. Felsőőr is the oldest Reformed congregation in Austria. The Christian Reading Club of Young Men (founded in 1889) is an important cultural association of the Hungarian minority with a library, folk dance group and theater group. The new cultural center of the Reformed Church was built in 1956-57. The Hungarian kindergarten was reestablished after the second world war in 1951 and a new Bilingual Secondary School was set up in 1992.
The old Hungarian district of the town is called Fölszeg (ie. Upper End). The neighbourhood is the oldest part of the town with narrow lanes and more than one hundred old houses which are typical examples of the rural architecture of the Felső-Őrség. The vaulted porches and the stuccoed gables are characteristic architectural features.
Coat-of-arms
The old coat-of-arms of Felsőőr depicted a medieval Hungarian frontier-guard (Hungarian: őr) with two swords in his hands, one raised as the symbol of attack, the other crossed as the symbol of defence. The inscription of the arms was Nobiles de Felső-Eőr. The new coat-of-arms of Oberwart was granted in 1972. The main feature of the old arms - the figure of the frontier-guard - was kept but the details changed and the inscription disappeared.
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