Servus my dear readers,
in this article I want to introduce you to the most beautiful but also most irritating culture in the world, the Austrian culture.
If you think about the Austrian stereotype, I believe you imagine someone like this:
A beardy man wearing leather pants and drinking beer.
But Austria is a lot more than beer, Schnitzel and lederhosen (leather pants), we have much more to offer than this.
The Austrian language:
In Austria we speak German, but we developed our own language over time. In every federal state we speak German in a different dialect, which is even for us Austrians sometimes a bit hard to understand. But there is this one word every Austrian uses: Oida
Oida is the perfect answer to everything. Depending on how you emphasize this word, it means something different.
Different ways to use Oida:
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I’m astonished Oida.
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How dare you! Oida!!!
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Hey you,… Oida,…
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This can’t be happening! Oida?!
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Such bad luck… Oida Oida
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That’s a great surprise Oiiiiiida?
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That’s an awful surprise Oiiiiiida!
Of course, there a lot of other words, but most of them aren’t really that nice. The Viennese dialect is the most interesting dialect, but it is also the rudest one. Some words are:
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Grantig – being in a bad mood
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Schmäh – a joke
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halt dei Goschn – a not so friendly request to shut up
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Fesch – beautiful
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Hawara – a good friend/best friend
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Fetzen – a fabric or a brawl or a bad grade
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schiach – hideous
I know, these words sound a bit threating, but the Austrian language can also be cute. There are a lot of different variations of saying goodbye. You can say tschüssi, pfiat di, baba, Servus (also used to say hello), bussi tschau. Often, we say more than one, for example: pfiat di, bussi tschau.
Traditional Food:
Everyone knows the Schnitzel, but do you also know about the different kinds of Knödel (dumplings), Kaiserschmarn or Beuschel? Let me introduce you to the Austrian cuisine.
Knödel:
It is not known where exactly the Knödel comes from, but it has been a traditional dish for hundreds of years in Austria and Germany.
As mentioned before, there are different variations of Knödel; Semmelknödel (dumplings made of breadcrumbs), Kartoffelknödel (dumplings made of potatoes), Hefeknödel (yeast dumplings) and Topfenknödel (dumplings made of curd)
The dumplings are mostly used as a side dish or as dessert if it’s sweet.
A very well-known dish with dumplings is Knödel mit Ei, which is a left-over dish made of dumplings and eggs.
Knödel mit Ei Kaiserschmarrn:
Kaiserschmarrn is actually just a cut up pancake.
The word Schmarrn was used in the 16th century in Austria and meant nonsense or it was used to describe pastry baked in a lot of fat. The farmers came up with the idea of the Kaiserschmarrn. Normally, the farmers never lacked flour, eggs, milk or lard, so to have something to eat, they combined all these ingredients together and the Kaiserschmarrn was created.
At the time when Empress Sisi ruled over Austria, her cooks wanted to do something good for their underweight empress, so they cooked her Kaiserschmarrn. She didn’t really like it, but the emperor loved it. That’s why it’s called Kaiserschmarrn – Kaiser means emperor in German.
Beuschel:
Beuschel is a dish made of the offal of farm animals, mostly from pigs and cows. Its origin lies in Vienna.
On the day of the slaughter, which was celebrated by the farmers as a feast day, the perishable offal and blood had to be processed immediately. Even though offal was a popular food, Beuschel was not appreciated.
Traditions:
Austria has got a lot of different traditions and some of them might be scary to other cultures. A tradition during the Christmastime are Perchten/Perchtenläufe.
Perchten are mystical creatures which appear during the Rauhnächte (can be translated to smoked nights). These nights are the twelve magical nights between the 25. December and 6. January.
Perchten
There are many different myths about Perchten, but my favourite one is, that these creatures live in the forest and protect the nature and wildlife. They look extremely ugly and scary, that is because they need to scare off the “evil spirits”.
Before Christmas we have the tradition that people dress up as these beings and walk around towns. They always have a rod with them, and they sometimes even slightly hit people with it.
Another tradition is Eierpecken, it is an ancient easter custom and game, which people play on Easter Monday.
Gameplay:
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two people take their easter eggs in their hands. (the eggs need to be boiled, otherwise it will be a bit of a mess)
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One person starts and hits with the tip of their easter egg the egg of the other person.
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It is the intention to break the shell of the opponent’s egg.
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The person’s egg, which breaks first loses.
Traditional Festivals:
There are a few important festivals in Austria, for example the Vienna New Year Concert and the Vienna Opera Ball.
Vienna New Year Concert: The Vienna new year concert is the most popular new year concert in the whole world. The concert is broadcast on television in 92 countries.
Every single year the Vienna Philarmonic play music manly from the vast repertoire of the family of Johann Strauß.
The first new year’s concert was on December 31, 1939, which was during one of the darkest chapters of the history due the second world war and dictatorship. The income of this concert was donated to the Socialist fund-raising campaign “Kriegswinterhilfswerk”.
This concert has become one of the most important festivals to Austria.
Vienna Opera Ball: This event is as well as the Philharmonic Ball the highlight of the Austrias Ball season. It always takes place son the last Thursday before Ash Wednesday.
The first ball was in 1935, but was suspended during the second world war, it later was revived.
There is always a special dress-code, which must be worn, the dress-code is evening dress.
In summary, we can say that the Austrian culture is weird, but also has got a lot of beautiful traditions, it is a very diverse country. There are so many different traditions, so there’s no excuse to not like the Austrian culture.
I hope this short article gave you a good overview of the Austrian culture.
Written by Ronja Fischer (4D)
